^ Bibliographical Notices. 419 



treats upon the species allied to H, alpinum, H. nigrescens and H. 

 pallidum. He has shown, we think satisfactorily, that the H. 

 alpinuM of all our Floras includes several well-marked species. 

 Similarly he states, that several new species occur in each of the 

 other groups represented by the above-named plants ; and also, that 

 some of the names hitherto used in our books (and even in the 

 above-mentioned great work of Fries) are erroneous. 



From his position at York, and various engagements, the author 

 has not been enabled to elucidate the synonymy as much as we could 

 have desired ; neither has he studied some of the Herbaria that we 

 should have recommended to his notice. He has however been 

 supplied with large accurately named collections by Professors Fries, 

 Blytt and Grenier, and has thus had sufficient materials for the 

 determination of the plants described in the ' Symbolse ' and the 

 * Flore de France,' where the French species are described with great 

 skill. He also appears to have had the free use of the large collec- 

 tions of Professors Arnott and Balfour and that of our colleague 

 Mr. Babington. 



We think that he has made a good use of these opportunities and 

 therefore cordially recommend his book to our readers. 



A Rearrangement of the Nomenclature and Synonymy of those 

 species of British Coleoptera which are comprised under the 

 sections Geodephaga, Hydradephaga, and part of Philhydrida, 

 being the first portion of a general British Catalogue. By 

 J. F. Dawson, LL.B., and Hamlet Clark, M.A. London, 

 8vo. 1856. Post free for 12 stamps, on application to the 

 Rev. H. Clark, All Saints, Northampton. 



In the shape of a small pamphlet of ten printed pages, and under 

 the above promising though somewhat indefinite title, we have re- 

 ceived the first instalment of what will certainly be a welcome boon 

 to the collector of British Coleoptera. For years the want of some 

 list of these insects, which, with the Lepidoptera, engross nearly the 

 whole attention of our native entomologists, has been severely felt ; 

 the imperfections of the * Manual of British Beetles,' by the late 

 James Francis Stephens, and of the lists of British insects published 

 by that author and by Mr. Curtis, becoming every year more manifest. 

 Under these circumstances the value of the present undertaking, by 

 authors so well known as careful Coleopterists, must be evident to every 

 entomologist, and we trust that the sale of the present part, of which 

 more than half consists of the nomenclature of the Geodephaga so 

 recently and admirably worked out by Mr. Dawson, may be such as 

 to induce them to continue their enterprise. A certain number of 

 these lists are printed on one side, so as to serve as labels for the 

 cabinet, and the synonyms given appear to be confined to such 

 names as have been quoted by British authors. 



27* 



