30 Scientific Reviews. 



their sneers despised, not by one enthusiastic lover of nature, but 

 hy every well educated person. 



In the Entomologia Britannica of Marsham, published in 1802, 

 nearly 1300 species of indigenous Coleoptera are described, but in 

 the catalogue of Stephens they are increased to 3000, although no 

 order of insects was then, nor perhaps is yet, more investigated 

 and better understood than the Coleoptera. In the old genus, Ca- 

 rabus, Marsham describes 109 species; the Illustrations of Stephens 

 contain descriptions of 400 Coleoptera Geodephaga, a section cor- 

 responding precisely to the Carabi of Marsham, after excluding the 

 Cicindelidee and Elaphridae ; of these, ten are described in an ap- 

 pendix as new species, seen by Mr. Stephens since the publication 

 of his earlier numbers, with a notice of several more. Even in the 

 conspicuous tribe of diurnal Lepidoptera, or butterflies, we find an 

 addition of 30 species, not marked as indigenous in Turton's trans- 

 lation of the Systema Naturae, published in 1806, being one-third 

 of the whole now on record, as natives of Britain, several of them 

 quite new discoveries, or, at least, never before discriminated by 

 authors from allied species. In giving our opinion of the " Illus- 

 trations," we may observe, that the work is quite worthy of the 

 present advanced state of entomological knowledge in this country, 

 and to the student of species far exceeds, in utility, any other on 

 British entomology ; nor can we be surprised at this, when inform- 

 ed that its indefatigable author is in possession of the best cabinet 

 of indigenous insects, containing upwards of 10,000 species, " twor 

 thirds of which are unrecorded as British, and of these more than 

 one-half being nondescript ;" and, in addition, that his descriptions 

 are not mere compilations from other authors, but drawn up from 

 his own original materials, except in some instances where speci- 

 mens of very rare insects are not in his cabinet. These advantages, 

 combined with the great entomological skill of the author, and, in 

 general, with finely executed figures, render the Illustrations an acqui- 

 sition of the greatest importance, and, indeed, quite indispensable 

 to the British entomologist : Ave say, in general well executed fi- 

 gures, because, in a very few instances, we detect considerable im- 

 perfection in the colouring; for example, the Leistus monianus 

 (Plate IV. fig. 5) quite fails in representing the silky green-hhiQ 

 tint of the living insect ; but to these more delicate touches of her 

 pencil, the poet's exclamation is peculiarly applicable, " Who can 

 paint like Nature !" Our author has done much service to the 

 study of geographical entomology by the care bestowed in distin- 

 guishing those species, erroneously ranked among our natives, on 

 account of exotic specimens fraudulently palmed on collectors as 

 captured in Britain, or wliich, though taken alive, there is good 

 reason to believe have been imported with timber or merchandize. 

 The chief, and almost the only fault we find with the author, or 

 his work, is for irregularity. Instead of fulfilling his promise of 

 monthly numbers, we find the three last dated respectively, August 

 1st, September 30th, and January 31st, with the promise of a fourth 



