20 



[June, 



Curious locality for Ischnomera raelanura. — This insect is now taken occasionally 

 out of the floor of a calenderer's shop hero ; which floor is constructed of octagonal 

 blocks of wood, once forming the pavement of St. Ann's Square in this city of 

 smoke, and which were taken up about twenty years ago and sold by the Corpora- 

 tion. I should never have thought of such a locality for it. — T. Morley, 29, John 

 Street, Pendleton, Manchester, A'pril, 1868. 



Note on Bruchus pisi. — Mr. C. G. Barrett, of Haslemere, has sent mo several 

 specimens of this insect, which, though acknowledged to be an introduced species, 

 cannot be very generally distributed in England, as I have never seen a live speci- 

 men before. It is readily separable from the common B. rufimanus by the red 

 colour on its middle legs, its silvery pygidium with two black spots, &c. Mr. 

 Barrett notices that some of the peas in which he found the beetles (and which 

 were bought at Guildford, and at first believed to have been grown in Essex, — 

 though further enquiry throws the suspicion of a possibility of Canadian origin 

 upon them) had a covering of skin still remaining over the round hole wherein the 

 Bruchus was ensconced ; showing that each beetle must have fed up in a single 

 pea, and not have commenced from the outside. Considering the bulk of the 

 insect, Mr. Barrett remarks, with reason, that this amount of food seems very 

 small.— E. C. Rye, 7, Park Field, Putney, S.W. 



Note on the habits of Hylesinus. — H. fraxini is now busy depositing eggs in an 

 old ash-tree here. The beetles bore into the deeper bark and then drive a transverse 

 gallery, branching from the entrance about equally in opposite directions. In each 

 gallery there are invariably two of the beetle, which, from their difference in size 

 (for I can see no other character), I suspect are male and female. Eggs are laid 

 in both branches of the gallery ; and there is sometimes a beetle in each branch, 

 though sometimes both are in one. Out of some scores (I may say hundreds), I 

 have never found either one beetle or three beetles in a gallery. In the same tree 

 I found one gallery of H. crenatus, also containing two beetles, apparently male and 

 female. The pretty little H. vittatus abounds here in bark of a wych-elm. — 

 T. Algernon Chapman, Abergavenny, 7th May, 1868. 



Capture of Deleaster dichrous. — I have had the pleasure within the last fortnight 

 of taking about 40 examples of this, I believe, hitherto esteemed rare Staph. It is 

 to be found flying between the hours of five and seven o'clock in the evening, and 

 is, no doubt, where it occurs, exceedingly common ; as at Croydon, where I took my 

 specimens on two occasions, with an interval of a week between each, their 

 numbers seemed not to have diminished. The mode I adopted was to stand in 

 one place facing the sun, and watch them come sailing gently along. A net was 

 not requii'ed, as I could catch them in my hat (once to the terror of a horse). As 

 soon as the eye gets used to their flight, they are readily to be separated from the 

 numerous other creatures on the wing at the same time, such as the small Labia, 

 &c. Of course the weather must be bright, and not a breath of wind stirring. — 

 John Scott, 23, Manor Pari:, Lee, Lewisham, S.E., 12f;j May, 18G8. 



