Notices of New Books. 4883 



* Entomological Remarks.' By A. H. Haliday, Esq., A.M. 



Besides these contributions to science we cordially commend to the 

 notice of entomological readers the able review with which the number 

 commences : it is intituled ' Recent Works on the Diptera of Northern 

 Europe,' and is very evidently from the pen of that eminent Dipterist, 

 Mr. Haliday. 



Mr. Haliday's ' Entomological Remarks' contains useful informa- 

 tion. On the shore of the creek of Owenbeg river, within a space of a 

 few yards square, he found the following maritime Coleoptera, besides 

 others of less note: — Bradycellus pubescens, Pogonus chalceus, Bem- 

 bidium laterale, Aepus Robinii, Micralymma marinum and Hetero- 

 cerus Marshami. It is remarkable that of this list only the first was 

 known to Mr. Clear as a native of the county Cork. Mr. Haliday had 

 never before seen them all associated. The Aepus, which occurs also 

 near Passage, appears to be confined to those parts of the coast, below 

 high-water mark, where clay comes to the surface. Specimens from 

 Scotland, the gift of Mr. Javet, were exhibited, also Aepus marinus from 

 Strangford. Mr. Haliday was disposed to doubt the importance of the 

 distinctions assigned to the two alleged species, Robinii and marinus. 

 The difference in the armour of the feet led him to suspect that a sexual 

 distinction may have been treated as specific. He quoted the remarks 

 under Ptilium pallidum in the ' Faune Franchise ' of Fairmaire and 

 Laboulbene : " Les angles posterieurs du corselet varient un peu, et il 

 est facile, avec de la bonne volonte, de trouver des angles ' tres obtus' 

 et des angles ' presque droits;' mais selon nous ces deux termes sont 

 fort exageres." Agreeing with Mr. Haliday in the unsatisfactory nature 

 of the diagnostics on which the species Robinii is founded, yet we 

 cannot suppose with him that a sexual has been taken for a specific 

 difference, seeing that from the three great stations of marinus, Devon- 

 shire, Queensferry and Strangford, not a single example of Robinii 

 has been recorded ; surely the sexes are not geographically separated. 

 Mr. Haliday found at Blarney Lake last summer some specimens of 

 Phytobius velatus, of which he possessed before but a single specimen, 

 taken at Holywood. These were partly taken out of the water, partly 

 swept off the stems of Equisetum, when the sun was shining strong. 

 Beck, the discoverer of this species, has remarked that it swims fast 

 and dives. The peculiar natatorial character of the legs was pointed 

 out, being thinly furnished with long hairs, the tarsi without the broad 

 felt-like sole usual in the family, and with scarcely any enlargement 

 or notch of the penultimate joint, but with long claws like those of 

 Elmis,&c.,by which it clings to the submerged plants, My riophyll urn, 



