142 Bibliogrcqihical Notices. 



hundred diameters. The pedicel [pd) which supports it is at 

 least twice as long, of uniform diameter throughout, and very 

 slender, in fact not much thicker than the flagellum. It is 

 attached {pcl^) to the bottom of the calyx, exactly opposite to 

 the point from which the contractile ligament (r) arises ; but, 

 unlike the latter, it appears to be totally incapable of contrac- 

 tion. 



[To be continued.] 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



The Natural History of the Tmeina. By H. T, Stain-ton-. 

 Vol. X. 8vo. London : Van Voorst. 1867. 

 Bepoee saying anything upon the contents of the present volume, 

 we must congratulate Mr. Staiuton upon having reached the first 

 halting-place in his laborious undertaking. He has every reason to 

 glance back with satisfaction over the ten beautiful volumes which 

 he has produced in the last thirteen years ; and although be himself 

 speaks, in a somewhat deprecatory tone, of his^having failed to keep 

 up to his original estimate of two volumes annually, we fancy that 

 most of his readers will think that he has accomplished a gigantic 

 amount of work. 



The present volume contains the Natural Historj^ of twenty-four 

 species of the genus Gelechia ; so that, with the contents of the ninth 

 volume, Mr. Stainton has illustrated forty-eight species of that diffi- 

 cult group. But such is the progress of discovery now-a-days that it 

 seems difficult for an author even to keep pace with it. These forty- 

 eight species are scarcely more than a fifth of the known European 

 members of the genus, which now, according to Mr. Stainton's list 

 of them, amount to 231 ; but of these the transformations of only 

 about 100 are known, so that in reality we have in these two volumes 

 the history of nearly half those species whose life has been thoroughly 

 investigated. 



In comparing the habits of these larvae with those of the nearly 

 allied genus Depressaria, in which the history of fifty-two out of 

 eighty-one species was known in 1861, Mr. Stainton arrives at some 

 curious results with regard to what may be called tlieir botanical 

 distribution. Thus, whilst nearly half the known larvae of Depres- 

 saria feed upon Umbelliferous plants, no single Gelecliia is known to 

 derive its nourishment from that order ; the Compositse, which nou- 

 rish fourteen Depressarioi (out of fifty-two), have only ten Qdechim 

 (out of 100) attached to them ; the Leguminosse are patronized by 

 about twice the number of the latter in proportion to the former 

 genus ; and the Caryophyllaceaj, which are quite free from the attacks 

 of Depressaricti, are known to harbour fourteen species of Gelecliia. 



It will be unnecessary for us to follow Mr. Stainton through his 

 elaborate historical notice of the genus, or the histories of the twenty- 

 four species here set forth; his mode of treatment of his subject must 



