506 ELEMENTS OF BRITISH ENTOMOLOGY. 



sued by Mr. Stephens and others, of giving these details of 

 natural history under the family rather than under the gene- 

 ra. The account of each genus is terminated by a list of the 

 names of the species belonging to it, but not a single species 

 is described, so that the student has no means of identifying 

 a single insect. 



Owing to the indefatigable researches of our late writers, 

 Curtis and Stephens, and the still more recent generic Synop- 

 sis of Westwood, much novelty was not to be expected in the 

 list of genera, a few have however been added 1 , not indicated 

 by the writers above mentioned ; they are as follows, namely, 

 Pelecyphorus, Nordmann, (allied to Ocypus and Goerius, 7 - 

 type Staphylinus picipes, Gyll. 3 ); Ocalea, Erichs., (allied to 

 Bolitochara, type Ocal. castanea); Cryptarcha, Shk., (sepa- 

 rated from Strongylus, types Str. strigata and imperialis) ; 

 Pithyophagus, Shk., (separated from Ips, type Ips ferrugi- 

 nea) ; and Pediacus, Shk., (separated from Cucujus, from 

 which we think it is improperly far removed, type Cue. der- 

 mesto'ides). In addition to these novelties, there are various 

 remarks scattered through the book deserving of notice, and 

 proving a careful spirit of observation ; as for instance in the 

 arrangement of the genera of Brachinidae, the observation on 

 the rank of Cychrus, (we cannot however agree that this ge- 

 nus, although so strikingly characterized, is to be considered 

 as equivalent to the entire family Cicindelidce, comprising as 

 it does such diverse forms as Colliuris, Cicindela and Man- 

 ticora) ; the remarks on the anomalous Dytici with double- 

 formed females, the author being of opinion that there must 

 be a recondite character not yet discovered, whereby the 

 males [of the smooth and furrowed backed females] may be 

 separated, thus confirming Mr. Kirby's genus Leionotus for 

 the smooth-backed females; an observation with which we 

 cannot coincide; the remarks on the specific names of Goerius 

 olens, Bolitobius lunulatus, Lomechusa emarginata (which 

 must be rejected from the British Fauna) ; &c. 



1 Some additional genera as well as species might have been added, had 

 the author consulted other recent periodical works, as for instance the 'Bul- 

 letin' of the Moscow Natural-History Society, wherein Chandoir published 

 a new distribution of part of the Harpalida, or the ' Naturalist,' in which 

 Mr. Rylands has described some new British species of Amara. 



2 In a note to this genus is a sweeping condemnation of " modern ento- 

 mologists" for adopting the learning of MoufFet without acknowledgment; 

 the author might have made one exception at least, by referring to the In- 

 trod. to Mod. Classif. of Insects, p. 163. 



3 In introducing this, and some other interesting insects to which we 

 might allude, it would at least have been satisfactory to have mentioned 

 their locality, time of capture, &c. 



