472- Bibliographical Notices. 
Terebrant section of the order, according to the older systematists, 
attract few observers; and, with regard to the great bulk of them, 
the cause is not far to seek. The petiolated forms are so fearfully 
numerous that no one not possessed of a most determined spirit 
could ever hope to cope with them successfully, and the foreign 
works devoted to their classification and description are for the 
most part fragmentary in their scope; so that, in the case of these 
creatures, the British collector finds himself face to face with diffi- 
culties which can only be overcome by great perseverance, with free 
access to a very extensive library, and it is no great wonder if he 
recoils from the task. 
With the Tenthredinide and other securiferous types, however, 
things are somewhat different. Hartig’s well-known work, ‘ Die 
Familien der Blatt- und Holzwespen,’ has for the last twenty years 
furnished the entomologist with a reliable manual of the Kuropean 
forms, while a considerable number of other writers in France, 
Germany, and Scandinavia have published important contributions, 
bearing especially on the classification and determination of these 
insects, most of which apply more or less closely to our British 
species. Moreover we have in English a work, of rather ancient 
date it is true, which treats of the Tenthredinide of these islands, 
in the incomplete ‘ Illustrations of British Entomology,’ by James 
Francis Stephens ; and although Mr. Cameron, in the book now before 
us, speaks rather slightingly of Stephens’s labours, a glance through 
his own synonymy shows that Stephens’s determinations of the 
species were very generally correct, according to the lights of more 
than forty years ago. 
Nevertheless the Tenthredinide seem never to have attracted 
much attention in this country, which is the more to be wondered at 
as they are for the most part very elegant and often beautiful crea- 
tures, and easily bred from the larvex, so that the natural history of 
most of the species may be investigated with the same facility as 
that of the more popular Lepidoptera; and it is therefore with no 
small gratification that we welcome the appearance of the first 
volume of a ‘Monograph of the British Phytophagous Hymeno- 
ptera,’ which treats exclusively of a portion of the great family of 
the Sawflies. The author, Mr. Cameron, has here associated with 
the true Sawflies, not only the nearly allied securiferous forms of the 
Siricide and their allies, but also the petiolated phytophagous species 
constituting the family Cynipide ; and in this way his book, when 
completed, will treat of the most interesting groups of Hymeno- 
ptera outside the Aculeate section of the order. 
Taking the present instalment of his work as a sample of the 
whole, we most sincerely congratulate Mr. Cameron on the admi- 
rable manner in which he has performed his task: throughout we 
find traces of the most careful and conscientious investigation ; and 
every department of his subject appears to have received from him 
an equal amount of attention. Besides careful descriptions of the 
genera and species, the author gives an introductory description of 
the external structure of the insects forming the family Tenthre- 
