18G6. 143 
prosout voliimo contaiua, moreover, some slight improvomenta in arrangomont 
(diflfering, however, in a very trifling degree from that usually adopted by British 
Hymenopterists, andconsisting mainly of mere inversion) ; but we can in justice 
only give to it this faint commendation, though desiring to extend a warmer welcome 
to its author on his re-appearanco after so long an interval. 
Passing over the numerous glaring violations of ordinary rules of grammatical 
construction, and the somewhat eccentric system of punctuation exhibited in 
" British Bees," there remain some grave objections to it as an Introductory Hand- 
book for the present generation which we aro compelled to take. 
First of these, is the apparently systematic neglect of the work of Mr. F. 
Smith. To write a book on British bees, wherein no notice (save a few curt and 
depreciatory Hues) of that gentleman's labours should appear, is strongly suggestive 
of the representation of the play of Hamlet with the character of Hamlet left out ; 
and the omission is the more remarkable as the conviction is forced upon the reader 
acquainted with both books that if Mr. Smith's " Catalogue of British Bees" had not 
been written, Mr. Shuckard's " British Bees" would not have appeared,— at all 
events in its present form. 
A second, and more important, fault is that Mr. Shuckard's book is about 
twenty or thirty years behind the age we live in (not to put the date back by cen- 
turies instead of tens, as might be inferred from the expression at p. 132 — " Aris- 
totle's descriptions can bo clearly recognised"). If it be not, how (except on the 
hypothesis of a systematic determination to ignore Mr. Smith's species,— which can 
scarcely be correct, as some of them are retained) are we to account for the absence 
therefrom of the following thirty-three species,— all but the last whereof (which 
was registered in one of the recent Entomologist's Annuals) are duly recorded in 
Mr. Smith's Catalogue? — Prosopis pxmctulatissima, Smith; Sphecodes rufescens, 
Fourcroy ; 8. siihquadratus, Smith ; Halictus zonulus, Smith, Nylander ; E. macu- 
latus, Smith, Nyl. ; H. prasinus, Smith ; if. gramineus, Smith ; H. longulus, Smith ; 
H. suifasciatus, Nyl. ; H. interruptus, Panz. ; And/rena eximia, Smith ; A. ferox. 
Smith; A. simiUs, Smith; A. hicolor. Fab.; A. simillima, Smith ; A. fucata, 
Smith ; A. clypeata, Smith ; A. constricta, Smith ; A. aprilina, Smith ; A. extricata, 
Smith ; A. polita, Smith ; A. fulvescens. Smith ; A. analis, Panz. ; A. nigrifrons, 
Smith ; A. argentata, Smith, Nyl. ; Nomada baccata, Smith ; N. rubra, Smith ; N. 
mistura, Smith ; N. atrata, Smith ; Megachile versicolor, Smith ; M. Pyrina, St. 
Farg. ; Bornbus colUnus, Smith ; and Bombus pomorum, Panz. In the ten years 
that have elapsed since the publication of Mr. Smith's Catalogue cause for many 
alterations and additions must necessarily have arisen : but surely all these were 
not wrongly brought forward, and to omit them in the idea of diverting attention 
from the evident use that has been made of that Catalogue reminds one of the fable 
of the fancied hiding of the hunted ostrich by a simple head-in-sand insertion. To 
make up for this deficiency, Mr. Shuckard (beyond one or two slight alterations in 
nomenclature, inverting Mr. Smith's synonyms) produces only the following four 
species : — Ccelioxys inermis, Kirby ; Andrena zonaUs, Kirby (known to be <J Boscb, 
Panz.) ; Bombus Harrisellus, Kirby (known to be only a var. of B. subterraneus, 
with which it has been taken in cop.) ; and Anthocopa papaveris, Latr. The speci- 
mens of the latter in the Brit. Mus. Cabinet, upon the authority of which Mr. 
