182 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



striking. But to me most impressive of all was the way in which 

 the people entered into the spirit of the occasion. 



In Upsala there was an entire absence of crowding and pushing 

 on the part of those who lined the routes of the processions, while the 

 authorities on their part had intentionally lengthened the short 

 distances in order to make the conditions favourable for as many 

 spectators as possible. The same national interest in the occasion 

 was even more evident at the comparatively simple ceremonial of 

 Rashult, thronged by school-children and country-folk. 



Our densely-crowded country presents special difficulties, but 

 allowing full weight for these, we have much to learn from Sweden. 



The British Cryptinae. 



It is a pleasure to take up an entomological book dealing so 

 thoroughly with its subject-matter as does Mr. Morley's second 

 volume of the British ichneumons, and the writer is to be con- 

 gratulated on having been able to complete his second volume so soon 

 after the appearance of the first. This disposed of 310 species of the 

 lchneumoninae in 291 pages, with 50 further pages of introductory 

 matter. The present volume is of 328 pages, and deals witn 317 

 species, forming the group Cryptinae, with but a very short intro- 

 duction, which reproduces the table of the families of Ichneumonoidea 

 and the subfamilies of the Ichneumonidae, published in the first 

 volume. There are 43 (the introduction says 41) genera, into five of 

 which 199 of the species fall, so that most of the genera contain few 

 species. A considerable number of British specimens of the family 

 are, however, already known to the author, which he has been unable, 

 as yet, to assign to described species, so that captures must not be forced 

 into the tables. Unwilling to add to the number of synonyms of 

 species, which have probably been already named, Mr. Morley has only 

 described seven species as new to science in the present volume. This is, 

 in some measure, a compilation. It consolidates the present know- 

 ledge of the subfamily Cryptinae so far as relates to the British species, 

 and cannot fail to be of great value to students desirous of working at 

 the group. It may be hoped that it will lead to more entomologists 

 studying the Ichneiwionidae. The most original part of the work is 

 that dealing with the genus Pezomachus, and we are inclined to think 

 that this is the best part of the volume, which is throughout a 

 monument of well applied industry and perseverance. 



One of the difficulties that confronts a student of the parasitic hymen- 

 optera, or rather those insects includedin the superfamily Ich mum onoidea 

 is undoubtedly the difficulty of ascertaining the family to which 

 an " ichneumonoideous " insect belongs, but any one who will take the 

 trouble to divide up, as far as he can, some two or three hundred insects 

 of the superfamily, according to the tables given in the introduction by 

 Mr. Morley, will probably, at the end of the time, find that his difficulties 

 have to alarge extent disappeared and that specimens, which at first would 



Ichneumonologia Britannica, vol. ii: The ichneumons of Great Britain, a 

 descriptive account of the families, genera, and species indigenous to the British 

 Islands, together with notes as to classification, localities, habitats, hosts, etc., by 

 Claude Morley, F.E.S. (author of the Hymenoptera of Suffolk, lchneumoninae of 

 Britain, etc., etc.), Cryptinae. — Printed (for the author) and published by James 

 H. Keys, Whimple Street, Plymouth, 1907. 



