INSECTS OF GERMANY, COLEOPTERA. 35 



species on slight characters. We observe that he adheres to his previous 

 opinion that the Phytosus nigriventris is a distinct species, and not the 

 other sex of Ph. spinifer, as English authors have considered it ; — and on 

 this head we have no decisive observations wherewith to oppose him. 

 Again, he characterises the Aleochara obscurella of Thomson, from the Swe- 

 dish coast, as a distinct species, by the name of Al. grisea. The distinctions 

 he has assigned are so minute, and most of them merely comparative, that 

 we scarcely venture to pronounce confidently that the common species of 

 the British coasts represents this Al. grisea, as is most probable. If Kraatz 

 is right in separating them as species, the Al. obscurella of the Faune Fran- 

 caise is probably identical with the British and Swedish species. Kraatz 

 again seems to imagine that the sexual difference of size may indicate yet 

 another species to be separated from Al. obscurella. We suspect that the 

 authors of the Faune Francaise have been led, in the like manner, to mul- 

 tiply species unnecessarily in some instances ; — thus the characters given 

 of Diglossa submarina seem rather unsatisfactory, and some of the suppo- 

 sed differences between this and D. mersa are confessedly inconstant. 



Dr. Schaum in his descriptions of Carabida?, in the part before us, has 

 expatiated on the subject of varieties to such a degree as threatens to 

 make the first a very ponderous volume, if he goes on as he has begun 

 here. It must be confessed, however, that the treatment of the nominal 

 species of this great genus, previously, had been such as to leave much 

 rubbish for the critic to clear away. Forty-eight pages of this part are 

 devoted to the characteristic of the thirty species of Carabus, which are 

 admitted as genuine species, and natives of Germany. More valuable yet, 

 in our eyes, than these special details, however elaborate, are the learned 

 author's generalities on the families and on the classification of the order. 

 Commencing with the carnivorous beetles, he has reverted to an older 

 view than that now generally received, in excluding the family Gyrinidse 

 from the united group of land and water carnivorous beetles, the Ade- 

 phaga of Clairville. Of Kiesenwetter's share of the undertaking no part 

 has yet appeared. 



It would be hard to overrate the prospective utility of this work to the 

 scientific Entomologist ; and we heartily wish it a steady and uninter- 

 rupted progress, and an increasing number of readers. For the conve- 

 nience of the mere British collector, the Faune Francaise will, probably, 

 be found the more suitable, as.it will certainly be far the most portable, 

 if both works are continued on the scale commenced respectively. We 

 can scarcely wish it were otherwise, as there is occasion for both of these 



