The Beetles of the Moorlands 



the sycamores that love the shelter of the valley bottom 

 and the moisture of the riverside ; it crosses our little 

 tributary brook by a bridge, and there leaving it we 

 must strike up through the woods that for some little 

 way clothe the sides of the lateral defile which our 

 stream has eaten out, probably through the moraine left 

 by some ancient glacier that once blocked the whole 

 valley. The sycamores soon give place to birches or 

 perhaps larches, and under their shade the stream slips 

 quietly among its boulders. Now and then, perched on 

 some large stone in mid-stream, we may catch sight of a 

 white breasted " dipper," or equally unfamiliar bird to 

 the visitor from the South, the grey wagtails as they run 

 about in their jerky way by the brook's margin. Big 

 stones lie scattered on the thick soft moss under the trees, 

 and by their inversion we may commence the day's work 

 of beetle catching. 



The first is evidently one of the Gcodephaga, a pitch- 

 black beetle, which in shape and size somewhat reminds 

 us of a Leistus (see Plate II., Fig. 8), but it really 

 comes systematically a long way from that genus, in 

 fact quite at the other end of the group. It is Patrobus 

 excavatus (the Patrobus with the hollows, alluding to the 

 deep foveae of the thorax), Fig. 16, Plate V., about 7 to 

 8 mm. long, with antennae and legs pitchy-red, the head 

 rather long with a deep furrow on each side behind the 

 eyes, the thorax very much rounded at the sides and 

 contracted at the base with the hinder angles sharp right 

 angles, a distinct groove down the centre and a deep 

 excavation or pit on each side just at the hind corners. 



33 



SB 



