256 OBSERVATIONS ON 



abdomen nitidum : coxae flavse ; femora 4 postica basi flava : 

 alarum nervi pallide fusci : halteres fusci. (Alarum longitudo, 

 If lin. ; corporis, If lin.) 



August ; on a dry sunny bank ; near London. 



Art. XXVII. — Observations on the Enicoceri. 

 By G. Wailes, Esq. 



The natural history of this recently discovered, obscure, 

 but interesting genus of Coleoptera, appears to be little under- 

 stood ; probably owing either to the few habitats at present 

 known to entomologists, or to its being confined to the northern 

 parts of the island. If the following observations should 

 throw a little additional light on the subject, and induce others 

 to pursue the inquiry with more minuteness, I trust they will 

 not be altogether useless. 



For some years past I had observed the large fragments of 

 the coarse sandstones of the carboniferous series, which were 

 laying half exposed in the river Wansbeck, at Meldon Park, 

 to be covered with innumerable oval cells, measuring about 

 two lines in the longest diameter. From the aperture in each 

 of them, they were evidently the pupae cases of some small 

 beetle ; but as I did not then pay much attention to minute 

 insects, I considered they were probably those of some of the 

 smaller Helophori, and, being in pursuit of larger game, unde- 

 serving my particular notice. It was not till the summer of 

 1831 (in the spring of which year I had met with five species 

 of Elmis in a brook near Meldon), when on an accustomed 

 annual visit to our watering-place, Tynemouth, I first disco- 

 vered the Enicoceri in this neighbourhood. Examining the 

 stones in a rivulet, within fifty yards of its junction with the 

 sea, in quest of specimens of Ebnis and Hijdrcena, I observed 

 a beetle, which a moment's inspection assured me was an 

 Enicocerus. On commencing a closer search, I found all the 

 three species in considerable abundance, lurking in the inequa- 

 lities of the coarse stones, just level with, or a httle above, the 



