4o6 NOTES ON NEW AND RARE LOCAL BEETLES. 



NOTES ON NEW AND RAEE LOCAL BEETLES. 



I. — Triplax bicolor, GylL, a species of Coleoptera new to the 

 British Catalogue. 



By Richard S. Bagnall, F.E.S. 



[Reprinted, by permission, from the " Entomologist's Monthly 

 Magazine," Second Series, vol. xvi.] 



Early one morning in July, 1904, I came across a piece of 

 fungus growing on elm, in Gibside, in which occurred two 

 species of Triplax, and about a fortnight later the same 

 species were met with in some numbers at the same locahty 

 (Ent. Mo. Mag., 1904, p. 210; Ent. Record, 1904, p. 260). 

 The commoner of the two, which was in hundreds, was easily 

 identified as T. anea, Schall., an insect usually regarded as 

 rare, but which I had taken not infrequently before in this 

 locality ; the others I supposed to be immature specimens of 

 T. rtissica, L., knowing them to be unlike any other species of 

 British Erotylidcz, and at the same time having no example of 

 russica with which to compare my captures. I sent specimens 

 of both insects to Mr. Holland, as well as to many other 

 coleopterists, and in a letter dated December 12th, 1904, Mr. 

 Holland stated that my supposed russica could not possibly 

 be that species, as on comparing them with authentic russica 

 he found several specific characters which at once separated 

 them from the latter ; he thought that they would prove to be 

 T. bicolor, of Gyllenhal, described by him in the " Insecta 

 Suecica," vol. i., p. 205. This letter came at a very opportune 

 moment, shortly before I left for Edinburgh to spend a few 

 days with Prof. Beare, where, with his kindly assistance, Mr. 

 Holland's surmise was found to be correct. 



In the European Catalogue, and in Ganglbauer's " Die 

 Kafer von Mitteleuropa," vol. iii., p. 643, certain species of 

 the genus Triplax are separated off into the subgenus 

 Platichna, Th. Of those which are now known to occur in 

 Great Britain only bicolor belongs to Platichna; the other 



