68 Description of New 



from August to October, just after the rains. Nowhere have 

 I seen, nor do I expect to see, such swarms of Cicindeke — 

 their buzzing flight when disturbed was heard like that of 

 bees. It appeared to me that they did not quit the sands, 

 their favourite haunts, when the tide rose, but allowed them- 

 selves to be covered over by the water, as other semiaquatie 

 beetles do. Without especially hunting for them, I brought 

 away with me some 10 species, mostly new, and amongst the 

 rest of the Carabida? as many Bembidia. In this Island, both 

 in the hills and the plains, there is not a bank of a pond, lake 

 or river, which has not, as in more northern latitudes, its 

 Bembidia, and, contrary to what one would expect, they 

 appear to be more common in the hot low country than in 

 the cool hill region. The majority of the species described 

 below may any day be found upon the banks of the Colombo 

 lake. None of the species which, as I said, must have found 

 their way with my collections to Berlin and Stettin, and 

 thence perhaps elsewhere, have, to my knowledge, been de- 

 scribed ; the descriptions given below, must, therefore, I am 

 fain to believe, be an interesting addition to the literature of 

 this section of the Carabidas, however inferior they may be to 

 what they might have been had they been produced in Eu- 

 rope and the insects been collated with allied typical species. 

 I have none of those typical representatives of the gen. at 

 hand nor is my recollection of them sufficiently distinct to 

 permit of my drawing comparisons between them and the 

 Ceylon insects now before me. Nevertheless, I hope I have 

 set forth the peculiarities of my species with sufficient pre- 

 cision to distinguish them from, or identify them with any 

 other Cis-himalayan species that may hereafter be described. 

 As a hopeless confusion appears to exist amongst the sub- 

 genera, into which the original genus has been broken up, I 

 have not attempted to refer my species to any of them for 

 fear of thereby doing anything but throwing additional light 



