RECENT LITERATURE. 263 



the Land's End on one side and on the high road not far from Camborne 

 on the other. He also showed continental Anthrax fenestrata, A. maura, 

 A. morio, and Lomatia lateralis, for comparison. Mr. G. H. Kenrick 

 communicated the results of an experiment he had made in the 

 treatment of the larva? of Amphidasys betularia (see p. 253). — Colbran 

 J. Wainwright, Hon. Sec. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



The Direction of the Vienna Museum has lately published two 

 most important monographs upon Rhynchota, and the authors have 

 earned the gratitude of their fellow-students by this highly meritorious 

 work, which, indeed, was only to be expected from entomologists of 

 their reputation. 



Anton Handlirsch : Monographic der Phymatiden. (Annalen, U.K. 



Naturh. Hofmuseurns,* 1897, xii., pp. 127-230. Plates iv.-ix. ; 



and thirty -five figures in text.) 

 L. Melichar : Monographic der Ricaniiden. (L.c, xiii., 1898, pp. 197- 



359. Plates ix.-xiv. ; and a figure in text.) 



Though neither the Phymatidas nor the Ricaniidae occur in the 

 British Islands, they would probably be represented among the first 

 consignments of Rhynchota received from correspondents abroad. 



The Phyrnatidaa (Macrocephalidaa according to strict priority) have 

 usually been regarded as allied to the Tingitidaa and Aradidae ; but 

 Professor Handlirsch confirms Schiodte's opinion that they are more 

 closely allied to the Reduviidas. Nine genera, comprising seventy-three 

 species, are recorded. These are well distributed, Phymatidaa being 

 found almost all over the world, with the exception of the Australian, 

 Ethiopian, and North Palaaarctic regions. The anterior legs are carci- 

 niform, the femora being enormously incrassate, and in a great many 

 species the connexivum is enormously angularly-dilated, the pronotum 

 being also often angularly produced laterally, so that a somewhat 

 grotesque appearance is presented. 



Dr. Melichar's monograph is, in a sense, even more valuable, since 

 there is no recent general Catalogue of Homoptera. The Ricaniidae, 

 of which thirty-one genera and two hundred and sixteen species are 

 described, are almost entirely tropical, their headquarters being 

 situated in Ceylon and in the Malayan Archipelago. 



Considering the enormous number of lepidopterists, it is remark- 

 able that there are so few students of the Auchenorrynchous Homoptera, 

 a suborder which furnishes us with species so greatly resembling some 

 of those of the more admired order, that they would be located in the 

 latter by an untrained eye. 



The value of both works is immensely enhanced by the full analy- 

 tical tables, generic and specific, and by the numerous plates and 

 woodcuts. — Gr. W. K. 



* Eeceived in this country in 1898 and 1899 respectively. It should also 

 be noted that the "new species" described in the latter were diagnosed 

 previously in the ' Verhandl. zool. bot. Ver. Wien.,' although there is no 

 allusion to this in the monograph itself. 



