430 ■ Anati/tical Notices of Books. 



from this addition M. Latreille has been deterred by the fear of 

 enlarging his publication to too great an extent. His object ap- 

 pears to have been to produce only a single volume as a kind of 

 manual, analogous in some measure to the " Extrait du Cours" 

 of Lamarck, but extending over the whole of the animal kingdom, 

 ^s this latter was subsequently improved and enlarged by its able 

 author into the " Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebres," we trust 

 that the " Families Naturelles" of M. Latreille is merely a fore- 

 mnnei' of a general work, in which, in imitation of his prede- 

 cessor, he will dilate on those subjects especially for which his 

 previous studies have peculiarly qualified him. 



Monograph of the Genus Eucnemis ; hy the Baron de Manner- 

 HEiM,* With Observations by M. Latreille.+ 



Few works on a particular subject are capable of vying with 

 the present, either in its descriptive part, or in the execution of 

 the plates and of the typography, which proves to us that St. 

 Petersburgh possesses artists of equal ability with those of Paris 

 and of London. In his preface, the author passes in review the 

 several changes which have been effected in the genus Elater of 

 Linne, of which Eucnemis formed a part ; but although he ap- 

 pears to be well acquainted with the works on this subject, he is 

 mistaken in attributing to Fabricius the establishment of the 

 genus Melasis. Of this group the characters were first given by 

 Olivier, in the second volume of his Entomology, and Fabricius 

 subsequently adopted it in his Entomologia Systematica. The 

 genus Eucnemis was instituted by M. Ahrens from characters 

 derived from a single species, capucinus^ which has however been 

 since ranked among the Elaters, and even under different trivial 

 names. 



This insect appears to form the transition from the preceding 

 genus to those of Melasis and Throscus^ but it presents peculiar 



* Eucnemis inseotorum genus monographice tractatum, iconibusque illus- 

 tratum, a C. G. libero Barone de Mannerheim. Petropoli, 1823. 8vo. 

 f Extracted from the Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 



