44 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
been so the proposed name must have given way to the prior 
name of Hololeucus, proposed by M. Falderman. In 1839 
the insect appeared in the Appendix to Stephens’ ‘ Manual 
of British Coleoptera,’ p. 433, as under :— 
“1581 b. Ptinus hololeucus, Falderman ?—Pale ochreous- 
red; densely clothed throughout with a pale ochreous, silky 
down. (L. 13—2 lines.) Houses, London: whitethorn 
hedge, Ryde, 6, but probably introduced.” 
For further information I am indebted to my kind friend 
Dr. Power, who now occupies the same position in 
Coleopterology which Mr. Stephens occupied in 1839, when 
his Manual was published. The insects in tea differ in some 
respects from Dr. Power’s ample series of Niptus hololeucus, 
by which name the insect is now known, and under which it 
appears in Mr. Crotch’s ‘Catalogue of British Coleoptera :’ 
it is rather larger, and the punctures on the elytra are rather 
more distinct, especially where the ochreous pubescence is 
rubbed off, and the insect has become smooth and shining in 
every part. Dr. Power cannot agree to consider it on this 
account a second species of Niptus, although he thinks some 
of our modern entomologists would incline to do so, and 
there is no other Niptus in the ‘European list except Niptus 
Gonospermi, which is entirely different. If this tea beetle 
prove really a different species it is still without a name, and 
of course requires one. To this information Dr. Power adds 
the following :—“ It so happens that I have had a little expe- 
rience in this creature. Some years ago my friend Dr. Dupré. 
gave me some meal, which had been sent him to analyse, and 
it contained an immense number of the insect. The meal 
was in a bottle with a glass stopper, which I never took out. 
The insects died, but the next year the bottle contained 
about fifty similar ones, produced from larve identical with 
those which you have sent me in the tea: each formed a sort 
of cocoon, and in that underwent its transformations. The 
third-year there were about ten or a dozen, and the fourth 
year none: they had disappeared altogether. I have no 
doubt that if the bottle had been opened, so as to admit air, 
the breed might have been continued.” The beetle is now 
very common in all our houses. It is said to have been 
introduced into England from Persia vid Turkey. It is as 
omnivorous as Dermestes lardarius, feeding on any vegetable — 
substance,—as tea, meal, linen. I may state— 
la ati ah os Seal ae ee 
Wir vie 
