Bibliographical Notice. 267 
the orders of Arachnida and the principal families of spiders being 
treated almost as fully as some of the smaller orders of insects. 
Turning now to the Insécts, which form the chief subject of 
Prof. Comstock’s work, we find that he divides them into nineteen 
orders, instead of the seven into which they are frequently com- 
pressed by European entomologists, although Westwood, in 1840, 
admitted thirteen, exclusive of Thysanura and Parasita (= Ano- 
plura and Mallophaga), which he did not regard as true insects. 
Prof. Packard, however, admits only eight, including the Thysanura. 
Prof. Comstock’s nineteen orders are as follows :—Thysanura, 
Ephemerida, Odonata, Plecoptera, Isoptera, Corrodentia, Mallophaga, 
Euplexoptera, Orthoptera, Physopoda, Hemiptera, Neuroptera, Meco- 
ptera, Trichoptera, Lepidoptera, Diptera, Siphonaptera, Coleoptera, 
Hymenoptera. Of these the following names are in less general use 
than the others :—Plecoptera (Perlidz), Isoptera (Termites), Corro- 
dentia (Psocide), Physopoda (Thrips), Mecoptera (Panorpidie and 
Bittacide), and Siphonaptera (Pulicidee). The Neuroptera (which 
name we should prefer to retain for the Odonata) include the 
families Mantispide, Raphidide, Sialidse, Coniopterygide, Myrme- 
leonidee, Hemerobiidee, and Chrysopide. Two or three of the old 
orders admitted by Westwood disappear as orders ; thus, the Hemi- 
ptera are divided into three suborders—Heteroptera, Parasita 
(Pediculide), and Homoptera—and the Strepsiptera are treated as 
a family of Coleoptera, as by most recent authors. 
Several of these orders are treated very briefly indeed ; thus, only 
four pages are given to the Odonata, or Dragonflies, which are said 
to form “ only a single family.” Considering that the Rhynchophora, 
or Weevils, are treated as a suborder of Coleoptera (though far less 
anomalous than some of the aberrant Heteromera, the Meloide for 
example), it is strange to see a group of nearly 2000 known species, 
and containing three main families as distinct as the Libellulide, 
Aischnidex, and Agrionide, dismissed with even less notice than is 
given to the compact little order of the Siphonaptera or Fleas, and 
with scarcely an observation of the slightest scientific, or even 
popular, value. In Prof. Packard’s work, which we suppose has 
served as the model of Prof. Comstock’s, the Odonata are much 
more fully dealt with, although still inadequately. 
It must be allowed that it would be unfair to expect the writer 
of a general work like this to make it equally complete in every 
group; but it is difficult to account for such a scant notice of such 
an important group as the Odonata. On the other hand, most of 
the larger orders are treated of as elaborately as the character of the 
work and the available space will allow, no less than 222 pages 
being allotted to the Lepidoptera alone. 
Many figures are given of wing-neuration in all the orders, but 
more especially in the Lepidoptera, which, as is well known, 
Prof. Comstock proposes to divide into two suborders. The first 
suborder is the Jugatee, or Lepidoptera with similar neuration to the 
fore and hind wings, and with a small lobe projecting from the 
base of the fore wings beneath the costal margin of the hind wing, 
