THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
7 
Hardy and Bold, in tlieir instructive 
‘ Catalogue of the Coleoplera of North- 
umberland and Durham,’ 65 — 6 (1851), 
and hy Mr. Andrew Murray, in his ex- 
cellent ‘ Catalogue of the Coleoptera of 
Scotland,’ 119 (1853). 
It would appear, however, that Mr. 
Waterhouse has only just succeeded in 
recognizing the specific characters of the 
present insect, as little more than a week 
has elapsed since my opinion was re- 
quested by a friend on a Philonthus 
transmitted to him by a Scotch collector 
as the Philonthus lucens of Mr. Water- 
house’s Catalogue, and which it was 
stated had been submitted to this gentle- 
man and returned^by him as Philonthus 
lucens, Mannerh, Eric, (a statement con- 
firmed, if I mistake not, by the hand- 
writing of the label attached to the 
specimen), but which proved beyond 
all doubt to be the veritable Philonthus 
scutatus of Erichson, Hardy and Kraatz. 
The first indigenous examples of this 
species which I had an opportunity of 
examining were sent me, under the name 
of “ Philonthus scutatus, Eric.,” on the 
7th of September, 1848, by Mr. T. J. 
Bold, of Newcastle, by whom they were 
“ captured at Long Benton it has also 
been taken by Mr. W. K. Bissill, of 
Scarborough, to whose kindness I am 
likewise indebted for a specimen. As 
regards Philonthus lucens, some of our 
Coleopterists appear to have been misled 
by Erichson comparing it with P. poli- 
tus, and especially by the observation 
appended to his description (Gen. et 
Spec. Staph. 443, 25 [1840] — “A P. 
polito statura paulo breviore, colore ob- 
scuriore et antennarum articulo prime 
concolore facile distinguendus,” but the 
parallel form of P. lucens, its short trans- 
verse head and the posteriorly sub-sinuate 
lateral margins of its prothorax refer it, 
in my humble opinion, to the group of 
which P. ceneus may be taken as the 
type, and of which the following species 
are known to me as indigenous to 
Britain, — P. carbonarius, Gyll., Eric., 
Kraatz. ; P. punctiventris, Kraatz ; P. 
ceneus, Rossi, Eric, Kraatz ; P. scutatus, 
Eric., Hardy, Kraatz ; and P. lucens, 
Mannerh, Eric., Kraatz. 
Although the yellowish brown colour 
of the under side of the basal joint of 
the antennae will usually serve to dis- 
tinguish P. politus at a glance, speci- 
mens sometimes occur in which this joint 
is black or nearly so, and to this variety 
the name of lucens has, I believe, been 
erroneously applied in more than one of 
the metropolitan collections. 
Mr. Waterhouse states that Mr. Bold 
‘‘ regarded ’’ the P. scutatus “ as P. 
lucens ; ” from this it will be inferred 
that Mr. Bold was unacquainted with 
the correct specific appellation of his in- 
sect ; such however is not the case, since 
he sent it to me correctly named fifteen 
years ago : the fact is that Messrs. 
Hardy and Bold merely cite lucens of 
Stephens as a synonym of scutatus, 
Eric. ; the true lucens, Mannerh, Eric., 
Kraatz , is doubtless well known to them, 
since I sent . specimens of it to Mr. 
Hardy as far back as the 26th of July, 
1848, 
Yours, &c., 
E. W. Janson. 
2, Alma Road, Highgate Hill, N. ; 
March 16, 1861. 
[Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit.] 
Insects in the New Forest. — I beg 
to inform my subscribers that I start for 
the New Forest on Monday, April 8th. 
I beg to announce that the total number 
of shares taken up to this time is as 
follows : — 
