126 Analytical Notices of Books. 



and give but a faint idea of the extent of his investigations, which em- 

 braced the whole series of British Insects. Of this ample evidence is 

 afforded by the cabinet which he formed, and which is now in the British 

 Museum, and by his manuscript catalogues and descriptions. Both the 

 one and the others were at all times open to the enquiring student, and 

 from them much assistance was derived by Mr. Samouelle in the pre- 

 paration of his Entomologist's Useful Compendium, a work which first 

 brought the British naturalist acquainted with the views of continental 

 writers as applicable to our native insects. In it was also embodied a list 

 of species indigenous to this country, which far exceeded any that had 

 been previously published. The views of the modern school of ento- 

 mology, more especially as they relate to the illustration of those subdi- 

 visions which are now regarded as genera, have been rendered yet more 

 familiar to us by the British Entomology of Mr. Curtis, a work still in 

 progress, but of which six volunjes are already completed, embracing 

 figures and descriptions of nearly three hundred genera, and describing 

 or indicating about two thousand species. Of this, and of Mr. Stephens' 

 Illustrations of British Entomology, we have already spoken in previous 

 articles in terms of merited praise, and to both these valuable contribu- 

 tions to our native Fauna we trust that we shall frequently hereafter have 

 occasion to advert. 



The brief sketch of the progress of British Entomology which we 

 have thus hastily traced can scarcely be regarded as misplaced in a notice 

 of a work, the publication of which unquestionably forms an epoch in 

 the history of the science among us. Gratifying as it is to witness the 

 rapid strides which are making tovicards the acquisition of a complete body 

 of information respecting the animal inhabitants of our native country, 

 the feeling partakes somewhat of national pride when we see the most 

 numerous class among them illustrated, as in the present instance, with an 

 accuracy unequalled in any other land. No local list of insects at all 

 comparable with the present in number of species is elsewhere to be 

 found, and there are but few works even of a general nature which ex- 

 ceed it in this respect. It consequently becomes, although professedly 

 local in its object, a work of general interest to entomologists of all 

 countries, to whom it will recommend itself as eminently useful, not 

 merely as an enumeration of species, but also on account of the extent 



