294 Capt. F. Balfour-Browne on 
since seen—a few in the Dublin Museum collection, a few in 
the Natural History Museum collection, some in the collection 
of Dr. G. W. Nicholson—belong to this species. 
The discovery of the existence of this northern species in 
the British fauna I attribute to Dr. Sharp, although he tel!s 
me he remembers nothing about it and cannot now find in 
his collection the specimens which I thought I had seen there ; 
but it was Capt. Ste. Claire Deville, of Kpinal, France, who, 
in 1911, suggested to me the possibility of its existence in 
these islands. I had sent him a number of British water- 
beetles, and among them one or two English specimens of 
what I had named “JD. depressus,”’ and in acknowledging 
the receipt of them he said: “ ITagree with you for the names 
of all Dytiscidee but Deronectes depressus, which seems to me 
to be our D. elegans, Sturm. The true depressus, an Arctic 
species, which [ have from Russia, Norway, and also from 
Kasten Pyrenees, is perhaps also British ” *. 
Later in the year I was in Brockenhurst, and I mentioned 
this matter to Dr. Sharp, who, as I think, agreed that our 
common form was ‘elegans,’ and showed me two rather 
large and dark specimens of Deronectes from some eastern 
Scottish locality—I think it was L. Brandy in Forfarshire— 
which he considered to be the “ depressus”’ of Fabricius. 
After casually looking through my specimens, and failing 
to recognize any differences among them, I let the matter 
drop until in July 1915 I came across a statement by Thomas 
Bold, who, speaking of Hydroporus elegans, Illiger, sail :— 
“T take a strongly markcd var. of this common insect in 
Talkin Tarn, Cumberland. At first sight they much resemble 
Hl, 12-pustulatus, being much larger and darker coloured 
than the specimens of elegans from running water. Some 
have the elytra wholly black, except a narrow yellow margin, 
others are more or less lineated with yellow, and scarcely any 
of them have the spotted appearance characteristic of the 
species”. This re-aroused my interest in the subject, and, 
as I was just starting to motor to Scotland, I determined to 
make a slight detour so as to visit Talkin Tarn on my 
way. This small tarn lies about 9 miles east of Carlisle, at 
* Postcard, May 23, 1911. 
+ “ Capture of some ofthe rarer Hydroporit in the North of England,” 
Zoologist, xii. pp. 4198-4195 (1854). Vide also zbid. xi. 1853, pp. 3924, 
3925. Report of Proceedings of Tyneside Nat. Field Club Meeting, 
Mar. 30, 18538, where a large dark var. of H. elegans? from Talkin Tarn 
is mentioned. 
