Notices of New Books . 3877 



" Smooth galls on the leaves of the beech. 



" Smooth galls on the leaves or buds of the lime. 



" Galls on the dyer's green- weed, [Genista tinctoria). 



" Galls on the bryony and the box-wood. 



" Galls and excrescences on Salix alba, S. purpurea, and S. fragilis. 



" Large gall on the stalk of Hieracium sabaudum and Cnicus 

 arvensis." — p. 111. 



In his paper u On the Frugivorous Habits of the Geodephaga," Mr. 

 Hardy gives the following examples of this apparent aberration of in- 

 sect appetite, which have fallen under his own observation : — 



" It is now, I believe, agreed on all hands, that Zabrus gibbus oc- 

 casionally feeds upon grain ; and some of the larvae of Amarae have 

 been ascertained to be vegetable feeders. This, however, is the 

 amount of information that we possess on the subject : all the other 

 beetles of this division have been ranked as carnivorous, an inference 

 drawn principally from the structure of their mouth and stomach. 

 Notwithstanding this, however, it appears that several of those so- 

 called Carnivora mix with their stronger meals a certain proportion of 

 vegetable diet. Of the Amarae I have observed two feeding on plants : 

 — Amara plebeia, which often mounts Poa annua to feed on the pol- 

 len ; and A. familiaris, which tears open the capsule of the mouse-ear 

 chickweed {Cerastium viscosum), and devours the half-ripened seeds. 

 Omaseus melanarius, a well-known destroyer of earth-worms, I have 

 detected eating the nearly ripe seeds of the hemp-nettle, (Galeopsis 

 Tetrahit). Curtonotus piceus is well known to occur frequently upon 

 the knapweed, and to thrust its head down amongst the seeds, with, it 

 was supposed, the intention of obtaining the dipterous maggots that 

 feed upon the seeds of the plant. I have now little doubt that its 

 object is the seeds alone, as only yesterday I found one employed in 

 a similar manner upon the bog-thistle, after it had devoured the skin 

 of one of its seeds, the interior having been eaten before my arrival. 

 I afterwards saw another pull up a seed from the head of an autumnal 

 dandelion (Apargia autumnalis), and then proceed to make a meal 

 of it. Calathus cisteloides will probably be found to have similar ha- 

 bits. One evening I found four individuals near the summits of the 

 rag-wort ; but they observed my approach, and either hid themselves 

 amongst the foliage, or dropped to the ground." — p. 123. 



