27 



Retrospect of various works published during the last 

 Year, New editions, and New works in progress. 



The demands of a still increasing number of Zoological, Botanical, and 

 Geological communications, in the pages of various foreign Serials, which 

 call for our notice, as they are more liable there to lie hidden from the 

 knowledge of British Naturalists, than the more considerable and indepen- 

 dent works of Natural History, that issue from the press at home or in other 

 countries, have circumscribed the space we could afford to reviews of the 

 latter class of works, and limited the number of our articles in this de- 

 partment. In compensation, we propose now, at the commencement of a 

 new year, to indulge ourselves in a lightly skimming retrospect of the 

 scientific literature of the year 1856, as it bears upon the study of the 

 native Fauna and Flora in particular. But even here, we are obliged to 

 set certain bounds to ourselves ; so, passing by various splendid illustrated 

 works in progress, and many of another sort, devoted to the Vertebrata 

 and Mollusca, as well as those upon General Botany and Paleontology, we 

 will descend at once to the Articulata, and commence with the different 

 orders of Insects. 



I. Diptera. We have elsewhere inserted a critique of Mr. Walker's vo- 

 lumes, intended to serve for a British Fauna of this order, the last of 

 which was published the beginning of the year. The same indefatigable 

 hand has brought out the concluding part of the Diptera Saundersiana also, 

 in the course of the same year, while two other articles, also by him, in 

 the Journal of the Linnean Society, from materials supplied by the same 

 rich collection, make known fresh harvests of Mr. Wallace's gathering on 

 the virgin soil of Malacca and Borneo, and afford a proof what unexplored 

 treasures are yet in keeping for the students of this order, when voyagers 

 and travellers shall have better learned not to overlook so much the less 

 obtrusive and more fragile races of flying insects, for the gaudier charms of 

 the beetles and the butterflies. It is not long since we gave, in this Jour- 

 nal, an article on Recent Works upon the Diptera of Northern Europe, and 

 we expect it will not be very long before a like call is made upon us in the 

 name of those of Southern Europe. The lists of Austrian Diptera by Dr. 

 Schiner, on which Dr. Loew has expressed such a favourable judgment 

 (seethe Volume for 1856, page 92), are proceeding through the different 

 families in succession, and we have lately received, besides, a small volume 

 by Prof. Rondani of Parma, the welcome forerunner of a general work 



