7366 Insects. 



in last year's ' Intelligencer' was dignified wiih a place in the ' Annual' for 1860. I 

 ought nut, however, to be asloiiisheil at the omission, as I have since that lime, in the 

 natural (Jider of events, becunie included in the list of eutuuiologists obnoxious to Mr. 

 Janson {i.e. eleven-twelfths of ilie known coleoplerisis), — a calamity which I of course 

 deplore, but survive. I remember in May last showing the species in question to that 

 gentleman, wlio then professed ignorance of its name. I possessed an example, and 

 had remarked its peculiarities, before the ' Annual ' fur IStiO was published ; but my 

 attention was more particularly drawn to it by the remarks in Dr. Schaura's paper, 

 conspicuous, by the way, for the very positive nature of its statements, and a certain 

 lack of courtesy to the authorities corrected. 



Bag'uus nodulosus, Sciiou. With regard to this species I must acknowledge and 

 correct a mistake (ZjoI. 7266). The penultimate sentence of my notice should have 

 been, " B. binodulus has on each elytron two knobs, and B. nodulosus only one.''' I 

 can only account for the error by the unorthodox way in which ray figures are gene- 

 rally written : had the words been at full length the printer could not have made a 

 mistake. I did nut see the November number of the ' Zoologist' until my attention 

 was drawn to it by the quotation in the ' Annual,' otherwise I should have con-ected it 

 at once. Mr. Janson's remarks as to the size of the species are correct, but quite 

 unnecessary, since it was the large size of my insect that induced me at first to refer 

 it to B. nodulosus, which Schonherr slates is nearly as large as B. binodulus. Any 

 strictures, however, of this kind might have been avoided if Mr. Janson had con- 

 descended to examine the specimen when I exhibited it al the Entomological Society, 

 The extract also, from the ' Proceedings," is not exactly in my words. I exhibited the 

 insect as " certainly a new British species, which I had not yet had an opportunity lo 

 refer to its specific name." The objection taken by Mr. Janson to my statement that 

 the elytra of B. binodulus were "merely punctured" is not worth much, my obvious 

 meaning being thai they were so in comparison with the rougher granulations of the 

 species I described : my words were in accordance with Schonherr's description, and 

 my insect agreed in every point with his B. nodulosus. The other differences between 

 the two species remarked by me were not referred to, because they could not be con- 

 tradicted I presume. I have no doubt but that the species recorded by me is really 

 the Bagous nodulosus of Schonherr, and I have opinions to this effect from gentle- 

 men on whose authority I should place reliance in preference to that of our self-con- 

 stituted judge, even if the latter had seen and examined my specimen, a somewhat 

 necessary preliminary to a correct verdict, but which he did not lake the trouble to do 

 when he had the opportunity. The prejudice and want of courtesy displayed in the 

 articles on Coleoptera in the ' Annuals,' and the way in which they have been inge- 

 niously distorted into a vent for personal ill-feeling and self-glorification, must, I 

 think, give foreign entomologists, and the public in general, a curious but erroneous 

 idea of the state of the science in England. — E. C. Rye ; 284, Kind's Road, Chelsea, 

 S.W.,Januari/8, 1861. 



Beetle Ahtsicians. — During our ride home [in Tobago] I was startled by hearing 

 what I fully imagined was the whistle of a steam engine; but 1 was informed it was 

 a noise caused by a beetle that is peculiar to Tobago. It is nearly the size of a 

 man's hand, and, fixing itself against a tree, it commences a kind of drumming noise, 

 which gradually quickens lo a whistle, and at length increases in shrillness and 

 intensity, till it almost e(|uals a railroad whistle. It was so loud that, when standing 

 full twenty yards from the tree where it was in operation, the sound was so shrill that 



