RECENT LITERATURE. 79 



ingredients of the genera Barichneumon and Cratichneumon which 

 are much intermingled, if he had not so closely followed the second 

 author cited, and a great many of Forster's genera, given by Dalla 

 Torre, are most unnatural ones ; but it is a systematist's duty to 

 include all the divisions erected, though subsequent writers are 

 fortunately at liberty to ignore them, if found invalid. Particularly 

 in the Pezomachoid subgenera is this the case, since these sections 

 are founded entirely upon alar development, of no stability in these 

 groups ; and one is led to think Pezomachus itself but poorly repre- 

 sented by thirty-four species, though many more can now be added, 

 since we have ourself seen several species in M. de Gaulle's collection, 

 not herein included. The grouping of the Pimplini genera is some- 

 what novel, though it is in no way to be condemned ; and many of 

 those among the Mesoleptini might have been dispensed with to 

 greater advantage, especially the Forsteran, though that author's 

 really useful Alloplasta has not been employed for Meniscus murinus, 

 Grav. The Braconids follow Marshall's arrangement in xlndr^'s 

 great work, with various doubtful improvements from Szeplegeti in 

 •Genera Insectorum.' The list is a full one, though it is surprising to 

 find but forty-two species of Apanteles enumerated : seventy-three are 

 British. France has evidently paid a great deal more attention to her 

 Chalcididse than Britain of late. The catalogue is not extensive, though 

 very instructive, comparing favourably wuth that of our own species 

 recently presented for publication to the Entomological Society of 

 London by Mr. Claude Morley, which comprises over fourteen hundred 

 species. It is, however, quite otherwise with the Chrysids, Ants, 

 and, in fact, all the Aculeata ; and one is led to speculate upon our 

 insular dearth of these things. The author has conferred one real 

 boon upon all systematists in distinctly intimating such " species " as 

 are mere MS. names, both in Dours' ' Catalogue ' and in Dr. Giraud's 

 very excellent "Liste des 6closions d'Insectes" (Ann. Soc. Fr. 1877, 

 pp. 397-436). Another is the addition of food-plants in the phyto- 

 phagous, and host-names in the parasitic, species ; as well as the 

 establishment of the synonymy of names in Fourcroy's ' Entomologia 

 Parisiensis ' and De Fonscolombe's ' Ichneumonologie Provincale ' of 

 1847 to 1854. M. de Gaulle, in a post-scriptum, requests that all 

 additions to the French fauna and suggestions for the good of the 

 Catalogue be sent him. We can do no more than return our thanks 

 for an exceedingly valuable and laborious list, and venture to note 

 that there is no summary of the exact number of species in the 

 various families, subfamilies, and tribes enumerated. The total is 

 said to approximate five thousand species, one comparing most 

 favourably with the two thousand six hundred of the old Catalogue, 

 though the total is suspected of reaching eight thousand when full 

 investigation of France's Hymenoptera has been achieved. 



C. M. 



Anjials of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology . Vol. ii, No. 4. 

 Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 

 Among the contents are " A new Culicid Genus," by F. V. 

 Theobald, M.A. ; and " Note sur le role des Tabanides dans la 

 Propagation des Trypanosomiases " par Le Dr. Edmond Sergent. 



