146 Richard L. Hoffman 



Southern Pines (A. H. Manee, leg.) lacks the coarse temporal puncta- 

 tion of scopulinum and keys out readily to plagiatum in Lindroth's 

 synopsis. 



In June, 1969, Dr. Thomas C. Barr, Jr. collected a single male of 

 plagiatum on Blackrock Creek in Horse Cove, Transylvania County, 

 North Carolina, and this record in connection with those for Southern 

 Pines and "Maryland" rendered the eventual discovery of plagiatum in 

 Virginia almost certain. 



The first known Virginia specimen was a female obtained amongst 

 a variety of common bembidiids along Cobb's Branch, a tributary to 

 Smith River (about 2 km northwest of Irisburg on Virginia Highway 

 750), Henry County, Virginia, on July 14, 1980. These beetles were not 

 identified until a week later, so that the immediate return visit to the site 

 occurred only near the end of July. It did not produce any further spec- 

 imens of plagiatum, nor did subsequent spot-checks made even later in 

 the summer. However, sampling on April 18, 1981, yielded an adult 

 male, and two females were found on May 2, 1981. The yellow elytral 

 spots were conspicuous enough that the species could be recognized in 

 the field without magnification, and it was possible to associate individ- 

 uals with their precise biotope. On May 28, 1981, another male was 

 found along the Sandy River (upstream of its crossing by Virginia 

 Highway 855), Pittsylvania County, about 14 km northeast of the 

 Cobb's Branch locality. Sampling at both these localities later in the 

 summer of 1981 produced no additional specimens. 



Two additional new localities came to my attention serendipitously. 

 In reporting my Virginia finds to Dr. Terry Erwin, he recalled having 

 located a specimen in the California Academy of Sciences collected at 

 Phillipsburg, New Jersey, June 25, 1915, by J. W. Green. While examin- 

 ing the type specimen of plagiatum at Harvard on my behalf, Dr. A. F. 

 Newton, Jr. located an individual — overlooked by Lindroth — in the 

 Horn Collection labeled only "Allegheny, Pa." and identified as this 

 species in Horn's handwriting. The original hamlet of Allegheny no 

 longer occurs on most maps, the place having long since been consumed 

 in the urban spread of Pittsburgh. 



At the two Virginia localities, plagiatum was found only on gravel- 

 sand bars with i surface coating of fine damp silt, about 0.5 to 1 m 

 above water le ?' and 2 or 3 m removed from the edge. The only asso- 

 ciated member v the genus here was B. inaequale but the biotope was 

 shared by thf tachyine Elaphropus vivax (LeConte) and the staphylinids 

 Geodromicus brunneus Say, Homaeotarsus bicolor (Gravenhorst), Phi- 

 lonthus sp., Scopaeus sp., and Lissobiops serpentinum (LeConte). Along 



