189S.] 251 



between the black and banded forms occurs, but it was new to me to 

 find the workers of a nest all alike, and of a different type of 

 colouring to the females ; it is possibly an analogous case to that of 

 the effects of stylopization. In the latter, where the ovaries are 

 affected by the parasite, and more or less atrophied, the tendency is 

 for the $ to resemble the J , and it is not, therefore, improbable that 

 the workers of a nest, which are only females with undeveloped 

 ovaries, should in the same way tend to assume the (^ livery ; this, of 

 course, in this case being on the assumption that the male was of the 

 banded white tailed var., and not a Harrisellus. 



St. Ann's, Woting : 



September Voth, 1898. 



XYLOCORIDEA BREVIPENNIS, Eeutee: A NEW GENUS AND 

 SPECIES TO THE LIST OF BRITISH HEMIPTERA. 



BT EDWARD SAUNDEES, F.L.S. 



For the capture of this very interesting addition to our fauna we 

 are indebted to Mr. Claude Morley, who took three specimens of it 

 under the bark of hawthorn bushes in Eichmond Park on the 2nd of 

 last March. It was first described by Seuter in Petites Nouvelles 

 Entomologiques, ii, p. 55, and subsequently in his Monographia An- 

 thocoridarum Orbis terrestris, p. 146, in which its capture is recorded 

 from France (Paris and Hyeres), Spain and Italy (Naples and Vorno 

 p. Lucca). 



Grenerically it may be distinguished from Xylocoris, its nearest British ally, by 

 the shorter Ist and longer 2nd joints of its rostrum, by the long 4th joint of the 

 antennte, which is much longer than the 3rd (this latter being unusually short), and 

 by the more remote position of the eyes from the anterior margin of the pronotum, 

 as well as by its abbreviated elytra. 



It is an elongate, rather flat insect, with very shining black head, thorax and 

 abdomen with a few scattered long hairs, and dull, slightly paler elytra ; the eyes 

 are situated nearly in the centre of the sides of the head, being about equidistant 

 from the apex of the pronotum and of that of the face ; the 2nd joint of the an- 

 tennae is pale and slightly thickened, and dusky towards the apex ; pronotum narrow, 

 with a slight apical constriction, lateral margins carinated, slightly reflexed and 

 curved, tending to become sinuate just before the posterior angles, which are acute, 

 base widely cmarginatc ; elytra, about as long as the pronotum and half the head, 

 dull, with the crabolium alone shining, clothed with a sparse suberect pilosity, mem- 

 brane reduced to a more strip ; abdomen a good deal wider than the elytra, suboval ; 

 legs, with the femora, blackish-brown, tibia; slightly paler. L., 2"5 mm. 



St. Ann's, Woking : 



Ocloher Itilk, 1898. 



