190 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Of this important group of Coleoptera 487 species were 
enumerated as inhabiting the valley, of which 463 were 
described as new, suggesting forcibly how little is really 
known of the Staphylinide of Tropical America. Dr. Sharp 
also stated that he had devised a method of covering and 
hermetically sealing the type specimens, which, he believed, 
would accomplish their almost complete preservation, and 
that he hoped soon to be able to publish a description of the 
method. The author concluded with remarking on the great 
importance of certain sexual characters in distinguishing the 
species. 
Marcu 1, 1876. 
Prof. J. O. Westwood, M.A., F.L.S., &c., President, in the 
chair, 
Habits of Cychrus cylindricollis.—My. Bates read a letter 
from Mr. Trovey Blackmore to Mr. M‘Lachlan, stating that 
he was much interested in observing a notice in the ‘ Pro- 
ceedings’ of this Society respecting the habits of Cychrus 
cylindricollis, reported by M. Baudi to feed on snails. He 
had already called attention (in the ‘ Entomologist’s Monthly 
Magazine,’ vol. xi., p. 214) to the fact that Carabus steno- 
cephalus, Fatrm., fed on snails, which in Morocco were so 
very abundant as to form a marked feature in the landscape 
by covering the bushes so thickly as to resemble, at a 
distance, clusters of blossom. He had captured in all 
eighteen specimens of this scarce Carabus, and of these 
fifteen were obtained either feeding on snails or climbing up 
bushes of Retama, which were covered with snails, especially 
Helix planata. The Carabus having an unusually long head, 
and the prothorax being narrowed anteriorly, enabled it to 
thrust its head and prothorax a considerable distance within 
the shell in search of its food. It belonged to a group com- 
prising several species found in North Africa, which much 
resembled Cychrus in appearance, and which possessed 
characters sufficiently marked to entitle them to form, if not 
a genus distinct from Carabus, at least a subgenus of Carabus. 
One of them (possibly a var. of C. stenocephalus) occurred in 
the more northern parts of the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and 
had been named by Fairmaire C. cychrocephalus; and 
another species (C, Aumonti, Zuwcas) had been found at Oran 
