Ari'EXDix. 439 



brown beneath ; head, base of the antennae, and legs red; elytra punctate, 

 with a single stria on each near the suture. 

 " Taken in rotten oak." — D?-. Howitt. 



Page 248. Sp. 2 a. Bisnius puncticollis. Howitt MS. — Ater nitidus capite 

 magno, tibiarum hasi rufescentibus, elytris ceneis. (Long. corp. 3f — 4 lin.) 



Nearly allied to Bisnius cephalotes, but larger ; head broader than the thorax, 

 black, shining, and irregularly punctate behind the eyes, the punctures 

 more distant on the vertex, with four large ones between the eyes ; thorax 

 black, shining, with about twenty-four punctures on each side, forming two 

 discoidal series of ten each, a circle of ten or eleven punctures towards each 

 of the anterior angles, and united to the apex of the discoidal series by three 

 intermediate punctures ; elytra aeneous, thickly and regularly punctate, 

 pubescent; abdomen opaque, black, punctulate, slightly pubescent; femora 

 black; tibis pitchy-black, with the base rufescent; tarsi pitchy; mandibles 

 ■ rufo-piceous ; palpi pitchy ; antennae black at the base, the apex rufo- 

 piceous. 



" Taken in Sphagnum from Oxton bogs, November 1834.". — Dr. Howitt. 



POSTSCRIPT. 



Page 401. See Trttoma bipustulatum. 



I do not attempt to compete with the work here referred to in the brilliancy of its highly- 

 finished and beautiful engravings ; and I may be permitted to observe that in a work of 

 the extensive nature of the present that minute Aet?ii\ of structure cannot be expected to be 

 given, neither do I presume as much, as in one professedly undertaken to describe form and 

 structure, my object, as stated in vol. i. Int. and p. 184, being to enable the reader to obtain 

 a general knowledge of our indigenous species. I have been led to this remark from the 

 observations of Mr. Curtis in regard to the presence of a fifth joint in the tarsi of the insect 

 above referred to, when magnified by a powerful microscope, an inconvenient proceeding 

 for general purposes, and consequently avoided as much as possible by me, as descriptions 

 made with that aid become unintelligible without, and with it it is well known that nearly 

 all the so-called tetramerous insects appear to possess the rudiment of a fifth most minute 

 joint, and, in the case cited, this joint, although extremely highly magnified, is very 

 minute, and would not be visible with an ordinary pocket glass. 



That these illustrations are free from error it would be presumption to aver, but in pro- 

 portion to their extent, I believe them to be as generally correct as any similar publication, 

 and with regard to the recent comparison of certain of the genera contained therein, with 

 the elaborate researches of Kirby and Gyllenhall, in the Entomological Magazine, vol. ii, 

 p. .516, one of which (Amara) is selected, regardless of my note in vol. i. p. 120, I shall 

 merely observe that the incomparable work of Kirby is devoted to a small group of insects, 

 212 in number, and its composition occupied the celebrated author's undivided attention 

 for two or three years; and yet, although "a// his typical species may be ascertained" 

 according to the remarks in the paper referred to, it is stated by Mr. Shuckaid, one of our 

 best hymenopterologists, in vol. iii. p. 92 of the same publication, that he cannot ascertain 

 above bQ species of Andrena and Nomada thereby: and with regard to Gyllenhall's 

 recondite woik, I may observe that the four volumes, of which it is composed, occupied no 

 less than twenty years (from 1B08 to 1827) in its publication, althougli not 220n species of 

 Coleoptcra arc described therein, at which rate of proceeding the Coleoptcra contained in 

 these Illustrations would not have been completed till the year lltUO, and the remaining 



