308 THE entomologist's eecord. 



The Officers and Council nominated for the Entomological Society 

 of London for the ensuing 3'ear are as follows: — Pieudent, G. T. 

 Bethune-Baker, F.Z.S.; Treasurer, Albert H. Jones; Secretaries, Rev. 

 G. Wheeler, M.A., F.Z.S., and Commander James J. Walker, M.A., 

 R.N., F.L.S.; Librarian, George C. Champion, F.Z.S., A.L.S.;V 'o»»(77, 

 R. Adkin, Jas. E. Collin, J. Hartley Durrant, Stanley Edwards, F.Z.S., 

 F.L.S., H. Eltringham, M.A., F.L.S., A. E. Gibbs, F.L.S.; Rev. F. D. 

 Morice,M.A., Gilbert W. Nicholson, M.A., M.D.. Hon. N. C. Rothschild, 

 M.A., F.L.S., F.Z.S., W. E. Sharp, J. R. le B. Tomlin, M.A., and 

 Colbran J. Wainwright. 



Ji^EYIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



The Coleoptera of Cumberland. By Frank H. Day, F.E.S.''' 

 The first two instalments of a catalogue of the Coleoptera of the 

 County of Cumberland have now been published, and we may con- 

 gratulate the Natural History Society of the Border City on having 

 been the means of greatly extending our knowledge of the distribution 

 of an important part of the insect fauna of this country. Although 

 the author has been handicapped, as are all compilers of strictly 

 county faunal or floral lists, by the quite unnatural limits imposed 

 by boundaries so artificial as those of a county, in this case, perhaps, 

 more than usually unfortunate since it involves the exclusion of West- 

 moreland and north Lancashire, areas which form in a faunistic sense 

 one indivisible whole, yet, because this region contains within itself 

 the loftiest mountain system of England, of which the centre and 

 highest peaks fall within the County of Cumberland, a record of the 

 Cumbrian beetles cannot but prove more interesting because more 

 specialised than that of the majority of English Counties. 



That Mr. Day has done his work well hardly needs asserting 

 in the pages of this magazine; " fit, though few " may be said of the 

 Cumbrian Coleopterists, and in Mr. Britten, Mr. Routledge, and Mr. 

 Murray, the author has found very able assistants. When we learn 

 that previous to the labours of these four students, not more than some 

 500 species of beetles had ever been recorded from Cumberland, it 

 becomes evident that a much larger part of this list must represent 

 original work than is the case in many of our local catalogues, where 

 ampler harvests have been gathered by those who have gone before. 



Nor is this commencement from some approach to a tabula rasa 

 without its compensations, most of us, indeed, who have been 

 responsible for the compilation of faunistic lists, know but too well 

 how often embarrassing as much as helpful are the records of the past, 

 uncorroborated and impossible of verification, the specimens beyond 

 recall, and the records themselves too often convincing in inverse ratio 

 to their interest. 



In the present case Mr. Day seems to have had but two precursors 

 of any importance, T. C. Heysham who died in 1857, and the much 

 better known, at any rate to modern Coleopterists, T. J. Bold. 

 Northumberland, however, more than Cumberland, was the theatre of 

 the activities of the latter and his incursions into Mr. Day's sphere 



* Pts. I. and II. publisheil in the Transactions of the Carlisle Natural History 

 Society, Vol. I. (1909), p. 122, and Vol. II. (1912), p. 201. 



