Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/366

338 tained all the activity of the larvæ when touched, but otherwise they remained at rest in one part of the leaf, which just there had an inflated appearance. I brought home with me several of the leaves, and on the 26th of June the perfect insect emerged by making an aperture in the leaf. The leaves of the beech, I observed, had been attacked in a similar way, and to as great an extent, but the depredator had escaped from his cover. I beat a great number of Orchestes Fagi from the trees, and have no doubt they had done the deed."— ' The Entomologist,' p. 157.

Note on the blighted appearance of the Oak Trees.—

A brief postscript to my last communication respecting the withered appearance of the oak and ash trees in Yorkshire this summer. I was in the neighbourhood of Thirsk a short time since, when the same fact was pointed out to me by a lady, as having been observed by her, and it was indeed as apparent there as here. The oak trees now, however, have assumed a new foliage in repair of their previous deficiency; and the light yellow and dark green leaves present a singular and striking contrast. Until lately it would have been hard to meet with a tree offering anything like a hidingplace for King Charles, had he had the fortune to have lived a couple of hundred years later than he did, though in that case I hope he would not have needed one for that purpose. "A song for the oak, the brave old oak That stands in his pride alone; And still flourish he, a hale green tree, When a hundred years are gone." —Francis Orpen Morris; Crambe Vicarage, September, 1843.

Notes on the British species of Carabus. Though several of the species of Carabus are so generally distributed through England, as to be reckoned among our commoner Geodephagous insects, I think it will be found on investigation that even these are in some measure local, or occur in far greater numbers in some districts than in others. Thus, Carabus violaceus, which is by far the most numerous in South Gloucestershire, is much less frequent near Oxford than C. nemoralis and C. cancellatus, the latter of which is of rather rare occurrence in the former locality: while C. catenulatus, which Stephens and other writers describe as abundant, is (as far as my experience goes) very sparingly distributed in the midland counties, where I do not think I have taken a dozen specimens in all. C. monilis, though not plentiful anywhere, seems to be very generally distributed throughout England and Ireland: I think it is in some measure a southern species, as I have found the specimens from the southern coasts, particularly from Cornwall, larger and more brilliant in colour, as well as more numerous, than in the more northern and inland districts. About Oxford, C. nemoralis is decidedly a vernal species, and crushed specimens are found, literally in hundreds, about the paths, in April and May. C. cancellatus is later in its appearance, and more nocturnal in its habits, and hybernates in considerable numbers under the bark and at the foot of the trees in Christchurch meadow—a tract which, being surrounded by water on three sides, and by buildings on the other, is almost a preserve for Coleoptera, and affords many species not elsewhere common in the district. In the August evenings 1 have found numbers of this species on a particular part of the foot-path between Oxford and Iffley, which then swarms with young toads just emerging from the tadpole state, on which the Carabi were busily preying. Several specimens of Goerius olens