XXIV. On the British Species of Agathidium. 
By Davip Suarp. 
[Read 6th November, 1865.] 
Turoven the kindness of my Entomological friends, I have 
recently been able to examine the specimens of our native Aga- 
thidia contained in most of the principal collections, and have 
thought the following short notes on the genus might not he 
altogether unacceptable. I have also examined the Stephensian 
collection in the British Museum, and believe the account given 
below of the insects placed in that collection under the generic 
name of Agathidium will be found correct. 
Stephens in his “Illustrations of British Entomology ”’ has de- 
scribed three species of Agathidium, which he supposed to be un- 
described by foreign authors, viz :—Agathidium ruficolle, A. affine, 
and A. rufipes ; and for the first two of these he cites the names 
of Dermestes ruficollis, Marsham, and Dermestes affinis, Marsham. 
Neither of these names is used in the following descriptions of the 
British species, for D. ruficollis, Marsham, is synonymous with the 
previously-described Amphicyllis globus of Paykull, and though the 
Stephensian type of Ag. affine is an example of the species sub- 
sequently described by Erichson as 4. levigatum, I do not think 
Marsham’s name can be adopted, his (as also Stephens’) de- 
scription being totally inadequate to allow a foreign author to 
recognize the species intended to be so designated ; nor do I think 
it advisable that a name now so well known as that given to this 
species by Erichson should be supplanted on the mere authority 
of a type; (there being, moreover, two other species in Stephens’ 
cabinet of which the type is a specimen of 4. levigatum, Erich.) 
Of Agathidium rufipes there is no type in the author’s cabinet ; 
and it is quite impossible from the description to ascertain to what 
species it is intended to apply.* For these reasons, therefore, I 
have adopted the names unanimously used by foreign writers on 
the genus. 
1. Of A. ruficolle there are three examples in Stephens’ ca- 
binet ; they are all Amphicyllis globus, Payk. 
* Erichson, however, gives d. rufipes, Steph., as a synonym of A. alrum, 
Paykull; and, perhaps, on the whole, the description in the “ Illustrations” 
is most applicable to the species generally known by the latter name. 
