Xl LIST OF AUTHORS 



for a low price, the greatest possible amount of informa- 

 tion likely to be useful to beginners ;" is also editor of 

 The Entomologist's Annual, and of The Intelligencer, 

 a weekly publication intended to accelerate the com- 

 munication of new facts among the brethren of the net. 

 In short, Mr. Stainton is engaged in a laudable endea- 

 vour to disseminate among every class a taste for En- 

 tomology, and to place, within the reach of all, the 

 largest amount of Entomological information. 

 STEPHENS, James Francis, F.L.S., F.Z.S., Mem. Ent. Soc. 

 Lond. and France, was born on the 16th September 1792, 

 and from an early age was fond of entomology ; in his 

 sixteenth year he began to prepare a catalogue of British 

 insects, and enumerated 3673 species, of which 1367 

 were Lepidoptera ; he was for many years a clerk in the 

 Admiralty Office. In 181 8 Mr. Stephens assisted Dr. Leach 

 in the arrangement of the collection in the British Mu- 

 seum ; in 1828 appeared " A Systematical Catalogue of 

 British Insects," in which 10,116 species were enume- 

 rated ; in 1829, "The Nomenclature of British Insects," 

 and in 1839, the " Manual of British Coleoptera." Be- 

 sides these works, he was author of a large portion of 

 Shaw's British Zoology, of the entomological articles in 

 the Encycl. Metropolitana, and of numerous papers in 

 The Zoologist, the Zool. Journ., Trans. C. P. S., Entom. 

 Mag., Trans. Ent. Soc., and also of the Brit. Mus. Cat. 

 of Lepidoptera. But the work on which Mr. Stephens' s 

 fame chiefly rests is the " Illustrations of British Ento- 

 mology, a Synopsis of Indigenous Insects" (London, 

 10 vols. 1827-46; the four vols. on Lepidop. appeared 

 between 1828-35), a" work in which it was intended to 

 describe all the known species of British insects; the 

 Hemiptera and Diptera were however omitted, and only 

 a part of the Hymenoptera was executed. Many of the 

 descriptions are faulty, being often compiled from other 

 authors, without verification from actual specimens of the 

 insects, and thus are not unfrequently applied to insects 

 for which they were never intended ; but the volumes 

 contain many very interesting notices of the habits of 

 species, and, despite its faults, the work is the most com- 

 plete that we have on general descriptive Entomology. 

 Mr. Stephens was for a long time engaged in a lawsuit 

 with James Rennie for alleged piracy of the " Illustra- 

 tions/' in the publication of the " Conspectus of British 

 Butterflies and Moths." Rennie was successful ; but the 

 opinion of scientific men was shown by the subscription 



