THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 269 



and May I have taken larvae, but in diminished numbers : 

 these become pujjae in June, the imagos appearing during 

 July, Hence it appears that there is but one brood of larvte, 

 part of which survive the winter, and pass but a few weeks 

 in the pupa state. — John K. S. Clifford; 21, Robert Ter- 

 race, Chelsea, July 12, 1865. 



180. Captures on the Birch- Wood Day. — I have attended 

 the annual gathering of the Entomological Chib at Birch 

 Wood for several years, and have, between breakfast and din- 

 ner, both in rain and sunshine (too often the former), worked 

 the woods and hedgerows for the ancient rarities of the place, 

 and generally with some success, though I have not suc- 

 ceeded in rediscovering Apion laivigatum or Rhynchites Bac- 

 chus. Never, however, did I meet with such a dearth of 

 Coleoptera as on the last 5th of July. Common things were 

 scarce, and rare ones were few indeed. The only insect of 

 note which fell to my share was a single specimen of Gym- 

 netron rostellum. Dryophilus pusillus was still lingering 

 there, but in comparatively small numbers, beneath the fir 

 trees, on whose dead branches it feeds ; but almost all were 

 females ; 1 found only one male amongst some twenty of 

 them. I think that it is not uncommon for the later speci- 

 mens of beetles to be for the most part females. Last May, 

 for the first time, I fell in with Bruchus luteicornis in con- 

 siderable quantity in a field near Thames Ditton, and took 

 some thirty specimens, of which only tivo were males. The 

 week afterwards the insect had all but disappeared. At Birch 

 Wood I also got Gymnetron melanarius, Apion atomarium, 

 pubescens and varipes, Malthinus frontalis, Chrysomela va- 

 rians, &c. Some Fungi afforded a few specimens of Tri- 

 phyllus punctatus and common Gyrophaenas ; and the nests 

 of the black ants produced nothing but the ordinary Myrme- 

 donias, with a single specimen of M. lugens. Such are the 

 best Coleoptera I saw, and they are nothing to boast of. 

 Hemiptera and Homoptera afforded me a rich harvest, and I 

 was pleased to find a new locality for a beautiful bug, which 

 has hitherto occurred only at Weybridge, running about 

 amongst the ants : the male resembles one of the Micro- 

 lepidoptera ; the apterous female can scarcely be distin- 

 guished from the ants themselves. — John A. Power ; 52, 

 Burton Crescent, July 21, 1865. 



