236 < i.AYicouNiA. \_Nitldula. 



The species of Nitldula vary very much in size, as may be seen from 

 the lengths above given. 



SORONIA, Erichson. 



This genus at present contains only about half-a-dozen species, three 

 of which occur in Europe, and the others have been described from 

 North America, South Africa, and the Australian region ; the genus, 

 therefore, is widely distributed, and will probably prove to be much 

 more extensive than is at present known. 



The species of Soronia and Omosita are readily distinguished from 

 all our other Nitidulidse by having the disc of the thorax distinctly im- 

 pressed or wrinkled ; slight traces of impressions are visi ble in many 

 specimens of Epurcea parvula, Amphotis, &c., but these are apparently 

 abnormal, and very different from the impressions on the thorax in the 

 two first-named genera ; the two British species of Soronia resemble each 

 other so closely and vary so much in size that it is sometimes hard to 

 distinguish them. 



The larva of 8. grisea is described by Ferris (Larves des Coleopteres, p. 26), and 

 is described and figured by Westwood, who quotes from Curtis (Classification I., 141, 

 fig. 11) ; it is somewhat depressed, of a dirty white colour, with six scaly legs; the 

 extremity of the body is furnished with four small horny conical appendages curved 

 upwards ; each segment is also beset with several short stiff hairs, and the lateral 

 margins of the abdominal segments are furnished with a small fleshy and somewhat 

 conical protuberance ; on the under-side of the extremity of the body is an appendage 

 which is used as a proleg. 



I. Form broader and more convex ; punctuation closer ; 



average size larger S. PUNCTATISSIMA, III. 



II. Form narrower and less convex ; punctuation less 

 close ; average size smaller S. GRISEA, L. 



S. punctatissima, 111. Somewhat convex, ferruginous or reddish- 

 brown with the thorax and elytra variegated with black or dark brown 

 and yellowish or reddish spots ; margins of thorax and elytra broad ; 

 punctuation of upper surface ' close ; elytra with four or five raided lines 

 on each which are sometimes more or less obsolete ; under-side reddish or 

 reddish-brown, legs reddish. L. 3^-5^ mm. 



At exuding sap; usually found in or near burrows of Cossus ligniperda ; very 

 local ; Shirley and Esher in birch (Power) ; Daren th, Chatham, Coombe Wood, 

 Aldington, Norwood, Belvedere, Shiere ; Hastings ; Isle of Wight ; Dean Forest ; 

 Repton ; Scarborough ; Liverpool district ; Dunham Park, Manchester, in oaks and 

 alders (Chappell) ; Stretford, in old cherry trees (Reston) ; Northumberland district; 

 Scotland, local, Tweed, Tay, Dee, and Moray districts. 



S- grisea, L. Smaller on the average than the preceding species, 

 and also narrower and less convex, and more sparingly and less closely 

 punctured ; in the preceding species the black markings on the elytra a 

 little behind tbe middle are interrupted by a wavy yellowish band ; this 

 yellowish band or fascia is succeeded by a dark band, which is inter- 



