PKOGBESS OF THE STUDY OF ORTHOPTEKA. 6 



and occupies a position on his own side of the Atlantic only reached 

 by Packard, and, on this side, only approached by Chapman who 

 possibly excels all lepidopterists of the present day as an observer both 

 in the tield and study, and Avhose conclusions are almost always sound 

 in spite of their wide-reaching character and the distance they travel 

 from any previously trodden route. Leaving out our leading syste- 

 matists — Marshall, Cameron, Verrall, Saunders, McLachlan, &c. — 

 who can be mentioned in the same breath with these men among those 

 who study the other orders ? Sharp, Miall, Newstead, and who else ? 

 Lord Avebury has almost ceased work as an entomologist, and most 

 of the remaining leading coleopterists, hymenopterists, hemipterists, 

 orthopterists, and dipterists, may be classed at once on the same level 

 as possibly two or three hundred lepidopterists, who can name, with 

 more or less accuracy, the British insects of the order studied, and can 

 go little or no further. One trusts that Lameere's recently published 

 work on the classification of coleoptera Avill urge some intelligent 

 British coleopterists to leave the old track. 



Now comparisons are proverbially odious, and we suggest that the 

 Century number of this magazine will definitely show whether or not 

 our conclusions are just. We take it that the series of articles in this 

 number represent fairly the views of the more advanced students in 

 each branch, the writers having been asked to give a brief summary of 

 what they considered the most marked factors of progress in their own 

 special line of study during the century. The results will, we doubt 

 not, be as interesting to our readers as to ourselves. 



In conclusion there are one or two points we should like to urge 

 with regard to the future of entomological science in this country. 

 We shall all, probably, be agreed that the failing points of 

 scientific progress may be marked as : (1) An accumulation of wasted 

 eiibrt in collecting material. (2) Want of initiative in striking out 

 new lines of work. (3) Want of perseverance in following up certain 

 definite lines of experiment and observation. (4) Ignorance of work 

 already done. (5) Inability to recognise the requirements of modern 

 science in methods of work. These are so self-evident that there is 

 no need to waste space in discussing them, and one can only look 

 forward to a time when the conditions of modern life, which are all 

 in favour just now of the sciences which are purely utilitarian, shall 

 not act against the true scientific enquirer, but put him in the same 

 satisfactory position for real scientific work, as that in which they at 

 present place his more fortunate brethren, the students of chemistry 

 and physics. 



Review of the Progress of the Study of Orthoptera in the Nineteenth 



Century. 



By MALCOLM BVim, F.L.S., F.Z.S., F.E.S. 

 At the commencement of the nineteenth century the study of orthoptera 

 was in a condition of chaos similar to that of most other orders of insects. 

 Exotic species were only known w^hen they attracted attention by 

 their curious forms or beautiful colours, and, with the exception of 

 the common and widely distributed species, the European fauna was 

 familiar to nobody. This was little felt in the British Islands, where 

 orthoptera are few, and it is naturally not in Britain that we 



