Common Beetles of our Countryside 



which we must not linger now, but it will be worth while 

 turning over one or two of the larger flints again as we 

 retrace our steps down the slope and just brushing the 

 herbage here and there as we pass. Under one of these 

 flints we ought to find another member of the group 

 Gcodephaga, that is, Ophonus brevicollis (the Ophonus with 

 the short thorax). Fig. 20, Plate IV. This beetle is 7mm. 

 long, dark reddish brown, often nearly black in colour, 

 long oval with rather parallel sides in shape, the thorax 

 often lighter and considerably broader than long, the 

 sides rounded and contracted to the base, antennae and 

 legs reddish yellow, the thorax thickly punctured 

 at the sides, more scantily on the disc, and the 

 elytra finely punctured all over as well as plainly 

 striated. 



Ophonus is a genus which formerly was included with 

 Harpalus (of which a specimen is figured Plate II., 

 Fig. 12). Great uncertainty and confusion prevailed 

 as to its species or how many we had of them, until 

 Dr. Sharp lately revised the sub-genus,* so that we now 

 recognize about fourteen species instead of the ten which 

 appear in the earlier lists. Like Harpalus, the joints of 

 the front and middle tarsi are dilated in the males in 

 Ophonus, but its members may be known from the 

 Harpali by their more complete punctuation, both head, 

 thorax and elytra being punctured, whereas in Harpalus 

 the head at any rate is always smooth. 



Several of the species might occur under stones in such 



* " Entomological Monthly Magazine." Second Series, Vol. 

 xxiii., page 181, et seq. 



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