98 
Psyche 
[April 
JEGIALIA AREN ARIA MULS. IN NEW ENGLAND, 
WITH LOCAL RECORDS FOR OTHER SPECIES 1 
By P. J. Darlington, Jr. 
On Apr. 4, 1925, the writer took over three hundred spe- 
cimens of the European Aegialia arenaria Muls. crawling on the 
sun-heated sand of the dunes and, especially, of the beach near 
Ipswich, Mass., where it was evidently thoroughly established. 
In general form this species resembles A. opifex Horn, but is 
stouter and much larger, about five mm. in length. It may be at 
once distinguished from all our previously known species by its 
virtually impunctate pronotum and greatly reduced inner wings, 
which are not over half the length of the elytra and which are 
thin and unsuited for flight. Later in the season, notably May 
22, 1926, it was found on the sand more sparingly, and was taken 
under deeply buried logs a little above tide line. The species was 
more common on the beach proper than on the adjacent higher 
dunes, while the exact opposite seems to be true of the func- 
tionally winged A. opifex , a species which has been taken in 
numbers at the same locality in May, but not at all in April. The 
first difference may be explained as a specific ethological pref- 
erence or by the fact that the awkward, flightless arenaria is 
blown off the heights which its more active relative easily attains 
The ethological explanation is the more satisfactory, for all our 
other New England species range inland, while this is apparently 
unwilling or unable to leave the coast. Arenaria is, however, 
frequently seen rolling along the sand before the wind, and is oc- 
casionally blown into the ocean and washed into the local drift. 
Whether this species, now locally so common, is introduced 
or native it is impossible to say at present, but it is difficult to 
see how a flightless species of its habits could have crossed the 
Atlantic to such a comparatively remote point as Ipswich. The 
species seems to be quite absent on the beaches near Lynn, which 
is much nearer Boston than is the region in which it occurs, 
though I have searched as thoroughly in one place as the other. 
It seems significant that the range of the species in Europe, the 
entire northern area and Great Britain, is similar to that of 
Contributions from the Entomological Laboratory of the Bussey Insti- 
tution, Harvard University, No. 284. 
