The Beetles of the Downs 



joints (feet) are enlarged, and flattened out, and whose 

 colours are usually rather effective, not to say flamboy- 

 ant. This particular species attached to the St. John's 

 wort is about 6 to 7 mm. long, oblong, and very convex 

 in shape, of a shining coppery-purple or coppery-green 

 colour, the antennae almost black, the thorax broader 

 than long, exceedingly finely punctured at base, the 

 elytra finely punctured all over with, in addition, 

 several series of deep and strong punctures running 

 in lines from base to apex, the legs dark ; it is fairly 

 common wherever its special food plant grows in the 

 south of England. 



We have sixteen British species of the genus Chry- 

 somda, the smallest of them not less than 6 mm. long. 

 C. polita is common, nearly everywhere in marshy 

 places ; it is easily recognized by its golden green thorax 

 and golden brown elytra. Then there is C. staphylca, 

 which turns up in many places by general sweeping, 

 entirely shining yellow-brown ; others are more local. 

 The most beautiful of them all, in fact of all the British 

 Phytophaga, C. cercalis, Fig. 6, Plate B, whose eyltra 

 are adorned by alternate bands of coppery-purple and 

 golden-green, has so far in all the British Isles been 

 found but in one restricted area on the slopes of 

 Snowdon, where it feeds on the mountain thyme; for 

 another, C. sanguinolcnta, dark indigo-blue, edged with 

 red, one must make an expedition to the Ultima Thule 

 of Orkney or Shetland, the others are more generally 

 distributed, but cannot be considered as common, 

 except quite locally. 



ii 



