Manners, S^c. of some of the British Brachelytra. 1 1 1 



The species formerly comprehended under the genus Aleochara, 

 notwithstanding the numerous subdivisions into new genera lately 

 adopted, still present great difficulties to the student, in the way 

 cf specific distinction, from their generally minute size and close 

 resemblance. I must confess, also, that in this part of Mr. 

 Stephens's work, where the descriptions of most of the species 

 are abridged from Kirby's MSS., I do not find the same facility 

 in naming species by their aid, as where Mr. Stephens has relied 

 on his own powers of description. As many of the species vary 

 greatly in size, (I have a series of Polystoma obscurella varying 

 from a line and half to nearly three lines in length,) and the seg- 

 ments of the abdomen in preserved specimens are often so much 

 retracted within each other as sensibly to diminish the length, it 

 is evident that measurements will not afford the same assistance 

 as in most families : while the differences of shade in the colour- 

 ing of allied species, though obvious to the eye, are not easily 

 marked by words, and this difficulty is increased by the fine and 

 changeable pubescence with which most of the species are more 

 or less clothed. 



Many of the smaller species feed on decaying fungi and other 

 vegetable matter, as well as on the acari and other animalcula 

 contained in them : I have often seen them in great numbers on 

 the heaps of or-weed on the Cornish shore, (which give shelter 

 to innumerable minute insects,) and have ascertained by close 

 inspection that they were feeding on the vegetable juices of the 

 decaying weed. Several species (I remember particularly the 

 pretty Aleochara Cursor) when disturbed, by bending the head 

 under the thorax, raising the abdomen, and protruding their long 

 slender legs straight forward, assume so completely the appear- 

 ance of a ragged scrap of or-weed, that until my eye detected 

 them in the act of metamorphosis, I was often at a loss to know 

 what had become of the specimen which 1 had marked as the next 

 victim for my bottle. In these situations they are much preyed 

 on by the Cof'i, which in their turn fall victims to Broscus cejihalotes 

 and Creophdus maxillosus. 



The small natural group formed by Bolttocliara carbonaria, 

 B. suhpubescens, B.foveola, &c. appears to be a maritime one; at 

 least it is only on the seashore that I ever found them in any 

 numbers ; and the bulk of the maritime specimens considerably 

 exceeds the dimensions assigned to each species by Stephens: — 

 of B. carbonaria (which I distinguish from its allies by the pale 

 tip of the elytra), not one, out of several specimens I lately re- 

 ceived from Cornwall, falls short of Ig line, and some are more, 



