The Beetles of the Mountains 



name is Miscodera arctica (the Northern Miscodera) 

 Fig. 17, Plate VI. It is nearly always taken near the 

 tops of mountains, although there are a few instances 

 of its occurrence in more lowland localities, such as 

 Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire, and one most singular 

 spot, that is, at the base of the great heaps of slag 

 from the blast furnaces which line the estuary of the 

 Tees below Middlesbrough. There the beetle is found 

 absolutely at the sea-level, but it seems a tenable 

 hypothesis that it has been, in some stage and at some 

 time, carried down, perhaps in flood refuse, from the 

 high moors of Upper Teesdale and stranded on the 

 flat shore of the estuary. 



This beetle is very different from a Pterostichus ; 

 it is not more than 6 mm. long, of a glossy black 

 with a strong brassy reflection, and its most salient 

 feature is the very distinct neck or waist which 

 separates thorax from elytra ; the thorax is very 

 convex with all the angles rounded, and the elytra 

 are also convex and ovate with very faint striae, which 

 give it its peculiar glossy look ; the legs and antennas 

 are dark red. In fact, M. arctica is a beetle which it 

 is impossible to mistake, as we have only one species 

 in the genus, and nothing else in our fauna at all like it. 



And that may perhaps be the last species of moun- 

 tain Geodephaga we may discover, unless indeed we 

 find under some other loose stone fairly high up that 

 second species of Patrobus called Patrobus assimilis 

 (the similar Patrobus) to which allusion was made when 

 we encountered P. excavatus in our walk across the 



