CARABUS NITENS AND CLATHRATUS. 83 



find yourself unable to do so. In fact, their various 

 species, their habits, and their economy, are to the 

 generahty of people alike unknown. Yet these 

 are the phenomena which wiU make your love of 

 Entomology " grow by what it feeds on." So nu- 

 merous are the different species of beetle, and many 

 of them so local in their habitation, that no one who 

 pays attention to the subject for any length of time, 

 can fail to procure either what is extremely rare, or 

 else altogether unknown. I well recollect the plea- 

 sure I experienced, when I procured, on the shore of 

 Lough Neagh, at Shane's Castle, specimens of 

 Blethisa borealis and Bembidium paludosum, insects 

 which had not before been taken in this neighbour- 

 hood, and which I believe had not previously been 

 recorded as Irish. In my cabinet I have at present 

 one of our most brilliant native insects, the Carabus 

 nitens, a species which approaches in the splendour 

 of its decoration to the diamond beetle of tropical 

 climates. This insect was taken, along with Carabus 

 clathratus, on Birkie bog, about five miles from this 

 town. This bog is so divested of those heaths and 

 blossoms which lend beauty to the waste and colour- 

 ing to the landscape, that when the very extreme of 

 sterility or nakedness is to be expressed, the country 

 people in the vicinity invariably say, " as bare as 

 Birkie." Yet here, on this bleak, barren, and un- 



