Volume 9 - Electric Scotland

THE SCOTTISH SPECIES OF THE GENUS HEMEROBIUS 31
The following are the species known from Scotland :
H. nervosus, F., is
widely distributed in Scotland, and is usually
rather common, especially where there is natural birch in quantity.
It is
probably the betulinus of Strom, an older name.
H. subnebulosus, Steph., is very abundant near houses, and is the
Hemerobius of Edinburgh gardens.
H. mortoni, M'L., just described from a pair found at Rannoch
in June 1898, is evidently not rare in the alpine and boreal regions
of Europe. It is remarkable that it should have remained so long
unnoticed, or at least undescribed, by Continental entomologists.
H. marginatus, Steph., is locally common, probably over the
whole of Scotland. Like H. nervosus, it is fond of birch trees. I
have seen it in many localities from Wigtownshire to Inverness.
H. liitescens, Fab., was at one time mixed with If. humuli, and
afterwards confused with H. orotypus, Wallengren. All the published
Scottish records under the last-mentioned name refer to lutescens.
H. humuli, Linn. As indicated, two species were mixed under
this name. I think recent records, at least, will refer to what is here
called humuli.
H. orotypus, Wall. This species is still little known, and is, no
doubt, confused by Continental entomologists with some of the allied
forms. Authentic Continental records are, however, confined to
Scandinavia and the Pyrenees. In the British Isles it has been
taken in Yorkshire, on Exmoor, and in Ireland, as well as in several
Scottish localities. It
may have been referred to previously without
name, but no definite records of its occurrence in Scotland exist
prior to those mentioned at page 189 ante.
If. stigma, is Steph., common wherever there are conifers. The
records are under the name of H. limbatus.
H. pini, Steph. The distribution of this species is uncertain.
I have taken it in Lanarkshire, and it
may be general, but perhaps
not common.
H. atrifrons, M'L., has been recorded from Inverness-shire. It
also occurs in the south, as I took a specimen from Juniperus near
Cockburnspath in Berwickshire.
The last-mentioned two species constitute, with H. limbatellus,
Zett. (not yet known from Scotland), a very closely allied group.
It
may be that they are really forms of one protean species.
H. nitidulus, Fab., and H. micans, Olivier, are rather common
in many localities.
The only Scottish species not yet dealt with by Mr. M'Lachlan
are H. inconspicuus, M'L., and H. concinnus, Steph.
H. inconspicuus has been found in Lanarkshire, Perthshire, and
Inverness-shire, but is usually not common.
H. concinnus is not rare in the pine forest districts of the North,
where its striking variety quadrifasciatus, Reuter, is also found.