﻿mo.] 183 



Mr. Syme adds that he has received many plants from the Canaries, and very 

 likely the beetle came in some of these, especially as he took it in the house. 

 These observations fully agree with my own recorded convictions. — Id. 



Hemiptera at Folkestone. — When collecting Coleoptera at Folkestone in June 

 last, I was particularly struck with the abundance of Hemiptera-Heteroptera in the 

 vicinity of that town ; certain of the larger species being especially plentiful. 

 Perhaps the most common was Eurygaster maurus, varying from light drab or grey 

 to a rich deep red-brown. This large and interesting insect was to be seen by the 

 half-dozen, or more, at almost every sweep of the net among the grassy ditches on 

 the hill slopes behind the town. Folkestone is the only locality given for it in 

 Douglas and Scott's " British Ilemiptera ; " and the earliest time therein stated for 

 it and the two species next mentioned, viz., July, may certainly be ante-dated by a 

 clear month. It is excessively difficult, in mounting this bug, to persuade its legs 

 to assume any other but a swimming position on the card. Equally abundant, on 

 all kinds of plants, both in the above-mentioned places and all along the cuttings 

 of the S.E.B. for many miles, was Coreus hirticomis ; and the awkward looking 

 Enoplops scapha occurred, almost as commonly, in similar situations. The prettily 

 coloured Eysarcoris melanocephalus, for which the only locality given in Brit. Hem. 

 is Darenth (where I have taken it in June, on the road near the " Fox "), also fell 

 to my net sparingly ; as did, once, JElioides injlexa, on the Bail way bank close to 

 Sandgate Station : for this insect Folkestone seems anew locality. On the Warren, 

 among large stones in grassy places at the bottoms of the cliffs, I found 

 Stenocephalias agilis, on some half-dozen occasions, when looking for Plinthus. For 

 this insect, which fully acts up to its specific name, both the time and locality ap- 

 pear to be new, as it is only recorded from Devon, in September. On the hill-slopes, 

 I found one example of Corimelcena scarab&oides, which has also occurred to Mr. 

 C. 0. Watei-housc and myself at Carshalton, and used to be taken by the late 

 Mr. Bobertson near Gravesend; these being all new localities. The common 

 Sehirus albomarginatus was, also, frequently to be seen ; and succeeded in "taking in" 

 the unwary writer of these notes, who thought he had found a bag new to Britain, 

 as none of the specimens he found had " the lateral margins of the pronotum 

 yellowish -white,' ' which they should have had, teste British Hemip. Of other plebeians 

 Piezodorus purpureipennis (abundant at Wimbledon, on TJlex), Pentatoma baccarum, 

 and Podops inunctus were especially common. The Schoolmaster of the Hemiptera 

 must have been fearfully abroad in 1860, when the last mentioned bug was recorded 

 in the <: Intelligencer" as confounded with some Cassida ; but I am afraid the 

 number of students of that order in the present year are not so numerous in this 

 country as to justify us in much self-exaltation. 



Of minor species, taken at random, and kindly named for me by Mr. Scott, I 

 may mention Scolopostethus contractus, Peritrechus nubilus, Trapezonotus agrestis, 

 Drymus sylvaticus, Zosmerus capitatu,s, and Monanthia cardui and costata ; none of 

 them, save, perhaps, the last, worth the trouble of recording. 



In the Hymenoptera, I found a specimen of the very curious and (for a Chalets) 

 large Braih.ymeria flavipes, when sweeping on the hill-slopes above referred to. — Id. 



