128 Bibliogi'aphical Notices, 



Dr. E. has chosen to bestow upon them. The consequence of this 

 will be that very many of the names that Dr. E. has imposed must 

 upon the further elaboration of the family fall into synonyms by 

 those very laws of priority to which in some of his preceding works 

 he has so inflexibly adhered by restoring Fabrician names, upon hia 

 consultation of the Fabrician cabinet, to insects which had been re- 

 named subsequently by others owing to the imperfection of the ori- 

 ginal Fabrician diagnostics. This manifestly evinces very unscientific 

 caprice ; for surely the characters in Stephens's work are never less 

 characteristic than those in Fabricius, and he therefore has an equal 

 claim to the priority which his date of publication gives him. But 

 time and common justice will set this aff^air to rights. We cannot 

 here go into a detailed examination of the work before us. It will 

 suffice to obsen'^e that a second part is to complete it, which was 

 promised to have been published ere this, — and that it embraces all 

 the Staphylini, exotic as well as European. The generic and specific 

 characters are very carefully drawn, and the former aided by figures 

 of the trophi, and in a few instances of the insects themselves. The 

 work as far as yet published comprises an introductory generaliza- 

 tion upon their natural characters, affinities, external structure, in- 

 ternal structure, metamorphoses, habits of life, geographical distri- 

 bution, history of their systematic arrangement, and this is followed 

 by the author's distribution into eleven tribes, viz. 1 . Aleocharini ; 

 2. Tachyporini ; 3. Staphylinini ; 4. Psederini ; 5. Pinophilini ; 6. 

 Stenini; 7. Oxytelini ; 8. Piestini ; 9. Phljeocharini ; 10. Omalini ; 

 1 1 . Proteinini. A tabulation follows of the genera comprised in these 

 tribes, and this is succeeded by the body of the work, and the por- 

 tion now published includes the first two tribes and a part of the 

 third : on its completion we shall enter more into detail upon the 

 subject. 



The Petrified Insects of Solenhofen, described by Professor Germar of 

 Halle, with Three Lithographic Plates. In the Nova Acta Physico- 

 Medica Academise Cses. Leopol. Carol. Naturae Curiosorum. Vol. 

 XIX. Pt. I. 



The learned Professor, whose labours in entomology the lovers of 

 sound science can well appreciate, gives us here an account of 18 

 insects discovered in the limestone formation of Solenhofen. He 

 had previously described 25 from the lignite of Rod and Arzberg 

 in the Seven Mountains on the Rhine and of Bayreuth. The paper 

 is accompanied by twenty lithographic figures, which greatly assist 

 the descriptions, and indeed without which the latter would be al- 



