GEORGE HENRY HORN. XI 



Both the "Synopsis of the Silphid^e" and the "Genera of Cara- 

 bidie" were reviewed by Dr. C. A. Dohrn in the Stettiner Entomo- 

 logische Zeitung. Of the latter he wrote in 1882 : " Few among living 

 and working Coleopterologists can boast of uniting so many favor- 

 able qualifications for this work in their own persons as the author. 

 From his place of birth and from his intimacy with the ' Altmeister,' 

 Dr. John LeConte, he is, like the latter, completely at home in the 

 North iVmerican beetle fauna ; his visit to Europe, his acquaintance 

 with foreign languages, his correspondence — have enabled him to 

 deal intelligently with the views of others on the subject in hand ; his 

 ' coleopterographic ' authority within and without his own country 

 is so firndy founded as not to expose him to the temptation of wishing 

 to attract attention by paradoxes. Self-evidently I content myself 

 with reviewing Horn's work by extracts. . . . From this, and from 

 the succeeding chapter, I select in order to show our readers (as I 

 hope) how deeply and thoroughly the author has comprehended his 

 subject and how conscientiously he has proved and tested the ideas 

 of his predecessors." Nine and a half pages of quotations sufficed, 

 in Dohrn's view, to show how profoundly Horn " had grasped his 

 subject, and how carefully he had executed it. Whether any one 

 of the few who, with similar inclination and perseverance, have de- 

 voted themselves to the classification of the overwhelming numbers 

 of the Carabidse, may be in position to offer valid objections to the 

 author, the future will teach. In the mean time I must content 

 myself with directing the attention of our readers to this highly 

 meritorious, able work. Perhaps some of these, who see the syste- 

 matic value which Dr. Horn lays upon the 'supraorbital setje,' will 

 recall the thoughtful remarks of Brunner v. Wattenwyl on Classifi- 

 cation where he speaks of the ' preservation of indifferent organs in 

 changes of form.' (Jahrg. 1881, p. 232)." 



But the most enthusiastic notice of the Carabid paper was that 

 by A. Prendhomme de Borre, at that time Conservator of the IMusee 

 Royale d'Histoire Naturelle at Ixelles, a suburb of Brussels, read the 

 fourth of March, 1882, at the meeting of the Belgian Entomological 

 Society. It began " At the end of the year 1881 there arrived from 

 America an extremely remarkable woi-k which, we think, will place 

 its author, M. G. H. Horn, among tlie number of masters of present 

 Entomology. Under a modest title of such nature as to make us 

 wrongly believe that the work is written as one of those local faunal 

 studies which too often absorb our confreres in the United States, 



TRANS. AM. ENT. SOC. APRIL. 1898. 



