72 
his command, the work is a model for all similar occasions. Iam | 
sorry, however, that he has found it necessary to fall back on those 
shadowy creations “sub-genera.” * The same author has also com- 
menced, in the ‘ Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine’ (December, 1864), 
a series of papers on the British Homoptera, which promises to be 
very valuable: anything outside the limits of those engrossing orders, 
the Lepidoptera and Coleoptera, cannot fail to be welcome. 
J purposely refrain from saying anything of works in every one’s 
hands, such as the ‘ Entomologist, the ‘ Entomologist’s Annual,’ the 
‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ &c., but in mentioning the 
‘Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine, I am reminded of the excellent 
descriptions of the Staphylinide, by Mr. Rye, and I think I shall find 
you all responding to the wish that he would undertake to give us, 
what we have been so many years asking for in vain, a descriptive 
catalogue of British Coleoptera. There is no one who can do it 
better. 
And here I would suggest to our collectors the necessity of 
following up, in this country, the examination of the under surface of 
large stones deeply imbedded in the earth. My excellent friend, 
M. Raymond, of Frejus, first led the way, I believe, to this kind of 
exploration, in conjunction with other French naturalists, and par- 
ticularly of M. F. de Saulcy, and the result has been the discovery of 
considerable and always increasing number of new forms, such as 
Anillus, Microtyphlus, Geodytes, Troglorhynchus and others; so that 
there is every reason to believe that this hypogzeal fauna will exceed, 
if it does not already do so, that of the grottoes. Hitherto no hypo- 
geeal species has been detected in this country, but there is Ser no 
reason why some of them may not be found. 
An article by Mr. Roland Trimen, in the ‘ Quarterly Journal of 
Science’ (October, 1864), is a well-written summary of the Geo- 
graphical Distribution of the Genera and Species of Butterflies of 
Madagascar. It appears that there are seventy-three species com- 
prised in thirty-four genera; of the former twenty-eight appear to be 
endemic, but not one of the latter. This result, as Mr. Trimen has 
pointed out, scarcely tends to confirm the deductions Dr. Sclater has 
made from a consideration of the number of endemic mammalian 
genera in that island. It furnishes, however, another instance that 
the zoological regions which may hold good for one class will not do 
for another; among insects, we may say, not even for one order, for 
* See some remarks on sub-genera in the ‘ Westminster Review, January, 1865, 
p. 300. 
