144 Carpophilus sexpustulatus F. in the British Isles. 



rence of the species where it has been found, in order to decide 

 whether it is an indigenous or an introduced species. Two 

 theories have been advanced, viz. : — 



1. That it has been introduced into the locahty with food 



intended for pheasant rearing. 



2. That it has been introduced into the locaUty in dried 



or decaying fruits, such as raisins or currants. 

 Do these theories stand the test at every point ? If they 

 do not explain equally well, the occurrence at each place then 

 they are untenable. It is curious that the locality which 

 furnishes the strongest proof of indigeneity, also throws the 

 strongest doubt upon it. I refer to Edlington Wood where I 

 took the first known specimen in 1894, and where Dr. Corbett 

 and Mr. W. E. Sharp took specimens in 1911. It was on this 

 last occasion that Mr. Sharp met with a specimen of C. ob- 

 soletus, a species hitherto unrecorded from the British Isles, 

 although Mr. Sharp possesses another specimen which was 

 undoubtedly imported into this country in dried fruit. They 

 certainly cannot have been imported into this particular locality 

 in pheasant food, because, whatever may be the case with the 

 other localities, Edlington Wood is not now, and never has 

 been, so far as can be learned, a place where pheasants have 

 been reared, or game preserved. It has always been a fox- 

 hunting wood. My own acquaintance with it goes back for 

 twenty-nine years ; and other members of the Barnsley 

 Naturalists' Society who have worked it for Lepidoptera during 

 the last fifty-five years, confirm this view. This is sufficient 

 to dispose of the ' pheasant food ' theory. There still remains 

 the ' decayed fruit ' theory to be considered. Anyone who 

 knows the holt where the species has been found, will recognise 

 how absurd it is to imagine decayed fruit or any other rubbish 

 being taken there to be thrown out. It is too far away from 

 any dwelling-place. Finally, the species must have existed 

 there continuously for a period of at least nineteen years, 

 unless it is postulated that there has been an equally con- 

 tinuous introduction of foreign specimens during the same 

 period. The same line of reasoning would cut out the raisin 

 theory, in all but one of the localities, or, rather, it could only 

 hold good in one for it is not reasonable to suppose that there 

 have been as many different deposits of decaying fruit as there 

 are localities in which the species has been found. These 

 localities are some considerable distance from each other, 

 the smallest plane figure which will contain them having an 

 area of 24:| square miles. The unobtrusive nature of the 

 insect, its small size, dark colour, and the habit of simulating 

 death, which it possesses in common with many other species, 

 combine to preserve it from most of its enemies, including, 

 no doubt, coleopterists. Other species with this characteristic, 



Naturalist, 



