180 Mr. Spence's Notice on Aepus fulvescens. 



of them, and of which holes, he observes, " whenever I lost the trace 

 they terminated in very moisture ; consequently these insects may be 

 truly accounted aquatic, or rather subaquatic, i. e., inhabitants of 

 the soil beneath the water," (p. 314.) It is to the same indefati- 

 gable entomologist and keen observ^er Mr. Burrell, that is due the 

 credit of having first observed that another Coleopterous insect, the 

 Pogonus BurrelUi, (which name it is to be hoped no foreign ento- 

 mologist will attempt to alter, or hesitate to adopt,) has precisely 

 similar habits : and respecting this species and its congeners he com- 

 municated to Mr. Curtis, who has inserted them in the 1st vol. of his 

 valuable work, Plate 47, some important remarks, in which he di- 

 stinctly states that " the genus Raptor (Pogonus). confined as it is to 

 three British species (BurrelUi, Haw., chalceus, Ma.rsh., and ceruginosus, 

 Steph. MS.), is perfectly maritime, the species being all found in 

 the same situation, and may be deemed subaquatic, for in the win- 

 ter, and a considerable part of the summer, the habitat of these 

 pretty animals is entirely covered with water, which stagnates many 

 inches deep in the low places of the marshes after the tide has 

 flowed and ebbed," 



It is quite evident from the preceding quotations that at least as 

 early as 1810 it had been observed by Mr. Burrell that two Coleo- 

 pterous insects, viz., Bl. tricornis and Pog. BurrelUi, were truly sub- 

 aquatic, living a considerable part of their existence under the 

 sea- water; but he does not appear to have been struck by the fact 

 as particularly remarkable, and still less was he led to those import- 

 ant speculations as to the mode in which these insects are enabled 

 to respire in such a situation, for which we are indebted to M. Au- 

 douin, who, in the case oi Aepus fulvescens, attributes it to the fa- 

 culty of alternately decomposing and renewing the small bubble of 

 air with which it is provided, as are probably both the insects in 

 question. 



It appears then that at least three Coleopterous insects of differ- 

 ent genera are strictly submarine, and pass a large portion of their 

 lives under the sea- water, or at least two of them, for Mr. Burrell 

 says that the habitat of P. BurrelUi is covered with water all the 

 winter, and a considerable part of the summer, and M. Audouin 

 that the habitat of A. fulvescens is so low down on the beach that 

 it can only be uncovered at spring-tides for a few days twice a month, 

 so that it seems highly probable, as he seems to suppose, that these 

 insects, while thus covered with sea- water, have the means of pro- 

 curing themselves food. This however is one of the points which 

 it would be very desirable to ascertain, and which those entomo- 

 logists who reside in the neighbourhood of the submarine insects 



