THE ZooLoGistT—JULY, 1872. 3117 
Hotices of ew Hooks. 
On the Genus Acentropus. By J. W. Dunnine, M.A., F.LS. 
Mr. DuwninG, an excellent entomologist, and until lately the 
super-excellent Secretary of our Entomological Society, honoured 
and beloved by all its members, in this able dissertation, reverses 
the order of sequence formerly adopted by entomologists when they 
“detected a hitherto unnoticed character” in the hind leg of a 
beetle. On such occasions, our entomological Dryasdusts almost 
invariably began with a general sketch of their views of creation; 
reviewed the history of Adam, Cain, Enos and the patriarchs ; then 
descended to Aristotle, Pliny, Cuvier, Savigny ; were “ astonished” 
that so important a character had escaped the notice of all previous 
savans; and finally travelled through Kingdoms, Provinces, Classes, 
Orders, Families, Genera and Species, until they arrived at this 
identical Scarabeus vulgaris, whose unfortunate leg had perhaps 
_ been broken or bruised by some greedy sparrow in his parental 
anxiety to convey a meal to his expectant family; and who was 
then to become the type of a new species, genus or family, and 
simultaneously the fountain whence reams of paper would be flooded 
with ink, until the thirst for “natural selection,” “ protective dif- 
ferences,” and “ parthenogamic evolution,” was wearied out, if not 
exhausted. Mr. Dunning dispenses, and, as I think, wisely with 
all this, and commences thus :— 
“T have to announce the capture of Acentropus almost in the heart of 
London, about a furlong from the Regent’s Park canal. Between nine and 
ten o’clock one evening, in the latter half of July, 1871, an insect 
attracted my attention, chiefly by the peculiarity of its flight round the 
lamp near which I was sitting; in colour and general appearance it was 
insignificant enough, and might have been a small Crambus; but it had 
not the weak and vacillating motion of a Crambus, for it flew with decision 
and in circles, or rather semi-circles, alighting constantly on the table for a 
moment, then flitting off to perform another round. When it sat for an 
instant, the horizontal and deltoid pose of the wings, and an indescribable 
sprawl of the legs, reminded me of Hydrocampa. I had not recognized the 
insect as Acentropus, and it was only on the following morning, when I had 
killed the specimen, that I found out what it really was. But the living 
insect was certainly to my eye a moth, and it produced upon my mind the 
impression of a Cramboid Hydrocampa.” 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. VII. 21 
