1870.] 149 
Occurrence near Cirencester of a species of Melie new to Britain—Last month, 
I took here a single specimen of a Melée not agreeing in my opinion with any 
recorded British species, and which Dr. Sharp, to whom I have sent it, states to be 
certainly new to our list. When at Oxford last week, I was enabled, by Professor 
Westwood’s assistance, to compare this insect with the various species of Melée in 
the Oxford Museum, of which it seems to agree best with M. decorus, Brandt, Er.,— 
stated to be the same as M. pygmaeus, Redt., by Gemminger and v. Harold 
(pygmeus of Mus. Oxon., however, does not quite agree with my insect). 
Of our known species, it, comes nearest to M. rugosus; and is small (4 or 5 
lines long), of a very dark blackish-blue colour; with very transverse thorax, 
which has three longitudinal grooves; a large head and filiform antenne. The 
thorax is peculiar, and similar to that of the type of decorus, but differs from that 
of pygmeus in Mus. Oxon.—W. R. McNas, Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, 
November, 1870. 
Note on the occurrence in Britain of Trachyphleus myrmecophilus, Seidlitz (Die 
Otiorhynch. s. str., 1868, p. 124; Berl. Ent. Zeitschr., 12 Jahrg., Betheft), with obser- 
vations on a second British species of Cathormiocerus, and on the value of that genus. 
—When examining some Trachyphlai recently sent to me by Mr. H. Moncreaff, of 
Southsea (whose continuous captures of most interesting Coleoptera in that neigh 
bourhood put to shame the voluminous Catalogue of trivialities, professing to be 
exhaustive of its beetle-fauna, published some few years ago in the “ Zoologist”’). 
I detected a single example of a species which seems to me to accord very 
satisfactorily with the above recorded insect, recently described from the Hscurial. 
The wide difference in the localities is not of much account, seeing that we have 
certainly two British species of Cathormiocerus (the second also owing to Mr 
Moncreaff, and upon which I propose to make a few observations), and that Mr. 
Moncreaff’s captures of Oxynoptilus cuspidatus, Philonthus cicatricosus, &e., have 
prepared us for almost anything truly European. The only discrepancy that 
occurred to me between the description of T. myrmecophilus and Mr. Moncreaff’s 
specimen was in the size, which, according to Seidlitz, should be slightly less than 
that of T. squamulatus,—the reverse being here the case. But Seidlitz does not 
seem to haye had many examples before him; and I find a very considerable 
‘difference in size occurs in the Southsea insects (Mr. Moncreaff, on my drawing 
his attention to the novelty of his species as British, immediately hunted for and 
succeeded in capturing several more specimens, near Lumps pond, Southsea 
Beach), the smallest of which is smaller than average squamulatus, whilst the 
largest is rather larger than any avistatus that I have seen. 
Seidlitz states his insect to be not unlike his Cathormiocerus Chevrolati (with 
which the second British species of Cathormiocerus, above alluded to, has many 
characters in common, being also not unlike the Trachyphleus now recorded), and 
also points out its resemblance to the Madeiran C. cwrvipes of Wollaston, from which 
the uncurved scape of its antennze seems chiefly to distinguish it, in spite of the two 
species being supposed to belong to different genera. Mr. Wollaston has kindly 
sent to me for examination several of his C. cwrvipes, and I find that the autumnal 
fresh and slightly tesselated examples of the Trachyphleus taken by Mr. Moncreaf 
are extremely like that species,—differing from it, however, 1s mentioned by 
Seidlitz. 
