The Beetles of the Downs 



the chalk. If we have it at all it will run with considerable 

 rapidity across our paper, and will require a quick finger 

 to transfer it to the laurel bottle. But we must not there- 

 fore overlook a little shining red-brown beetle which 

 may also happen to be there and which will move more 

 slowly. It belongs to a genus of which we took one 

 example by sweeping the long grass in the wood (see 

 Plate III, Fig. 10) ; that was Anisotoma calcarata and 

 this is Anisotoma badia (the walking Anisotoma), 

 Fig. 6, Plate IV. These are the only two in a genus of 

 some twenty-five species which are not quite rare and 

 difficult to secure. Most of them, like A. calcarata, are 

 to be taken, if they are taken at all, by sweeping grass 

 under trees in the evening, but this A. badia seems to 

 hide in the moss on chalky or limestone hillsides during 

 the day, and perhaps emerge at sunset, although I have 

 never so taken it. It is quite a small beetle, 2 mm. long 

 at the outside, in shape a regular short oval and 

 very convex; the antennae are short with a very 

 distinct club and the legs short and stiff, the thorax is 

 quite as broad at the base as the elytra, smooth and 

 shining, a point which separates it from nearly all the 

 other species of Anisotoma, the elytra are marked by 

 rows of strong punctures. We shall have no difficulty 

 in recognizing this beetle if we take it, as there is no other 

 we are likely to find in this moss at all like it so small 

 and convex and such a shining rust-red colour. 



There are many other species of small Brachdytra, 

 Longitarsus and Rhy nc hophora which we might rake out of 

 this debris of flints, or shake from the masses of moss over 



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