182 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 
On the edge of a field of young grass and clover (after 
barley) near Morningside, Edinburgh, several examples of 
the beetle were found under small stones on 22nd March 
1921; on the 26th a short search some distance into the 
field yielded about fifty; on 1st April sixty were collected 
in the course of a quarter of an hour; and they were still 
common a fortnight later. Every third or fourth stone 
lifted had two or three on its underside; in one instance 
there were as many as eleven, while the sole of an old 
boot had no less than seventeen on it. A flock of forty to 
fifty Starlings feeding in the field were no doubt finding 
them in plenty among the grass; that this was so was 
proved by the innumerable fragments of their wing-cases, 
etc., found in the droppings of the birds at a bush on which 
they were in the habit of perching. On another field of 
young grass near by the beetles were equally abundant, 
and a wireworm found there on 5th April was, naturally, 
thought to belong to the same species, no other Click- 
beetle being seen. In its bifid tail-segment my specimen 
agrees with Schiddte’s figure of a larva ascribed by him 
to this beetle; but Perris throws doubt on Schiddte’s deter- 
mination, stating that the rzparius larva has an evenly 
rounded margin to its tail-segment (G. H. Carpenter, zz /2t.). 
In a recent Bulletin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
(No. 156), the Wireworm of an American Cryptohypnus is 
described as having “a pair of backwardly directed prongs 
on the ninth abdominal segment”; so Schiddte may be right 
after all) Three years ago I had wireworms similar to the 
one found this year brought to me from an Edinburgh allot- 
ment. I ought to add that the beetle was also abundant, 
on 2nd April last, in a field of young grass near Currie, 
Midlothian. 
The adult beetle is most in evidence during spring, but 
I have taken it in every month from February to October. 
Ananalysis of my data gives February, 4 records; March, 12; 
April, 18; May, 9; June, 5; July, August, and September, 
Teach: and October.3: 
