208 {February, 
Note on the occurrence in Britain of Corizus Abutilon, Rossi, a species of Hemiptera- 
Heteroptera new to our lists.—In the middle of July last, I captured a single specimen 
(2) of Corizus Abutilon, Rossi, by sweeping mixed herbage on the coast at Deal, 
Kent. 
A description of the above species will shortly be published in this Magazine,— 
G. C. Cuampron, 274, Walworth Road, London, S., January 13th, 1871. 
Notes on the Hemipterous genus Halobates.—In trimestre iii (anno secondo) of 
the Bullettino della Soc. Ent. Italiana, is an interesting notice (pp. 260, 261) on this 
oceanic genus of Hemiptera, by Professor Enrico Hillyer Giglioli, who was attached 
to the Italian war-ship “Magenta.” His notes are summarised as follows :-— 
“ First took Halobates in the South Atlantic on the 29th December, 1865, in 
lat. 16°. 11’. S., long. 36°. 00’. W. (Paris), at about 400 miles from the South 
American coast. On the following day took others, but not commonly. In May, 
1866, more were found in the Straits of Banca, in the gulf of Siam, and in the 
vicinity of the island Pulo Condor, when the ocean was covered with broad tracts 
of Trichodesmium. On the 10th February, 1867, we again entered the Indian ~ 
Ocean, in which Halobates was found most abundantly, from the 12th, lat. 11°. 33’. 
S., long. 106°. 40’. E. (Greenwich), to the 17th, lat. 14°. 59’., long. 105°. 48’., 
between which limits the sea was spread with flakes of Trichodesmivm. In tra- 
versing the Pacific we again found the bug abundantly, some hundreds of miles from 
the American coast, from the 29th August, in lat. 26°. 27’. S., to the 6th September, 
in lat. 29°. 21/.8. Finally, it was found on the voyage home in the Atlantic (January, 
1868), first in lat. 26°. 38’. S., secondly in lat. 4°. 28’. N. From a not minute ex- 
amination of the specimens all seem to pertain to one and the same species. I con- 
clude by stating that this insect, spread over all the tropical seas, certainly does 
not use sea-weed to sustain it on the water, as Coquerel supposed. It was not seen 
in the ‘ Sargasso-sea,’ and the Trichodesmiwm is certainly not sufficient to float it. 
Arich series of individuals from different localities is deposited in the Museum 
of Turin.” 
These notes have a peculiar interest for me as exciting reminiscences of a 
voyage of 13 months’ duration I made when a youth, in 1855-6. This voyage was 
marked by a most immoderate amount of calms (in one case extending to 30 con- 
secutive days in the hottest part of the China Sea), and I lost no opportunity of 
fishing up—and I am sorry now to say, casting away—the, to me, wonderful forms 
always floating around. Long before crossing the line, on the outward voyage, I 
was struck by small whitish creatures which often appeared, coursing with great 
rapidity over the surface of the ocean; at length one was captured, and I well 
remember my astonishment on finding it was a spider-like insect, of the affinities 
of which I then knew nothing. They disappeared, or rather were lost to view, as __ 
soon as a breath of wind caused a ripple on the surface, but were common in that 
most unpleasant form of sea-disturbance in which there are great “smooth” | 
waves, the effect of a recent storm, but with no present wind. In the Atlantic, 
Indian, and Pacific Oceans, it only needed the required state of the sea to bring 
these merry coursers to view, and certainly often without the presence of the | 
smallest piece of floating sea-weed. Those who have voyaged, will bear me out 
