OF HARTING. 343 



decaying beech tree in the Park, but we have never 

 seen a single specimen of the species since. Tenebrio 

 Molitor, the progenitor of the well known mealworm, 

 we have often found about houses where the consump- 

 tion of flour and meal does not uniformly keep pace 

 with the supply. Opatrum Sabulosum we have met 

 with at Down Park, Blaps mortisaga frequently in the 

 stables at Uppark, Melandrya Caraboides once under 

 the bark of an old ash tree, and from the hawthorn 

 we have more than once shaken Mordella fasciata, so 

 nearly related to the remarkable Rhipiphorus para- 

 doxus, which is sufficiently daring to enter the nest of 

 the hornet for the purpose of depositing its eggs in 

 the young grubs of this formidable insect. Proscara- 

 bceus violaceus occurs not uncommonly on the herbage 

 in the open part of the Warren, and we once made a 

 post mortem examination of one large specimen, which 

 we found to be infested with a species of intestinal 

 worm. (Edemera ccerulca and Pyrochroa nibens are 

 common on the hawthorn, and of the pretty little 

 Salpingus ruficollis we have taken several specimens 

 on dead fences in the Park and elsewhere. A propos 

 of this beetle, we venture to give an extract from a 

 letter written at a period when we were most actively 

 engaged in entomological pursuits : " At the outset 

 of my report for the first half of this season, I suppose 

 I need not lay much stress on the discovery I made 

 long ago, that the entomologist occasionally gets 

 laughed at in his rambles, I am nevertheless disposed 

 to record the fact that if at any future time during the 

 term of my natural life my sanity should be called in 

 question, I should be exceedingly loth to leave the 

 issue to any one of the group of intelligent haymakers 

 I accidentally encountered to-day in a field in this 

 parish. They were at their symposium, literally " sub 

 tegmine Fagi," when I entered the field and quite 

 unexpectedly found myself in their presence. Their 

 employer, a burly specimen of the race, in rude health 



