08 :\Ir. F. Bill four.B row lie o>, the 



li;ul not 32011 what ho was aMe to sec. The same difference 

 of opinion occurs with lepiid to the sculpture of the female 

 of II. fuIvicoIli<, Er., which Edwards describes as havin*^ the 

 elytra finely punctured across the apex and aloiio; the distal 

 lialf of the suture, while the continental authors all describe 

 it as having the elytra impunctate. 



With regard to the difficulty of using the pa])er, Edwards 

 describes tlie jedeago|ihore in six out of his seven s|)ecie?, 

 saying nothing about it in II. heydeni \ but, altiiough in five 

 i)f these it is obvinusly a character of systematic im))ortance, 

 in IJ.fuhicoU'is he describes it as similar to that in //. rufi- 

 coUis — a statement whicii, if correct, would to my mind reduce 

 the former from specific rank. As a matter of t'act^ Edwards 

 never saw II. fuh'i colli f--, as I shall show later on. 



Edwards figuri.'S the male armature in three species of the 

 seven, but I found in working out my nuiterial tliat I had 

 dissected out six different ty[)es without coming across one 

 which agreed accurately with any of iiis figures. 



These points, and several other details to which I shall 

 refer in due course, induced nie to undertake a re-investi- 

 gation of the group, and, with that end in view, I liave 

 collected several thousands of small IlallpU in various parts 

 of the British Islands *. Through the kindness of several 

 friends I have also seen a large number of other British 

 specimens, and I have seen some continental ones also 



* I should perhaps explain my method of collecting' and liow I 

 satistied myself as to the specilic identity of tlie females. I collected a 

 number of specimens of small Ilalipli tvom some particular spot, and a 

 collection from any one place was kept separate from a collection from 

 any other place, the specimens usually being placed at once in tubes of 

 alcohol, each tube being registered under a number. Thus, in the course 

 of a few hours' collecting, I might have eight to ten collections, some 

 containing two or three specimens, others containing fifty or a hundred — 

 the contents of each tube being a sample from some one pond, lake, 

 ditch, or other type of habitat. Tiie contents of each tube were later 

 overhauled, males being separated from females and identilied by the 

 aedeagus, and then attempts were made to allocate the different females. 

 If, as sometimes, I g^ot a large collection containing only one species of 

 male, the probability was that at least the majority of the females be- 

 longed to that same species and it was thus possible to associate females 

 ■with one type of elytral sculpture, form of thoracic stria?, or other 

 secondary character, with a certain type of male. This was airain 

 checked by comparing other collections and finding that, as a rule, a 

 particular type of female was associated witli one type of male. 



But, although I speak of " females of a particular form," as if seven 

 tvpes of female could be separated at a glance and only required to be 

 allocated to the seven types of ujale, tlie matter is not really an easy one 

 for the very reason that the diameters used are variable, and thus 

 females have been much more difficult to distinguish than the papers of 

 the three authors mentioned would indicate. 



