1672 Insects. 



aeratus (with a fold down the forehead), is without doubt one of the varieties of seneus, 

 the insect under consideration, to which therefore it ought to be referred. My series 

 contains a great number of varieties ; one of which (a black and tolerably common 

 one), corresponds exactly with the tristis of Stephens, having the same " obscure hue 

 and pitchy apex to the elytra " which he describes. The second species referred to, — 

 so abundant in the Huntingdonshire fens, and which I had named minimus of Cur- 

 tis, — whether it be strictly referred to minimus or gibbus I am not able to decide ; but 

 if it be a small variety of the latter (which Mr. Haliday thinks probable), it is cer- 

 tainly a permanent one, for, out of hundreds which I have taken, the size is invariable, 

 and always smaller than the typical size of gibbus. Singularly enough, in a communi- 

 cation which I received a short time ago, from my friend Mr. Dale, be mentions (in 

 answer to a question which I put to him " whether he possessed any Dyschirii), that, 

 when on a visit to Whittlesea Mere, some years ago, he " captured three or four spe- 

 cimens of Dyschirius minimus,'' and this without my having ever disclosed to him that 

 I had also taken there in profusion, what I considered to be the self-same species ; 

 from which it appears that his species and mine must be the same, and that, therefore, 

 if it be not distinct from gibbus, the variety is at least a permanent one. Happening 

 to be there on an entomological trip during June of the present year, I had a good op- 

 portunity of observing the habits of the two species just referred to. Unlike the Hesper- 

 ophili (which are nearly always found in the same localities), they only come out during 

 the heat of the day, and may be seen, running in multitudes on the muddy flats which 

 occur on the sides of the loads and the edges of the mere, and which often, during the 

 winter season, form impassable barriers to the sportsman. By sitting down on the 

 edges of these flats in a scorching sun, I have at times experienced much amusement 

 by seizing the insects as they rushed from one crevice to another, — where, with Dys- 

 chirii and other species, a bottle may very shortly be rilled. In addition to the Dys- 

 chirii,— Georyssus pygmaeus, Heterocerus pusillus, ? Lopha paecila and Doris, Nota- 

 phus undulatus, Peryphus littoralis and Elaphrus cupreus may be seen running in the 

 utmost profusion, with occasional specimens of Dromius bipennifer, Elaphorus uligi- 

 nosus and Omaseus aterrimus. Much in the same locality in Carmarthen, in South 

 Wales, I mighthave taken the common Dyschirius gibbus by tens of thousands, in 1845, 

 on the banks of the river Towey ; it is, however, a species which appears to be equally 

 common on the coast as well as inland, delighting almost as much in the sand, as in the 

 deep peaty soil of the lowlands. In the Isle of Wight, last May, when in company 

 with my friend Mr. Dawson, we could have captured hundreds in a single sand-heap 

 (which had been formed by part of a cliff giving way between Ventnor and Shanklin), 

 in which we found them burrowed to the depth of more than a foot. At Tenby in 

 Pembrokeshire, I have likewise taken the same species, accompanied with a single 

 specimen of the beautiful Dyschirius nitidus; also at Northam Burrows near Bide- 

 ford (on the north coast of Devon), on the sand-hills facing the sea. At Lowestoft, on 

 the coast of Suffolk, I met with a plentiful harvest during the early part of last July, 

 where I obtained a fine series of the species nitidus and thoracicus by the following 

 simple process : — the cliffs being composed of sand, I used to stroll along the beach 

 until I saw a Dyschirius making his way at their base, when instead of immediately 

 taking him up, I sat quietly down and observed to what crevice he was tending ; 

 having watched him safely in, I then split off the sand in extremely thin layers, when 

 numbers of his own species were sure to fall out ; this plan I found far more success- 

 ful than merely splitting away the cliff at random, for the Dyschirii being very grega- 



