Bibliographical Notices, 259 



the sixth edition of these two vohimes, which were published sepa- 

 rately some years since. 



Considering the exceedingly low price at which this volume of 

 upwards of six hundred pages is offered to the public, it is certainly 

 very well got up, although we are sorry to see a good many misprints 

 in its pages, which one would think might easily have been avoided 

 in a work which has been so often printed. The entomologist perhaps 

 may find these but trifling difficulties, but many of them will prove sad 

 stumbling-blocks in the way of the ordinary reader. "We should 

 have been glad also to have seen a few alterations in the notes in some 

 parts of the work, as for instance at page 1 55, where the reader is 

 referred to Mr. Westwood's ' Introduction ' for an *' account of the 

 facts hitherto recorded respecting " the Strepsiptera, although Mr. 

 Westwood's book, having been published before the history of these 

 singular insects was cleared up by the researches of Von Siebold and 

 others, must necessarily give a very erroneous view of the present 

 state of our knowledge of their mode of life. 



An interesting appendix is formed by the addition to the volume of 

 the account furnished by Mr. Spence to Mr. Freeman's Life of the 

 Rev. W. Kirby, of the origin and progress of the * Introduction to 

 Entomology,' with particulars of the portions which are principally 

 due to each author. 



1 '."So .l8fi3 fl9f)d 



Ferny Combes : a Ramble after Ferns in the Glens and Valleys of 

 Devonshire. By Charlotte Chanter. London, Reeve, 1856. 



This is a pleasant little volume, written in a simple style, and com- 

 mending itself alike to the tourist and valetudinarian, whom it would 

 fain lead through some of the beauties of the ' far west,' — and whom 

 it would seek to inoculate with that love of natural history which 

 unfolds a new volume of hidden stores to the temporary sojourner 

 'midst Arcadian scenes, converting the barren moor, and bleak upland 

 waste, into a paradise. Although its main object is, as indeed its 

 title would imply, to point out localities for those species of our ferns 

 which the authoress has detected in the fairy Combes of Devon, yet 

 she distinctly disclaims any intention of entering the realms of science : 

 " I write," says she, " for the votaries of health and pleasure, not for 

 votaries of science. I write for those of less cultivated intellect, who, 

 with an innate taste and love for all that is beautiful and divine in 

 nature, too often wander in darkness where even a little knowledge 

 would open to them worlds of light in the animal and vegetable king- 

 doms, — provided not only for use, but for endless interest and research 

 into the works of their Creator." Her dehneations of the country 

 through which she conducts us are truthful and good, — ^clearly ema- 

 nating from the pen of an observer, and bearing no evidence (as is 

 too frequently the case in similar publications) that she has merely 

 compiled from the works of others. The description (p. 17) of the 

 inconveniences of a * Devonshire lane ' is marvellously correct ; and 

 to us, who have wandered, over and over again, through these * arva 

 beata,' prying into every nook and crevice between the limits of 

 Lynton and Lundy, and have marked (to our cost) the sudden 



17* 



