32 REVIEWS. 



teiygiche 34, Scaphididae 5, Scydmaenidae 31, Pselaphidae 47, and Staphy- 

 linidae 867 species, besides those introduced incidentally, in the manner 

 aforesaid. The authors have been in correspondence with their fellow- 

 labourers, — the continuators of Erichson's Insect Fauna of Germany, 

 which we have to notice also presently ; — and, accordingly, the new 

 groups, therein proposed by Kraatz, for the better determination of the 

 difficult tribe of Aleocharini, are not left undistinguished in the French text. 

 The most accurate determination of the species, and of the trivial names 

 according to their legitimate priority, has been taken from the recent mono- 

 graphers who have treated particular families most carefully in these respects. 

 Where such help has been wanting, the authors do not seem, indeed, to have 

 used as much diligence or judgment in their more extensive work as Mr. 

 Dawson has done in his Monograph, in regard to the latter point at least ; but 

 as they have ventured to exert less original decision, so they have laid 

 themselves less open, perhaps, to common-place adverse criticism. It ap- 

 pears that they recognize in general sound principles of scientific nomen- 

 clature and chronological precedency, but they have by no means invaria- 

 bly adhered to these in practice. 



We are not prepared, indeed, to blame them for having retained — whe- 

 ther deliberately or from mere traditional habit — the modern trivial names 

 of many species, to the exclusion of the more ancient, but now unfamiliar 

 ones of the last century ; as for example — Carabus monilis (catenulatus 

 Scop.) ; C. catenulatus (purpurascens Payk.) ; Loricera pilicornis (caerules- 

 cens Linn.) ; Chlaenius holosericeus (tristis Schaller) ; Feronia striola (atra 

 Vill.) ; Anchomenus prasinus (dorsalis Bruennich) ; Trechus paludosus 

 (rubens Fabr.) ; Bembidium guttula (riparium PayJc.) ; Noterus crassi- 

 cornis (clavicornis Deg.) ; Hydroporus pictus (punctulatus Mueller) ; H. 

 lineatus (velox Mueller), and several others ; where our own inclination 

 would have been to restore the ancient names, which are assignable without 

 any reasonable doubt in most of these cases. A point at which they have 

 laid themselves more open to criticism is, that for want of antiquarian re- 

 search, they have adopted some changes of the commonly received nomen- 

 clature, which do not yet attain to the ultimate Q. E. I. of the very ear- 

 liest scientific nomenclature. In such cases they must be judged to have 

 parted with a confessed advantage, for the sake of a supposed greater, but 

 eventually an illusory gain. We take for an instance Carabus angusticollis 

 JP6., reduced to assimilis Ph., the earlier of these two names undoubtedly, 

 but Scopoli had described the species long before, and characteristically, as 

 C. junceus. Micralymma johnstonse Wwd., the typical name, has fallen 



