198 Biblioyraphical Notices. 



long, spreading, pectinato-pinnate, compressed ; the pinnae very 

 narrow, linear and acute. When magnified, the apices of the 

 pinnae are found to be frequently minutely forked in a divaricate 

 manner, like some Cladonice. The lower part of the stalk of each 

 frond is naked for about half an Inch, and covered with linear 

 scales or processes, like those of the creeping stem. 



I propose the following name and character for this very 

 beautiful Alga : — 



Caulerpa superba, frondibus ovato-oblongis, ramulis numerosis 

 pectinato-pinnatis undique obsitis. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE X. 



Fig. 1. A frond of Caulerpa superba, natural size. 

 Fig. 2. A portion of a pinna. 

 Fig. 3. Apices of ditto, magnified. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Geodephaga Britannica. By J. F. Dawson. 

 London : J. Van Voorst, 1854. 



To investigate a new country, and to draw conclusions from facts 

 and objects, concerning the novelty of which (as contrasted with what 

 we ordinarily experience) there can be no question, however interest- 

 ing and important may be the results arrived at, is a comparatively 

 easy undertaking ; but, to search for information along the beaten 

 highways of science, to aspire to advance knowledge in paths which 

 have been explored by others, and to gain additional points of light 

 by destroying the error which has been permitted gradually to accu- 

 mulate, is a laborious task which no one can accept without becoming 

 a public benefactor in his particular line. And hence it is that we 

 hail the appearance, more especially, of those works the professed 

 aim of which is to simplify rather than to discover, — believing that 

 the greatest boon which can be conferred upon any given subject is 

 to separate the true from the false, and so to pave the way for the 

 advance of the former, and, as a necessary consequence, the annihi- 

 lation of the latter. Such has been the primary object of the author 

 of the publication now before us ; and therefore, whatever may be its 

 intrinsic merits, we must plead guilty to a certain a priori prejudice 

 in its favour. 



But, if we turn to the pages of this Monograph, and compare the 

 results arrived at with those of the standard works which have gone 

 before it, we shall perceive that it has not been taken in hand wan- 

 tonly ; but that it is the fruit of much close observation and practical 

 research, and that it may in fact be looked upon as the most suc- 

 cessful attempt which has been hitherto made to clear up the diffi- 

 culties of nomenclature, and the confusion which has arisen as regards 

 the species themselves, in so large a section of the British Coleoptera. 



