Geological Society. 253 



should have dared to hope for ; in fact, a similar treatment of the 

 Oriental Insect-fauna alone would produce a small library of books 

 sucb as no Government could be expected to take the responsibility 

 of publishing. But should the production of a series of Manuals of 

 the Indian Invertebrata ever be realized, such books as Mr. Distant's 

 will be of great importance in the identification of species, to be 

 briefly described in the smaller works ; but in that case we hope 

 that they may not, as in the case of the late Dr. Day's ' Indian 

 Fishes/ cause the elimination of nearly all synonymy. 



That Mr. Distant's book will be somewhat voluminous may be 

 inferred from the fact that this first part includes, besides the pre- 

 liminary general matter, the descriptions of only twenty-eight 

 species belonging to four genera, and leaves 9 genera still to be 

 treated in his first subfamily of Cicadinoe. The descriptions are 

 carefully drawn up, and the student ought to have little difficulty 

 in determining the various species, especially with the aid of the 

 beautifully-executed plates, two of which illustrate the present part. 

 There is only one drawback to the treatment of the subject by the 

 Author, namely, that he divides the family into two subfamilies, 

 Cicadinaj and Tibiceninae, solely upon characters belonging to the 

 male insect, and that he seems inclined to lay rather much stress 

 upon the development of the tympanic opercula, also a male cha- 

 racter, in the distinction of species and genera ; but with a book of 

 which only a first instalment has appeared, any criticism is perhaps 

 out of place. 



Mr. Wood-Mason's 'Catalogue of Mantodea' is not so strictly 

 au Indian book as Mr. Distant's. It is, in fact, a catalogue of the 

 Insects of the family Mantodea contained in the Indian Museum ; 

 and although, as might be expected, it contains a great number of 

 Eastern species, these are interspersed with others from various 

 parts of the World, especially Africa and Australia, and even South 

 America. This first part, which is probably about half of the 

 entire work, includes notices of eighty-seven species, five of which 

 are described as new, and the descriptions of some other species 

 previously described by the Author are also given, as well as occa- 

 sional notes on the characters of other forms, which are often 

 illustrated with very instructive woodcut figures. Two new genera 

 of Eremiaphilidae are characterized under the names of Paro.vy- 

 ophthalmus and Parepiscopus, both for forms in which the eyes project 

 upwards more or less in the shape of horns. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 

 GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 November 20, 1889.— W. T. Blanford, LL.D., F.R.S., 



President, in the Chair. 

 The following communications were read : — 



1 . "On the Occurrence of the Striped Hyaena in the Tertiary of 

 the Val d'Arno." By II. Lydekker, Esq., B.A., F.G.S. 



A portion of the left maxilla of a Hyama, in the British Museum, 



