PITH OF THE PERIODICALS. 191 



Art. XXV. — Pith of the Periodicals. 



We once plumed ourselves pretty considerably on being an 

 editor; it was something a little above the common, a little 

 select; but now, forsooth, the tables are turned, and it is 

 equally select not to be an editor. The whole world of natu- 

 ralists are now editors. Every one who can string ten lines 

 together must announce himself as the editor, or the half- 

 editor, or the third-part editor, or the quarter-editor, of some 

 magazine, designed to teach the science of natural history. 

 Our table, positively, groans with Transactions of Zoological, 

 Natural History, Entomological, &c. Societies, with Naturalists, 

 and Field-Naturalists, and Zoological Magazines, and Maga- 

 zines of Zoology, and Natural History Magazines, and Maga- 

 zines of Natural History, et genus id omne. Whither, whither 

 will the mania carry us at last ! But, oh ! the partnership 

 editorships ! Oh ! the strings of editorial names, with tails 

 longer than those of the comet or O'Connell. We have "regis- 

 tered a vow in" the Firefly, never again to criticise an entomo- 

 logist ; — fear not, therefore — piracy, put on thy most unblushing 

 front ; quackery, rejoice ; dulness, resume thy helm ; stupidity^ 

 thy reign. It is with the determination of finding something 

 to admire, something to commend, that we have turned over the 

 mass before us, and we find the following : — 

 1- Natural History of the British Entomostraca, by William 

 Baird, Surgeon.* 



The appearance of the Entomostraca, insects inclosed in a 

 shell, is enough to excite curiosity ; numbers of them are so 

 like shells that an uninstructed person would so consider them, 

 and this singularity of structure has suggested their name, 

 derived from two Greek words, signifying "an insect" and 

 " a shell ;" a name given by Miiller, and since retained. Before 

 Midler's work, all the Entomostraca were comprised in one 

 genus, called Monoculus, from its being supposed they possessed 

 but a single eye. Linnaeus, in his " Sy sterna Natures,'" describes 

 nine species of Monoculus. Seven others were figured by 

 Joblot, Baker, Frisch, Geoflfroi, and Ledermuller, and a 

 few added by Stroem, Goeze, and Herbst. Degeer describes 

 and figures accurately seven species ; he appears to have 

 been aware of the transformations of Cyclops, figuring and 



a I'id. Magazine of Zoology. 



