1889.] 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



Gossiping Notes on British Coleoptera. 



By G. A. LEWCOCK. 

 III. HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 



At the time these papers were first suggested, it appeared to me that 

 a compilation of this character would be very much like going over 

 other people's ground and treading in their footsteps, but it was urged 

 that works on Coleoptera were very expensive and often intensely 

 scientific, and that a series of papers, which should embody the per- 

 sonal experience of the members of the City of London Entomological 

 and Natural History Society, and that of their friends, together with 

 as much other information as it was possible to collate, respecting 

 the occurrence and capture of the various species of this order, would 

 be acceptable not only to the members of that Society, but also to 

 other students. It was likewise stated that " the question of localities 

 frequently proved a source of great trouble to anyone beginning the 

 study of lepidoptera and other orders of insects, and this arose chiefly 

 from the fact that the literature on the subject was calculated as much 

 to mislead as to direct the student in his researches."* Moreover, it 

 was argued that experienced collectors, who have spent much time 

 in diligently working up localities for their favourite genera, do not 

 care to point out the exact place from whence they have obtained 

 their captures : thinking, perhaps, that were they to do so, numbers 

 would flock to their cherished locality, destroy the habitat, and thus 

 exterminate the insects at that spot. 



Mr. E. W. Janson sorrowfully relates an incident of this kind, 

 which occurred to himself. He had written a paper for the Annual, 

 entitled : " Observations on the Myrmecophilous Coleoptera," and 

 therein given directions for the working of ants nests ; he had also 

 enumerated some 36 species found in this habitat, and half promised 

 an essay dealing more fully with the subject in the succeeding year. 

 His plan for obtaining beetles from the nests of Formica rufa was as 

 follows : — " Having conveyed a supply of large rough stones — smooth 

 ones will not do — or, failing these, bricks, to the wood which is to be 

 the scene of action, and where, I presume, are found at least several 

 colonies of the ant ; place three or four of them on the hillock on its 

 sloping sides ; treat all the nest in the same manner. The nests must 

 be visited as frequently as practicable during the greater part of the 

 year ; nearly all the beetles enumerated in the subjoined list as co- 



■K- The quotations in this article, unless otherwise stated, are from a paper ex- 

 pressly written for me by Mr. H. Cripps. 



