40 COLEOPTERA. 



has not been obsei'ved for many years ; A7itherophagus sila- 

 ceusj in the same month, at Darenth and Gravesend ; Stenus 

 hrevicolUsf at Horsell, near Woking ; Cocdnella lahilis, at 

 Esher, Weybridge, Farnham, Horsell and Birdbrook ; Hy- 

 drcena atricapillay pulchella and pyymceaj in the Wansbeck, 

 at Wallington, Northumberland (the first also from Kirk- 

 caldy) ; Atomaria diluta, at Balmuto, Fifeshire ; Amara 

 rufocimta^ on the Moor at Polmont, by Falkirk (a very 

 northern locality) ; and Ajjhtliona nigricejys, singly, at Cow- 

 fold, Sussex, in June, but in the utmost profusion on Gera- 

 nium pr-atense (as at Eggington, Burton-on-Trent), near 

 Kirkcaldy, Fifeshire, in August. 



In the newspaper, or sensational. Entomology of the past 

 year we have had the Coleoptera represented by the "Times," 

 with its notices of " Lampyris italica'' at Ashford, and of 

 "tropical fire-flies" at Caterham. No further light {sensu 

 stricto) having been thrown upon these mysteries, it is not 

 necessary, in spite of the very circumstantial account of the 

 occurrence of the ^^ Lampyris,'^ to pay any further attention 

 to them. All journals and most magazines have also during 

 the end of the last summer and autumn padded their columns 

 more or less with accounts of and reasonino^s and un-reasonino-s 

 about the miraculous draughts of Coccinella septem-jninctata 

 that have so universally appeared throughout the country, as 

 they have periodically done from time immemorial. It does 

 not seem to have occurred to any of the numerous writers on 

 this subject, that the same unknown causes which would 

 favour the increase of this insect on the Continent would, in 

 all human probability, extend to this country also. That 

 vast numbers have been imported on the south coast there 

 seems little doubt; but the insect has simultaneously swarmed 

 far inland, in every nook and corner of the country. In one 

 usually serious and well-informed journal, " Chambers'," 



