THE LITERATURE OF BRITISH COLEOPTERA FOR THE CENTURY. 47 



them to see more clearly some of the difficulties of the problems 

 connected with heredity, and stimulate to further work and discovery in 

 this attractive field of research. 



The Literature of British Coleoptera for the past Century. 



By Professor T. HUDSON BEAEE, B.Sc, F.R.S.E., F.E.S. 



The literature of British coleoptera may be said to be a product of the 

 19th century only, as prior to 1801 nothing of any value had been 

 published dealing with that branch of entomology, and, in fact, with 

 the exception of Marsham's Kntomoluyica Britannica (Lond. 1802), the 

 first work was that classic, Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Knto- 

 moloiiy, which began to appear in 1822. Marsham's book is mainly of 

 interest now, probably only to the systematist, on account of his 

 copious references to the various authors by whom the original 

 descriptions were given of the insects not first described by him ; the 

 genera adopted were Linnean, and it is curious to find the whole of our 

 Geodephar/a under two genera only, Cicindela and Carabus, the latter 

 containing 109 species, so that our fauna was fairly well known even 

 then. To the Introduction to Entomoloiiy, I, and I expect many another 

 entomologist, owe my first love of the insect world. How greedily were 

 its pages devoured when, then a boy at school, the first copy came into 

 my hands, and what pleasure has it given whenever taken up since 

 those early days. The first volume of my own copy is marked on the 

 title page as 4th Edn. Lond. 1822, but the third and fourth volumes are 

 marked 1st Edn. 1826, and I find a similar state of things in regard to the 

 oldest copy in the library of the Entomological Society of London, I pre- 

 sume, therefore, that 1822 is the earliest date of all the existing complete 

 sets. In the preface on p. vi. the authors point out how at that date there 

 were only three works " professedly devoted to this object, which the 

 English language can boast," and we may, therefore, rightly claim 

 that the publication of this book marks the beginning of the scientific 

 study in Great Britain, not only of coleoptera, but of entomology in 

 general. The Introduction has too long occupied its position in the 

 front rank of entomological literature to need any words of praise from 

 me. The period with which we are now dealing was very prolific in ento- 

 mological literature. On January 1st, 1824, appeared the first part of 

 Curtis' great work on British Ento)iwlo</!/, hciwj illustrations and dcscrij}- 

 tions of the (rcnera of Insects found in Lireat Britain and Ireland, sixteen 

 years elapsing before the publication Avas complete ; volumes i and ii 

 are devoted to coleoptera, and, at the end of vol. ii, is a systematic and 

 alphabetical index of the genera dealt with. A mere glance at its 

 contents is enough to show^ the enormous strides which had been made 

 in the scientific side' of entomology since 1801. The superb illustra- 

 tions of these volumes still remain unsurpassed, well deserving the 

 high encomium passed upon them by Cuvier. How unfavourably do our 

 modern cheap plates compare with these masterpieces. Though Rye in 

 British Beetles, p. 29, curtly says "the letterpress is of little use," I 

 am by no means disposed to agree with him, I have found the letter- 

 press very often useful for purposes of reference, and the mere handling 

 of this book is a pleasure to a lover of books ; would that in our own age 

 the same loving care could be shown in every detail of a book and the 

 same leisurely haste be shown to perfect it in every respect, how slovenly 



