126 Mr. F. Holme on the Habits, 



are gregarious : St. nignclavis, rufitarsis, &c. are found in great 

 numbers in winter, collected together in loose earth at the roots 

 of trees in Christ Church meadow. 



Sterms Jlavipes, St. pubescens, and St. Kirh'ii, are taken by Mr. 

 Matthews at Weston-on-the-green : the last named species I ray- 

 self took at Southend and Sheerness last summer ; when I had an 

 opportunity of verifying a fact mentioned in the " Entom. Edin." 

 on the authority of Mr. Bainbridge, that " individuals thrown on 

 the water dart like Velia or Gerris eighteen or twenty inches along 

 the surface," a mode of escape which I saw St. K'lrbii voluntarily 

 have recourse to. 



The following of the less common species I have taken in 

 Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire : geniciilatus, I'meatulus (not un- 

 common), hwphthalmus (here less common than the preceding), 

 cichidcloides, unicolor (not common), similis, and picipes. S. h'lgul- 

 tatus is also taken at Weston by Mr. Matthews. 



On the succeeding genera of the StenicL^ I can only add a 

 locality or two ; but I cannot omit to notice the inveterate mis- 

 spelling which has [much] obtained in this country of the name of 

 Mannerheim's genus Platystet/ms, which, in defiance of its obvious 

 derivation, TrXarvc, broad, oT-qQoQ, breast or thorax, seems to have 

 naturalized itself in England as Platysthetus, a name expressing 

 nothing in Greek, or, as far as I am aware, in any other language : 

 the universal adoption of this error is really a slur on the classical 

 knowledge of [some of] our Entomologists. 



PI. hmnunis, and PI. foveatus, occur in autumn in Gloucester- 

 shirei 



PI. palUdipennis is taken by Mr. Matthews at Weston-on-the- 

 Green : in recent specimens the pale part of the elytra is nearly 

 white, and its boundary well defined ; the shoulder is always 

 dusky, joining the other colour in a diagonal line : in old speci- 

 mens there is only an indistinct pale patch in the middle of the 

 elytron, surrounded on all sides by dark piceous. 



Oxytelas jncipennls is not uncommon in Gloucestershire. 



Mr. Stephens speaks of the Platystethi and Oxyteli as occur- 

 ring " at all times, especially in the spring and early summer 

 months :" it would appear that their exclusion from the pupa 

 takes place about the beginning of autumn, as they make their 

 appearance in dung in nudtitudes towards the end of September, 

 when the numbers of the Philonihi begin to diminish ; they are 

 the latest of all coprophagous Coleoptera to disappear at the 

 approach of winter, and the earliest in their re-appearance in 



