THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER 
167 
leries amongst the blossoms. — Professor 
Zeller, Gross Glogau ; August 8. 
Apatura Iris. — The following extract 
from Harris should satisfy your corre- 
spondent as to the condition of this fly 
during the winter. The fact of the 
larvae being full-fed at the end of May 
would indicate that they had emerged 
from the egg in the previous year, and 
passed the winter in the larva state: — 
“Mr. Nixon took a female, which laid 
five eggs the 21st of July, three of which 
produced caterpillars the 6th of August. 
This gentleman endeavoured to raise 
them, and tried them with several sorts 
of growths; hut the sallows being omitted, 
they all pevished.” — Moses Harris, ‘The 
Aurelian,’ Lond. 1766, p. 7. — Thomas 
Chapman, Glasgow ; August 15. 
Erebia Blandina. — This species was in 
plenty in rushy flats this week all along 
the east side of Loch Long, extending 
for twelve miles. — Ibid. 
COLEOPTERA. 
August is a “ slack time ” (as the farmers 
would express it) for the Coleopterist, at 
any rate in the lower country, for many 
of the summer species are beginning to 
become scarce, and the autumnal ones 
have not yet made their appearance; 
nevertheless, if the collector will only 
proceed to the proper districts, he need 
not become rusty from disuse even 
during this scorching and comparatively 
unprofitable month. The moorlands, 
which we alluded to in our last notice, 
are now perhaps at their maximum of 
productiveness; and the mountains will 
also repay the labour of an investigation ; 
nevertheless, as we have already com- 
mented on both of these in late numbers 
of the ‘ Intelligencer,’ we will not advert 
to them again. 
In the less-elevated districts, the water- 
net might be now brought into play with 
considerable advantage ; for of all the 
instrumenla belli with which the Co- 
leopterist is accustomed to do battle, 
there is not one perhaps so appropriate to 
the present season as it. Unfortunately, 
however, many of our modern amateurs 
would seem to entirely ignore the Dytis- 
cidce, in their researches; and partly, it 
may be, from the aversion which they 
inherit for dabbling in muddy pools, and 
the deep, black ditches of our glorious 
fens, a Hydradephagous sportsman (if 
we may be excused the expression) is 
now-a-days an anomaly, — a rara avis 
in terra. Yet few who have devoted 
themselves to this interesting family 
have ever repented of their choice ; for, 
although gaudy colours, and much diver- 
sity of outline, do not certainly exist, the 
Dyliscidce have, nevertheless, abundant 
charms of their own, to compensate for 
their structural monotony and lack of 
splendour. They have the advantage, 
moreover, of being found almost every- 
where, from the puddle on the road -side 
to the rapid mountain-stream. 
Where such can be obtained, perhaps 
the large ditches (or “ lodes,” as they are 
termed) of our alluvial tracts will be 
found richer in water-beetles than the 
generality of either rivers or ponds. 
In such places the rare Hydaticus cine- 
reus used to be tolerably abundant in the 
fens of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon ; 
as also the Colymbeies rectus, Ilybius 
Grapii, and the Hydroporus oblongus 
and granularis, — both there and in Nor- 
folk. The II. Scalesianus (so long 
unique in the Stephensian Cabinet) has 
been lately taken pretty plentifully by 
Mr. Hey, near York ; and it would pro- 
bably be brought to light in many other 
localities, if searched for. 
Ditches which occur in marshes near 
the sea, such as those at Southend and 
Sheppey, are often exceedingly prolific, — ■ 
abounding ( inter alia) with the II. con- 
Jluens and parallelogrammus ; and where 
they arc more decidedly saline, the Phil- 
