380 Retrospective Criticism, 



Curculio is often translated weasel, instead of weevil. I am, 

 Sir, yours, &c. — J. C. Dale, Glanville's Wootton, April 1 7. 

 1833. 



Mr, WestwooaVs Reply to Lacon and to others, — It is due 

 to your subscribers that I should state, in answer to the ill- 

 natured remarks (p. 279.) of the person who dates from 

 Newcastle under the name of Lacon, that Choreia nigro-ae N nea 

 and Enc^rtus hemipterus are generically and specifically dis- 

 tinct. As to the latter part of his remarks, it does not be- 

 come me to speak of the value of my observations. I leave 

 them in the hands of your readers, who will, I trust, respond 

 to Mr. Lacon's query in proportion to the quantity of inform- 

 ation they have severally received from the perusal of my 

 paper. I trust that, before allowing your pages to be made 

 the vehicle of detraction, you made yourself acquainted with 

 the real name of the writer (which, in all such cases, ought 

 to be published), so as in future to be able to judge of the 

 degree of attention which his communications deserve. 



I may also be allowed this opportunity to notice a review 

 of my paper " on the number of insect species," contained in 

 the third number of the Entomological Magazine, p. 306. 

 The gross truthless attack made upon me in a preceding 

 page of that work is undeserving of notice, further than as 

 evidencing the animus of the reviewer. 



Review, " Mr. W. continues the old error of supposing the 

 Coleoptera so greatly superior to the other orders in point of 

 number." 



Answer, Instead of adopting Messrs. Kirby and Spence's 

 calculation that the beetles were as 1 to 2, I reduced the 

 proportion, and estimated them as 1 to 3 of the insect tribes. 

 If their superiority in point of numbers is intended to be 

 denied, I will maintain it upon the far higher authority of 

 Latreille: — " Les insectes compris dans cet ordre (Coleop- 

 tera) sont, sans contredit, les plus nombreux." 



Rev, " Agonioneurus W. is Aphelinus Dolman, [This, as 

 I have stated, is by no means clear.] The wing and antennas 

 appear to be copied from that author. [My figures were 

 taken from nature.] The name, moreover, is inappropriate, 

 as in the wing of this insect the stigmal does form an angle, 

 though a slight one, with the subcostal nervure." [In the 

 type, I was unable, with a very high-powered lens, to per- 

 ceive any deflexed stigmal nerve.] 



Rev, " Choreia nigro-ae v nea is probably the female of En- 

 cyrtus hemipterus. [It is no such thing.] The abbreviated 

 subcoriarious wings of this insect, Mr. Westwood describes 

 as the sides of the mesothoracic scutellum [I have nowhere 



