Common Beetles of our Countryside 



at the edges of the thorax, the legs and antennae quite 

 black. It is usually to be met with walking slowly 

 across some grassy slope on the mountain, or by the 

 side of the brook, a fine conspicuous beetle, quite a 

 mountain species, and not particularly common there, 

 so that we are not likely to find more than one or two 

 in the course of our climb. 



The other Carabus, also, but not so exclusively a 

 mountain species, we may meet perhaps more commonly. 

 We shall probably find it under some of the larger 

 stones that lie scattered about right up to the summit, 

 a smaller beetle, not more than about 18 mm. long, 

 named Carabus arvensis (the Carabus of the plough 

 lands just the place where, in England at any rate, 

 one does not find it), Fig. 4, Plate B. It varies much in 

 colour, but is usually a coppery-brown, sometimes 

 however greenish or brassy, and very often, especially 

 in the west of Ireland, quite black. The legs and antennae 

 are quite black ; it can be recognised without difficulty 

 by its small size and the peculiar sculpture of the 

 elytra, which consists of first a pattern of fine but 

 interrupted parallel raised lines, and then a quadruple 

 series of deeper linear impressions which together 

 give the appearance of rows of granules, separated by 

 very slightly raised ridges. C. arvensis is not an 

 uncommon species, and with C. catenulatm and C. 

 glabratus makes the only three members of the genus 

 Carabus which we are likely to find at the altitude 

 we have now reached. 



But it would be well if we were now to concentrate 

 62 



