200 Dr. Heincken's Entomological Notices. 



scription the elytra are raucronate ; now Fabricius, in the Supplement to 

 the Entomologia Systematica says, " elytra nuUo modo acuminata." La- 

 treille too, in the " Histoire, &c.," when he considered the Bl. similis as 

 a variety only of the Bl. mortisaga, says, " peut-etre est-ce le Blaps ob- 

 " tus de Fabr.?" but in the "Genera, &c." a more recent work, and 

 in which he establishes it as a species, he is silent about its being syno- 

 nymous with the BL obtusa of Fabricius. Mr. Curtis appears to me 

 also to be in error about the sexual distinctions. He says that the elytra 

 are mucronate, " especially in the males, in which sex there is a fasci- 

 " cule of hair at the base of the second abdommal joint beneath." In 

 some dozens of specimens (for it is abundant here) those with a tuft of 

 hair had also mucronated elytra; and as one not having either of these 

 peculiarities protruded the penis when dropt into boiling water, I have 

 kept it as a better proof than many dissections could afford, that the con- 

 trary is the case, and that the prolonged elytra and tuft of hair are female 

 peculiarities. Messrs. Kirby and Spence say of the Blapsidce generally, 

 " elytra mucronate in the females," but neither they nor any other 

 writer besides Mr. Curtis mention, as far as I am aware, the tuft of hair. 

 The Blaps gages, and its small variety, which Latreille considers the 

 Blaps mortisaga, Herbst, have it in one sex also. 



C. Heinkken, M.D. 



Funchal, Madeira, Sth August, 1829. 



P.S. As I conclude that a poetical licence will not always be allow- 

 able with the Zoological Journal, I will avail myself a little further of 

 the present, to ask what birds Shakspeare means in " A Midsummer 

 Night's Dream," by " russet-patcd Choughs, many in sort." — The bird 

 now, I believe, commonly called " Chough" {Pyrrhocorax graculus, 

 Temm.) is not russet-pated ; neither are the Pie, Daw, Hooded Crow, 

 &c., and yet it is evident by the succeeding line, " Rising and cawing,''^ 

 &c. that the birds he referred to belonged to this group. " Many in 

 " sort,''^* too, would either imply variety of plumage, or several spe- 

 cies : now both Fleming and Bewick give only one species cf Chough, 

 and the only variety of consequence consists, I believe, in the bill and 

 legs of the young being black instead of red. C. H. 



• Mamj in sort means nothing more than 7nany in company. Of the conti- 

 nual use of sort in this sense, scores of instances could he adduced. — E. T. B. 



