NEW BRITISH SPECIES, NOMENCLATURE, ETC. 115 



it liajipens that the number of new British species I am 

 able to report is not perhaps what might be expected, and 

 certainly far from satisfying mj own wishes. Other disad- 

 vantages are inseparable from an attempt like the present. 

 It is not easy to conform to the method adopted by other 

 contributors to the "Annual," who treat of more popular 

 subjects. For instance, no copious records of daily observa- 

 tions, suggestions, descriptions and rectifications can be 

 referred to; no "Annual" of 1872 can be assumed as a 

 starting-point, with information on the best authority posted 

 up to that date ; and no large circle of readers look forward 

 with interest to a summary of progress to which their own 

 labours have mainly contributed. Having just alluded to 

 these things, in order that they may appear in their true 

 light, as extenuating circumstances, I shall proceed to some 

 remarks upon the above four groups seriatim, and afterwards 

 give a list of new British species. 



Cynipid^. — The connection of one tribe of these insects 

 with galls, and the curiosity kept up by the annual appearance 

 of those bodies, conspicuous and not to be ignored, seem to 

 be reasons why the CynipidcB have partially escaped that 

 extinction in which the study of some other Hymeno'ptera 

 has long been plunged. To find the last, and indeed the 

 only, attempt ever made to enumerate the British species, 

 we must go back to the second edition of Curtis's " Guide," 

 published in 1837. And by comparing the state of know- 

 ledge then with our present facilities, we shall easily observe 

 a certain progress, which however applies only to the gall- 

 making genera. The number of names given by Curtis, 

 lib. cit., is 56, from which 18 are to be subtracted as beino- 

 MSS., or referring to insects of other families, — leaving 38. 

 The descriptions of most of these are enigmatical, so that 



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