200 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



in the habits of insects are recorded, and the facts are pretty well 

 up to time. It is interesting to know that Mr. Kirby estimates 

 the number of species of insects of all orders, as yet identified 

 throughout the world, at 220,000, out of which about 12,000 are 

 known to inhabit England. 



" Nor let anyone imagine that our British Fauna is by any means 

 exhausted. It is true that the British Coleoptera and Lepidoptera have 

 been so far investigated that a man must worli very hard before he can 

 hope to add a new British species to either order ; but any entomologist 

 who cares to take up any of the less studied groups of any of the other 

 orders may rely on adding a considerable number of new species to the 

 British Fauna, a certain proportion of which will be new to Science. Even 

 among our commonest insects the habits and structure of any one species 

 would furnish any person, with a taste for such pursuits, with sufficient 

 employment for a lifetime. The collectors province may be exhausted in a 

 few years ; but the observers, never." 



The treatment of the separate orders in the body of the work 

 is concisely managed, and generally satisfactory. The plates are 

 sufiicient for the purpose for which they are required, though by 

 no means up to the standard of modern work. If a portion of the 

 illustrations had been devoted to the characteristic anatomy of 

 the various orders, it would have added to the scientific value of 

 the work ; and had the figures of the Lepidoptera been favoured 

 more generally with legs as well as wings, we should have thought 

 them more representative. — J. T. C. 



OBITUARY. 



The late Mr. Thomas Cooke was among the best known 

 entomologists of the past generation. He was born in 1814 ; and 

 founded the well known natural-history agency now in Museum St., 

 London, in 1853. His genial temperament had made him many 

 friends ; but latterly he had of necessity retired from active life 

 from the affliction of paralysis, with which he was stricken more 

 than eight years ago, and since then he has been confined to his 

 bed. He died on the 10th of June, 1885. Mr. Cooke has not, 

 that we are aware, added much to the written history of insects. 

 He was a member of the Haggerston and West London Entomo- 

 logical Societies. 



