7110 Insects. 



old and valued correspondent Mr. Rye, hunting for Badi'ster peltatus, which I 

 had found there the two preceding years. On his leaving me I was joined by my 

 friend the Rev. W. Hey, of York, and with him I spent another day in search of B. 

 peltalus. We were raiher too early to find many insects out (it being the lllh of 

 April in a backward season), but by cutting down the banks in thin layers, and 

 shaking tussocks of grass over an oil-cloth, we took about sixty B. peltatus between 

 us, besides such insects as Stenolophus Skrirashiranus, Bembidium fumigatum, Ste- 

 nus latifrons, S. paganus, and Cryptobium fraclicorne. The next day we visited 

 Cowbit Wash, near Spalding, almost the only undrained fen in Lincolnshire. It is a 

 singular country, and, to any one who has never seen a fen, must have a very striking 

 appearance. It is a wide expanse of water, diversified here and there by green fields 

 and osier-beds, bounded only by the horizon, excepting where the Roman banks, so 

 conspicuous in this part of England, intervene. Even in this dreary region we found 

 inhabitants, one of whom punted us across the water, in a boat about the size of a 

 coffin, to the neighbourhood of an osier-bed. Had our time been longer and the sea- 

 son a little more advanced, we might perhaps have taken Claenius holosericeus, Dro- 

 mius longiceps, Trechus incilis, and other things at present only dreamed of, for 

 everything had a very promising appearance. From an osier-bed, in old pieces of 

 turf, and by cutting down rotten stumps, we obtained Anchomenus liveus (4), of which 

 I took a pair a few miles from Cowbit, in September, 1858, A. piceus, A. micans, Pte- 

 rostichus gracilis, Badister uuipustulatus, Stenolophus Skrimshiranus, S. vesperti- 

 nus, S. consputus (20), S. luridus, Bembidium aeneum (abundant), and, rather 

 strangely, Bledius tricornis many miles from salt water. A friend of mine in this 

 neighbourhood, Mr. H. Milnes, has lately been so fortunate as to take a specimen of 

 the very rare Amara rufocincta on the high ground above Cromford, which he very 

 kindly presented me. Of the same insect I took a pair in Ayton quarries, near Scar- 

 borough, in July, 1858. — Waller K. Bissill ; Cromford, Derbyshire, June 12, 1860. 



Occurrence of Laccophitus variegatus in the South of England. — I am indebted to 

 the Rev. Hamlet Clark for beautiful specimens of Laccophilus variegatus, a small 

 hydradephagous beetle, entirely new to this country, but tolerably common over the 

 whole of France. Fairmaire's very accurate description, which I transcribe, will en- 

 able any one to recognise the species : — " Form elongate-oval, narrowed posteriorly, 

 rounded and depressed. Colour testaceous-red, the crown of the head, the base of the 

 prothorax and [the middle of its anterior margin blackish : elytra covered with irre- 

 gular and almost confluent black spots, giving them a brownish tint, with the exter- 

 nal margin and two spots on each elytron of the red-brown ground-colour ; the first of 

 these spots is semicircular, transverse, and situated a little beyond the base ; the 

 second is also transverse, irregular, and situated a little behind the first, and beyond 

 the middle of the elytron : the reflexed portion of the elytra is testaceous, inclining to 

 red." — Edward Newman. 



Telephorus rusticus.— Is it generally known that this insect is carnivorous ? If 

 not, it may interest Coleopterists to hear that when Telephorus lividus cannot indulge 

 himself in probing the nectaries of the May or other flowers he can condescend to more 

 substantial, though less ethereal diet. I spent some lime this morning in watching 

 the operations of a T. rusticus, who had found himself imprisoned on my window, and 

 observed him feeding on the abdomen of a large fly, which had been captured by a 

 spider, whose den was not far oS", a couple of days before, and was already pretty well 

 sucked. The Telephorus was evidently hungry, for, on finding that the spider had 



