8216 



Insects. 



Melasis buprestoides, Diacanthus holosericeus (very abundant on oak-shoots, and 

 especially where oak-galls are rotten), Malthinus frontalis, Ochina Hederae, Mordellis- 

 tena abdoniinalis, Conopalpus testaceus (both sexes out of oak-boughs), Abdera 

 quadrifasciata (ditto), Rhynchites megacephalus, Apion minimum, A. Spencii, A. ebe- 

 ninum, A! rubens, Balaninus turbatus, Orobitis cyaneus, Coenopsis Waltoni, Nano- 

 phyes Lythri (swarming on Salicaria), Acalles ptinoides, Pachyrinus quadritubercula- 

 tus, Orchestes avellana?, 0. ilicis, Coecinella hieroglyphiea, Tritotna bipustulatum, 

 Scymnus capitatus, Aspidopborus orbiculatus. On the Thames bank near Hammer- 

 smith Bridge (Surrey side), Anchomenus scitulus, Trogophloeus arcuatus, Stenus 

 nitidiusculus, Lesteva punctata, Errirhinus Festucae and Tachyerges Saliceti have been 

 very abundant ; and I also took the following: — Bembidium gilvipes, Stenolophus 

 exiguus, Clivina collaris, Gallicerus obscurus, Ilyobates forticornis, Achenium humile, 

 Ocalea rivularis, Baridius picicornis. — E. C. Rye ; 284, King's Road, Chelsea, S.W. 



Bradycellus collaris. — Any coleopterous readers of the 'Zoologist' will do well to 

 examine their specimens of this insect; all that I have seen are nothing but small B. 

 harpalinus. Dawson notices the great similarity of B. collaris and small examples of 

 B. fulvus, and, as he has confounded B. harpalinus with the latter species, it is no 

 wonder that he found this resemblance. It seems doubtful whether we have B. col- 

 laris at all (if indeed it be a distinct species). — Id. 



A curious Habit of Agabus uliginosus. — I was one morning last week searching 

 along a pond-bank, after a heavy shower of rain, for some Chrysomelidae which I found 

 frequenting the flowers of the common buttercup, when my attention was drawn to a 

 dark creature attached to the stems of some high grass which grew near. Thinking it 

 was one of the genus Carabus, I picked it off, when, to my astonishment, it proved to 

 be Agabus uliginosus. Making further search, I soon found several others in a simi- 

 lar position. They had all climbed the grass-stems as high as they would bear (some 

 eight inches), in fact till they began to bend with the weight ; and these Agabi ap- 

 peared to be holding on tight by their fore legs, and, with their heads drawn inwards, 

 to be revelling in the hot sun. That such an apparently clumsy beetle as the Agabus 

 should perform such a feat as this is a circumstance I think worth recording ; and it 

 also explains the mystery of this insect being sometimes found in the bottom of the 

 net when sweeping long grass and herbage by the side of ditches. The Agabi appear 

 to be fond of sunning themselves, for I have often found A. maculatus on the top of a 

 stone wall, evidently enjoying the blaze of a July sun, and where it could only have 

 got by using its wings ; but attached to the uttermost part of a blade of grass is the 

 last place I should ever have thought of for searching for any of this family. — V. R. 

 Perkins, in ' Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalists 1 Field Club. 1 



Acentropus niveus ; its Characters and Affinities. — Having been myself one of 

 those who ventured a rash guess that this insect was lepidopterous, and this guess 

 having possibly influenced the opinion of some subsequent writers on the subject, I 

 beg to retract, withdraw and cancel this or any other guess I may have ventured, and 

 to admit that I never ought, with such very insufficient knowledge, to have published 

 them. My attention has been again called to the subject by Mr. Cooke's observations 

 (Zool. 8085), which I have read with the most careful attention, but which seem tome 

 to leave the question as far off a solution as ever. Various guesses are adduced in 

 support of the lepidopterous hypothesis. Mr. W estwood has discovered scales, but 

 there are no such scales on the wings of any lepidopteron ; scales far more like those 

 of Lepidoptera occur on the elytra of a thousand beetles : moreover, the character of 



