5SO APPENDIX. 



are pursued only between dinner and tea, so that you may imagine they do not 

 proceed very rapidly. I am now engaged in making out the synonyms of 

 Gravenhorst, which I find tedious enough. To save trouble, I mark in the 

 margin of his family of Staphylinus the number of puncta in the thoracic series 

 thus : . I find this save some trouble, and recommend it to you ... I have 

 the pleasure to tell you that I found, after you left me, the remains of Mordella 

 fasciata, E. B., which you may recollect I looked for in vain, and have put all 

 together very adroitly." . ... [A letter, dated July 7, of ten pages, contained 

 observations on the 214 insects sent in the box alluded to above.] 



"Holme [Norfolk], July 31, 1807. 



'* My dear Sir, Being so very near you as to discern, by the help of a 

 glass, the Humber's mouth, it will not be so well if I do not speak a few words 

 to you, and give you some account of what I have been doing since I left my 

 own door." [After a description of his journey and of Holme, and of twelve 

 insects he had taken, the letter continues:] "But the pride and joy of my dis- 

 coveries here is a new Apion, which I have found in tolerable numbers upon 

 Statice Limonium. It is by far the most splendid and beautiful, and I think 

 also the largest species of the genus that I yet am acquainted with. I have 

 already taken fifty specimens, and shall endeavour to get more. I call it Apion 

 Limonii, and it will form the concluding species of my paper ; and so I may 

 well say, Finis coronat opus" [Then follows a description and reference to a 

 coloured figure on the blank page of the letter.] " The figure is tolerably cor- 

 rect, though I know not how to give the metallic hues of the original. 



" I have no further communication now to make, except that we made some 

 inquiry whether there were any vessel going from this neighbourhood to Hull ; 

 but we could not hear of any. If we had met with one with fair accommodation, 

 I don't know whether we should not have paid you a flying visit " 



"Barham, Aug. 31, 1807. 



" My dear Friend, At length I have gone through all the contents of your 

 box, and that of Messrs. Watson and Simpson." .... [Then follow two 

 pages of descriptions of the new Staphylinidce sent him.] 



" In my last I detailed to you many of my captures at Holme, ending with 

 what I termed the pride and joy of my discoveries, Apion Limonii; but since 

 that capture I have taken two insects in the same village, which are still more 

 valuable : they are both of the Staphylinidce. One of these is a Tachinus, of 

 which I took a pair in putrid wood. Its peculiarity consists in its antennae, 

 which are uncommonly slender, with a knob at the end of each joint, and ver- 

 ticils of hairs, thus, as in fig. 1. [Here follow two pencil sketches.] No. 2 

 represents the head and thorax of an Oxytelus, related to O. morsitans and 

 cornutus, but with four long horns upon the head, the two anterior arising from 

 the base of the maxillae and protruded before the head. It is, I think, a more 

 curious insect than even tricornis, of which, by the bye, I have also at last got a 

 specimen : I took it one morning upon Mrs. Kirby's chemisette, as the ladies 

 denominate their neck-handkerchiefs, as she was walking before breakfast in 

 Dr. Button's garden. In vain I laid traps of white linen for it ; I could not 

 meet with a second, although I also placed the same attraction in the same 

 place. I found at Holme, and in a neighbouring village, an abundant supply 

 of Apion nigritarse upon the dock, the hazel, the hawthorn, the elm, &c. : so 

 farewell my habitat, which seemed so remarkably confirmed by your taking it 

 upon the same tree in the north. 



" A remarkable event befell me last week. I had been much afflicted in the 

 course of the week by the ear-ache (a disorder which, if you never knew, I 

 Lope you never will, and which, by the bye, must apologise for any mistakes 



