•232 New Works on the Coleoptera. 



ordinarily termed, beetles or chaffers, (in German, kafer). — 

 This tribe of insects at the present time, certainly reckons 

 a far greater number of votaries than the gay and attractive 

 tribes of butterflies, which, in the earlier days of entomo- 

 logical science, were so much more generally collected. — 

 Whether we are to attribute this still extending partiality 

 to the endless variety of form and structure presented to 

 our contemplation by the countless species of Coleoptera, 

 or to the facility with which, from the strong consistence of 

 their external envelope, they are preserved, is immaterial ; it 

 is sufficient to know that throughout Europe, save only in 

 Turkey, (for we never yet heard of a Turkish entomologist, 

 although there are many in Hungary, whose lucubrations in 

 the Maygar tongue are even more incomprehensible than the 

 Russian), the taste for the collection of coleopterous insects is 

 so extensive, that a coleopterist traveller is sure to find, in al- 

 most every provincial town, one or more persons engaged in the 

 same pursuit, with whom an intimacy may almost at once be 

 formed. The sketch of the travels of Victor de Motchoulsky, 

 published in the last part of the ' Bulletin de la Societe des 

 naturalistes de Moscou,' for 1837, sufficiently proves this state- 

 ment; the writer having visited almost every European coun- 

 try in his route. 



We greatly fear, however, that like the professed concho- 

 logist, or lepidopterist, there are many of these gentry who 

 are but amateurs, who make collections for amusement, (and 

 a happy, healthful, amusement it is), without caring one iota 

 for the anatomical, structural, economical, physiological, geo- 

 graphical, or practical views, to which an investigation into 

 the objects of their pursuit, if rightly worked out, would ne- 

 cessarily lead them. 



Moreover, the natural relations of these beings with each 

 other, leading to a knowledge of their natural classification 

 or system, is but rarely thought of, although, from the almost 

 infinite numbers of anomalous forms which require dissection, 

 it must be evident that we are in no fit state, at present, to 

 lay down anything like a satisfactory arrangement of Coleop- 

 tera. It is true Leon Dufour has done the greatest service to 

 the science, by his extensive series of internal anatomical ob- 

 servations ; but his knife has operated only upon the insects 

 of his own neighbourhood. The hundreds of strange forms 

 from India, Brazil, and New Holland, require similar exami- 

 nation ; whilst the knowledge of the preparatory states of 

 these insects, which would tend so materially to clear up our 

 views respecting their relations, although slowly extending, 

 is yet but in its infancy. 



