Insects. 541 1 



Ilybius obscurus. Common. 



„ guttiger. Not frequent. 

 Agabus agilis. Sparingly. 

 „ uliginosus. Rare. 

 „ abbreviatus. Most abundant. 

 „ afBnis. Very frequent. 

 Hydroporus deeoratus. Very abundant during the present )ear, but] hardly to be 

 found last year. 



„ picipes. A single example. 



„ rufifrons. Frequent during the earlier months. 



„ nitidus, Slurm (— oblongus, Steph.). Eight examples have occurred 



during the present year. 



„ memnonius. Rare. 



„ Gyllenhallii. Not frequent. 



„ tristis. Occasionally. 



„ umbrosus. Occasionally. 



„ angustatus. Occasionally. 



„ obscurus. Occasionally. 



„ Scalesianus. Of this insect I have taken more than one hundred 

 examples this year. 



„ granulans. Frequent. 

 The names are according to Dawson and Clark's Catalogue. — William Hey; 

 Clifton, York, November 4, 1856. 



Note on Tomicus bidens, with a Description of Tomicus bispinus. — Recently, when 

 looking over Mr. Guyon's description of Bostrichus bispinus (Zool. 4815), it occurred 

 to me that the species there indicated was not bispinus, Meg., but bidens, Fab. On 

 turning to such books as were within reach I was confirmed in this opinion. Fabricius 

 I have not. Panzer gives a figure of bidens (F. 39, f. 21), which, although somewhat 

 rude, has the " claw-shaped " tooth, on the retuse part of the elytra, clearly defined. 

 Gyllenhal, Ins. Suec. (iii. 357, 5), distinctly meniions the hook-shaped (hamato) tooth 

 of the male. Stephens, both in his ' Illustrations' (iii. 357) and ' Manual' (1636), 

 gives "a single large slightly bent tooth on the upper edge of the excavation," as the 

 specific character. More recently, Bach, in his ' Kaferfauna fur Nordund Mittel- 

 deutchland' (ii. 129), characterizes this species by the large claw-shaped tooth 

 (" einem grossen, hakenformigen, nach abwarts gekriimmten zahne"). Panzer, 

 Gyllenhal and Bach alike find it in the bark of Pinus sylvestris, Gyllenhal remarking 

 that it is found in the young branches of that tree. T. bidens is a common species in 

 our district, principally affecting the Scotch pine, but in one or two instances I have 

 taken it in larch: it prefers the shoots and tops of recently-felled young trees, in 

 which it runs its galleries in all directions, generally commencing at the base of the 

 twigs: a pair, male and female, seldom more, are found in each burrow: it occurs 

 throughout the summer. I have, by the courtesy of a kind friend, a species of 

 Tomicus, from the Isle of Wight, which I regard as the true bispinus, aud not being 

 aware of any English description of that species, I have attempted to supply the 

 deficiency. 



TOMICHUS BISPINUS. 



Bostrichus bispinus, Megl., Bach K'dfer., ii. 129, 9. 

 Cylindrical, brown, slightly glossy, rather thickly covered by a long griseous 



