Common Beetles of our Countryside 



smaller than elongatula; only a few can be made out 

 and named without the aid of the compound micro- 

 scope, and we may as well defer their study till we 

 have some considerable acquaintance with the larger 

 Brachelytra and some members of well set specimens of 

 Homalotae. 



So gradually ascending, the grass merges more and 

 more into the ling and heather, and the brown stretch 

 of moorland grows wider to the view, the Dippers and 

 the Gray Wagtails are left behind possibly we may 

 catch sight of a Ring Ouzel the Blackbird of the 

 moors possibly a startled Sandpiper may rise and 

 disappear with low swift flight like that of a snipe 

 as we suddenly rise above some shelf of rock or turn 

 some corner of the defile. In May we might find its 

 four pointed eggs laid among the thick grass or heather 

 close down by the water with hardly the pretence 

 of a nest, in fact, almost tread on them unless the bird 

 was sitting and rose as we approached, so perfectly 

 does their dull olive brown, blotched with darker red, 

 brown correspond with the heather stems and broken 

 shingle of the brook side. 



But before leaving these wet stones there is one other 

 beetle we ought to find among them, and that belongs 

 to a group of which we have so far seen no representa- 

 tives on the moors I mean Cryptohypnus riparius 

 (the [river] bank Cryptohypnus) Fig. 6, Plate V. 

 Cryptohypnus is a genus of the Sternoxi, a sub-group 

 of Serricornia, those jumping beetles of which we 

 have met with several examples in the course of our 



42 



