Bibliographical Notice. 307 



to the pupa state also takes place within the case, and the pupa lies 

 concealed therein until the perfect insect is ready to emerge. 



The subject-matter of the sixth volume is furnished by the exten- 

 sive genus Depressaria, which includes eighty described species, 

 mostly natives of Europe. Of these the transformations of fifty-two 

 are known, and the volume under consideration gives the natural 

 history of twenty-four, or nearly half the known species. Their 

 food-plants belong chiefly to the natural orders Umbelliferse and 

 Compositse, which nourish no fewer than forty out of the fifty-two 

 species. The larvse usually feed upon the leaves of plants, the edges 

 of which they turn down so as to form a sort of tubular habitation ; 

 but some dwell amongst the umbels of the Umbelliferse, and often 

 draw together the peduncles of the flowers with silken threads so as 

 greatly to distort the growth of the plant. The perfect insects, 

 which are amongst the largest and least brilliant of our Tineina, are 

 produced at the end of the summer or in the autumn, and most of 

 them hybernate in the perfect state, concealing themselves in the 

 quiet corners of out-houses and sheltered palings, or creeping up 

 amongst the straws of thatch. 



In noticing the first volume of this book, we calculated that, for the 

 British Tineina alone, the natural history of all the species could not 

 be given in less than twenty-five volumes, the production of which 

 cannot be looked upon otherwise than as an undertaking requiring 

 a considerable amount of courage. Mr. Stainton, however, goes 

 boldly forward, undeterred even by the rapid increase in the number 

 of known species of the great group to the elucidation of which he 

 has devoted himself with so much zeal, although, if matters go on 

 as they have lately been doing, he may look forward to requiring 

 forty or fifty volumes for the due illustration of his subject. From 

 his " further observations on the genus Nepticula^ contained in the 

 newly published seventh volume, it appears that this genus, of which 

 only 33 species were known at the time of the publication of the first 

 volume (in 1855), now numbers at least 74 well-established species ; 

 and although this is doubtless an extreme case, still the great atten- 

 tion which has of late been paid, both in this country and on the 

 Continent, to the Microlepidoptera, has certainly added many species 

 to other genera. In the face of such a rapid increase still going on, 

 it is almost too much to hope for the continuance of the life and 

 energies of any one man long enough to allow him to bring together 

 the whole mass of progressive observations on the natural history of 

 this interesting group of Moths, in the comprehensive manner dis- 

 played in the work before us ; but our author may have at least 

 this consolation, that the design of his work is so good and so well 

 carried out, that, let him stop where he will, it must always be a 

 most valuable contribution to entomological literature, and a worthy 

 monument of his zeal for the advancement of his favourite science. 



21* 



