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THE COLEOPTERA OF BISHOPDALE, YORKS. 
W. E. SHARP, F.E.S. 
So thoroughly has the Coleoptera Committee of the Yorkshire 
Naturalists’ Union recognized its responsibilities and performed 
the work assigned to it, that even the most recklessly optim- 
istic stranger could hardly anticipate, by a few days’ collecting 
in any part of Yorkshire, to add to the list of beetles already 
recorded as occurring in that county. Yet because the ‘ dales ’ 
have been by no means exhaustively explored entomologically, 
and because the ebb and flow of insect life is at all times and 
in all places so remarkable and so unexplained, I venture to 
relate the species of Coleoptera encountered within the space 
of two days during last July in the vale of Bishopdale. 
To describe Bishopdale adequately would be as difficult 
as probably to the majority of the readers of The Naturalist, 
it would be superfluous. A lateral valley of Wensleydale, 
branching off to the south-west, where the Ure, brown from 
the peat of its upland moors, comes down over those steep 
tabular steps which constitute the falls of Aysgarth. To gain 
. it one wanders on to the scattered grey village of Thoralby, 
and marks on the sky-line the short steep escarpment and 
the long undulating line of hills that characterize the Yoredale 
series of the great Yorkshire Carboniferous area. A stream 
runs sinuous down the centre of the valley between the rich 
lowland pastures that furnish the dairies where is made the 
cheese for which Wensleydale is famous, and far in the distance 
the long grey lines of the quiet fells converge and carry the 
road over into Upper Swaledale. Such is an imperfect vision 
of Bishopdale. 
The investigation of its beetles is a different matter. At 
first sight the dale does not strike the coleopterist as a land 
of especial promise. A few copses, principally of larch, hang 
about the sides of the long valley, and the course of the 
stream is marked by a discontinuous line of alders and sallows, 
but the lowland pastures are too good to allow of much 
uncultivated ground—marsh and wilderness, where grow the 
special plants and live the special beetles that inspire the 
coleopterist’s quest. 
However, by the courtesy of Colonel Lodge, a local land- 
owner, whose kindness in this matter the present writer is glad 
to have the opportunity of acknowledging, access, otherwise 
unobtainable, was granted to some of the best localities for 
the collection of insects which the dale affords. 
Although the wide margins of road and lane were deep in 
herbage, including masses of a beautiful blue geranium (G. pra- 
tense), reminiscent of the Wiltshire chalk downs, the sweep-net 
1913 Dec, I. 
