126 Analytical Notices of Books. 
and give but a faint idea of the extent of his investigations, which em- 
braced the whole series of British Insects. Of this ample evidence is 
afforded by the cabinet which he formed, and which is now in the British 
Museum, and by his manuscript catalogues and descriptions. Both the 
one and the others were at all times open to the enquiring student, and 
from them much assistance was derived by Mr. Samouelle in the pre- 
paration of his Entomologist’s Useful Compendium, a work which first 
brought the British naturalist acquainted with the views of continental 
writers as applicable to our native insects. In it was also embodied a list 
of species indigenous to this country, which far exceeded any that had 
been previously published. The views of the modern school of ento- 
mology, more especially as they relate to the illustration of those subdi- 
visions which are now regarded as genera, have been rendered yet more 
familiar to us by the British Entomology of Mr. Curtis, a work still in 
progress, but of which six volumes are already completed, embracing 
figures and descriptions of nearly three hundred. genera, and describing 
or indicating about two thousand species. Of this, and of Mr. Stephens’ 
Illustrations of British Entomology, we have already spoken in previous 
articles in terms of merited praise, and to both these valuable contribu- 
tions to our native Fauna we trust that we shall frequently hereafter have 
occasion to advert. 
The brief sketch of the progress of British Entomology {which we 
have thus hastily traced can scarcely be regarded as misplaced in a notice 
of a work, the publication of which unquestionably forms an epoch in 
the history of the science among us. Gratifymg as it is to witness the 
rapid strides which are making towards the acquisition of a complete body 
of information respecting the animal inhabitants of our native country, 
the feeling partakes somewhat of national pride when we see the most 
numerous class among them illustrated, as in the present instance, with an 
accuracy unequalled in any other land. No local list of insects at all 
comparable with the present in number of species is elsewhere to be 
found, and there are but few works even of a general nature which ex- 
ceed it in this respect. It consequently becomes, although professedly 
local in its object, a work of general interest to entomologists of all 
countries, to whom it will recommend itself as eminently useful, not 
merely as an enumeration of species, but also on account of the extent 
