218 (Febmary, 
Occu/rrence m Britain of Homalota ritfotestacea, Kraatz. — I have identified an 
insect taken by Mr. G. C. Champion (by casual sweeping in Headley Lane, Mickle- 
ham, in the month of April) with the above-mentioned elegant species, of which a 
desci-iption will be found in Ins. Deutschl., ii, p. 245, 48. 
It belongs to Dr. Kraatz's 4th group of the genua, in which the six penultimate 
joints of the antennas are strongly transverse, the elytra are larger than the thorax, 
the abdomen is parallel, &c. The normal size appears to be about that of H. 
elongatula, and the whole insect is elongate, linear, with smooth shining abdomen, 
and quadrate thorax. In colour it is pitchy -brown, with the antennae, fi'ont of 
head, legs, and apex of abdomen testaceous ; the thorax is rnfo-testaceous, and 
the abdomen has the 5th segment and the margins of some of the other segments 
usually pitchy. 
Mr. Champion's insect seems to differ from Kraatz's description solely in size, 
it being considerably smaller than 1^ lin. (Germ.). — E. C. Rye, 7, Park Field, 
Putney, S.W., January, 1869. 
Note on Balaninus cerasorum and B. ruhidiis. — Referring to my remarks upon 
these two insects in the " Annual " for 1869, I may add that M. J. Desbrochers 
des Logea, in his recently commenced monograph of the European Balaninidw and 
Antlwnomida (Ann. de la Soc. Ent. de France, viii, 1868, 358 et seq.) gives them 
as separate species without the slightest commentary of suspicion as to the possi- 
bility of their identity. He refers to the sexes of each, and gives for ruhidus (on 
account of the slight sexual difference in the length of its rostrum, which he notes) 
the following additional male characters : — "Pygidium more exposed and pubescent, 
and sutural angle of elytra more marked." M. des Loges, in addition to the 
characters mentioned by me, states that the eyes are farther apart and the frontal 
depression is deeper in ruMdus than in cerasorum; he also refers to a difference in 
the club of the antennae of the two insects, which he describes as oval, slightly 
elongate, acuminate at the apex, and sub-rotundate at the base in the former, and 
merely as oval and contracted at each extremity in the latter. 
M. des Loges adopts the name of tesselatus, Fourcroy, for the insect known to 
us as B. turhatus, and reinstates Marsham's glanddum, which is much prior in date 
to vcnosus, Germ. — Id. 
Note on the Donacia geniculata and D. Icevicollis of Thomson. — The reference to 
these species, from the Zoological Record, to which I drew attention at page 198 
of the present volume, though correct in fact, is not sufi5ciently explanatory. 
An examination of Thomson's descriptions (Sk. Col. viii, p. 123) shews that 
the former of them is the B. aquatica of Waterh. Cat. (Comari, Ahrens, Suffr.), and 
the latter is the universally recognized D. sericea {Proteus, Steph.). D. aquatica of 
Linnaeus, which Mr. Waterhouse has identified, by means of the collection of that 
author, with the insect known to us by that name, is referred to dentipes, Gyll., by 
Thomson, who remarks that the so-called original examples of aquatica have little 
or no weight, since Mr. Waterhouse gives Comari, Suffr., as a synonym of that 
species, notwithstanding Linnaeus' description clearly shows that he had dentipes 
before him, under which species Gyllenhal also quotes Linnaeus' aquatica. 
Linnaeus' sericea Thomson considers inapplicable to any Swedish species, on 
