Insects. 3621 



as Elater bipustulatus, abundant in Werrington Park; Pachyta 8-ma- 

 culata at South Petherwin ; Aplotarsus testaceus and Cyphon deflexi- 

 collis in the Rev. H. A. Simcoe's woods at Penheale — a locality per- 

 haps the most profitable in the vicinity, and where I have formerly 

 observed many rare insects, including Leiodes cinnamomea, Phloio- 

 philus Edwardsii, Phytobius Waltoni and Rhinonchus bruchoides, 

 both very abundant on the common Polygonum Hydropiper ; as also 

 Pogonocherus hispidus, Chrysomela Banksii, and the very scarce, 

 though minute, Tychus ibericus, on which specimens alone its admis- 

 sion into the British Fauna (vide Dr. Schaum's note on the Pselaphi, 

 Zool. 1933) rests. The woods at Penheale abound also with the 

 typical Cornish Coleoptera, foremost amongst which, as in those at 

 Newton, stand the Malthini, a genus which appears to be more deve- 

 loped in the damp valleys of the West than in any portion of England 

 which I have hitherto investigated. The same might be said of the 

 moist woods under the lofty Cheese-wring range at Trebartha, where 

 also Sitona cambrica, usually a scarce species, is tolerably common. 

 At Treneglos, where in September, 1844 (Zool. 750), I captured the 

 rare Lebia crux-minor, a singularly dark variety of Chrysomela gemi- 

 nata is found on the common buck-bean, in a swampy part of the val- 

 ley between that village and Warbstow ; as also the rare Gymnaetron 

 Veronica? of Germar, at Treglith, with Thyamis holsatica and Ence- 

 phalus complicans ; and Lamprias chlorocephalus on the open downs 

 towards Tresmeer. 



From this slight sketch it will be perceived how few really uncom- 

 mon species occurred to me, in proportion to the amount of ground 

 passed over during my present summer's campaign. Nor can I regard 

 it in any respect as the result of accident, even though my passage in 

 many spots was so transitory as scarcely to admit of a thorough re- 

 search, since my past experience confirms the same fact, that insect 

 life is really much scarcer in the south-western portion of England 

 than towards the centre or the eastern. In a catalogue of the Coleo- 

 ptera of Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, placed by me some years ago 

 in the hands of the Natural- History Society of Truro, I enumerated 

 nearly 700 species indigenous to the county ; aud it was remarkable 

 how few scarce forms entered into my list. The opposite coast of the 

 Bristol channel, however, is very different; which would tend to prove 

 that longitude has less to do with the characteristic barrenness of 

 Devonshire and Cornwall than other causes, be they geological or 

 climatal, as yet but imperfectly investigated. Lundy Island, situated 

 between the two, though most near, geographically, to Devonshire, 



