168 Rev. A. Matthews on the ‘Classification of 
inhabiting any part of the Old World should not be as well 
known in Philadelphia as in London, Paris, or Berlin; and 
much less is there any reason to suppose that American entomo- 
logists are not, at the very least, as well able to appreciate its 
affinities as the most erudite of their European contemporaries. 
In some respects, indeed, they possess superior advantages, 
inasmuch as they have begun the science, as it were, de novo, 
unfettered by time-honoured traditions, and* unbiassed by 
favourite, though antiquated, systems founded upon partial 
and often imperfect knowledge—systems which, although 
they fultilled the conditions of their own age, are inadequate 
to meet the requirements of a time like the present, when a 
vastly extended field of observation, and a much more nume- 
rous band of students, assisted by greatly improved means of 
investigation, are continually enlarging our knowledge by the 
discovery of fresh links and synthetic forms disclosing correla- 
tive affinities between groups whose connexion had previously 
been unsuspected. In such a State of things a revision of our 
systematic classification was imperatively called for ; and this 
work has been inaugurated by the recent publication of the 
‘ Classification of the Coleoptera of North America,’ by Dr. 
LeConte and Dr. Horn. 
Although by its title this great work professes to deal with 
the fauna of merely one half of the western hemisphere, the 
comprehensive lines on which it has been constructed will 
include (with, it may be, triflmg modifications) the Coleoptera 
of both sides of the world. Indeed it is evident from the 
work itself that its authors had this object in view, since every 
family at present contained in the order is mentioned, and its 
proper position in the system assigned to each. On this ac- 
count many subtribes and subgroups are made which at first 
sight seem superfluous, represented as they are often by a 
single genus, and sometimes by a single species, in the North- 
American fauna; but the same subdivisions occasionally com- 
prise an extensive series of insects in other quarters of the 
world. 
The “Table of Contents” (pp. v, vi) gives a compendious 
view both of the completeness of this great work and of the 
labour expended on its construction. This is followed by an 
elaborate ‘ Introduction” (pp. Vil—Xxxvill), which might 
well be termed an Introduction to the entire science of ento- 
mology. Having given a tabular view of all orders of insects, 
the Authors restrict their labours to the Coleoptera alone; and 
at this pointcommence their real work with a complete and lucid 
definitive analysis of the whole external skeleton of a beetle, 
illustrated by numerous and well-executed woodcuts of the 
