462 Review : — Transactions of the Entomological Society. 



pey, the chalk, and the oolite series, the capsule of the bulb of the 

 eye is still uninjured ; and in many species from Monte Bolca, Solen- 

 hofen, and the lias, we see distinctly all the little blades which 

 form the branchiae. 



It is in the series of deposits below the lias that we begin to find 

 the largest of those enormous sauroid fish whose osteology recalls, 

 in many respects, the skeletons of saurians, both by the closer su- 

 tures of the bones of the skull, their large conical teeth, striated 

 longitudinally, and the manner in which the spinous processes are 

 articulated with the body of the vertebra? and the ribs at the ex- 

 tremity of the spinous processes. 



The small number offish yet known in the transition formations 

 does not as yet permit the author to assign to them a peculiar charac- 

 ter, nor has he discovered in the fossil fish of strata below the green- 

 sand any differences corresponding with those now observed be- 

 tween marine and freshwater fish, so that he cannot, on ichthyo- 

 logical data, decide on the freshwater or marine origin of the an- 

 cient groups. 



This paper is accompanied by Tables of the fossil fish of different 

 formations. 



LXVI. Reviews, and Notices respecting New Books. 



The Transactions of the Entomological Society of London. Vol. I. 

 Part I. With Seven Plates. 8vo. pp. 108. 



WE are here presented with the first publication of a Society es- 

 tablished for the cultivation of a department of Natural History 

 which is fast gaining ground amongst us. It would be out of place 

 here to enlarge upon the interest and importance of the study of that 

 vast portion of animated nature known by the general term Insects ; 

 suffice it to say that this First Part of the Transactions of the Ento- 

 mological Society, in the prospectus of its Prize Essays, as well as in 

 several of the Communications, gives evidence of the practical uti- 

 lity to which the attention of the Society is directed ; and which, if 

 persevered in, cannot fail of establishing it on the firmest basis. 



Passing over the Introduction, which mentions the origin of the 

 Society, and comments, perhaps in rather too severe terms, upon 

 the opposition which has been raised against the publication of its 

 Transactions, we are presented with a series of thirteen memoirs, 

 which from their varied character cannot fail to interest not only the 

 professed entomologist but also the general reader. Of the latter 

 character may be mentioned Mr. Spence's '* Observations on a 

 Mode practised in Italy of excluding the common House-fly from 

 Apartments ; " Mr. W. B. Spence's Remarks on a passage in He- 

 rodotus, relative to the attacks of Gnats, which has greatly per- 

 plexed the Commentators ; Mr. W. E. Shuckard's Observations 

 upon the habits of the indigenous Sand Wasps ; valuable not only 

 on account of the facts narrated, but from the correction thereby af- 

 forded of a theory recently proposed relative to these insects by M. 

 le Comte de Saint Fargeau ; Mr. W. W. Saunders's Paper upon 

 the habits of some Indian Insects; and Mr. Lewis's " Explanation 



