19180 131 



made, it would be found that the percentage of stjlopization would 

 become less and less, and probably by June 1st, when the female at 

 least of A. wilhella is still abundant, few stylopized individuals would 

 occur. Unless in a given area all the examples possible of a species are 

 collected during its whole season, percentages of stylopization in bees 

 are entirely misleading. Even then the percentage of stylo])ized examples 

 will be overestimated on figures drawn from captures. Stylopized 

 examples are, as a rule, extremely eas}- to capture and rarely fly far from 

 the breeding-place. Thus, on May 4th most of the healthy male bees 

 were flying in the wildest manner high up along the hedge and many, no 

 doubt, were out of I'each. Some st^dopized males were behaving like 

 these, but most were easily captured low down or on flowers. As the 

 grass of the pasture becomes grazed down, the healthy female bees will 

 go elsewhere for their pollen, for the gorse is already past its prime. 

 The burrows of the bees are scattered here and there throughout the 

 length of this large field, and the chance of intercepting an}' considerable 

 proportion of the healthy females as they return to their nests is small. 

 For these reasons it would be in vain to try to secure an approximately 

 accurate percentage of the stylopization. One may learn, however, that 

 while male Sfylops is quite a common insect, under favourable con- 

 ditions, it is much easier to secure it in numbers b}^ actual captm'e 

 than by breeding from caught specimens of the host, unless, indeed, the 

 latter can be dug from the burrows, before the bees have ever flown. 

 Although we were in the field before the wilhella were astir, in order 

 that we might obtain them on their first appearance, yet so quickly, as a 

 rule, does the Stylops emerge that only in one or two (accidental) cases 

 was the puparium still occupied. 



Paignton. 



May eth, 1918. 



SCAPHIUM IMMACULATUM Oliv. AN ADDITIONAL GENUS AND 

 SPECIES TO OUR LIST OF BRITISH COLEOPTERA. 



BY PHILIP HARWOOD, F.E.S. 



It is with pleasure I have to record the capture of this striking 

 addition to our fauna. I took a single specimen in moss on April 21st, 

 near St. Margaret's Bay, Kent, and three others on May 4th, about 

 twenty yards from the same spot. 



Scaphium immaculatum Oliv., apart from its wholly black elytra, 

 may be readily distinguished from Scaphidium quadrimaculatum Oliv. 

 by the shorter basal joint of the posterior tarsi, the anteriorly contracted, 



