Bibliographical Notice. 191 
came under our notice for review, and we have now the pleasure of 
welcoming the second volume of Col. Bingham’s work on the Hy- 
menoptera Aculeata of India, comprising the important families of 
Formicide and Chrysidide, and thus completing the best-known 
and most interesting, though not the most numerous, section of the 
order—the Aculeata, or Stinging Hymenoptera: the Bees, Wasps, 
and Ants. 
We are very pleased to see that the claims of entomology are so 
fully recognized by those who are responsible for the issue of this 
valuable series of publications. A volume by Mr. Gahan on Longi- 
corn Coleoptera and a second volume by Mr. Distant on Rhynchota 
are announced as nearly ready for press, and works on the Land- 
Mollusca and on the Butterflies of India (the latter by Col. Bingham) 
are likewise in preparation. It is much to be wished that the 
colonies in general would follow the good example set them by 
India, and undertake the preparation of a similar series of works 
dealing with their own natural productions. For instance, we have 
not even a comprehensive work on the Butterflies and Moths of the 
British West Indies, though these insects are admired by every one, 
and the West Indian species are fairly well known to specialists. 
Nevertheless the amateur or the beginner would find nothing like 
a comprehensive account of even the Lepidoptera of Jamaica in any. 
accessible form; and less still on other orders of insects. This 
should not be. 
It will be seen that such a reproach no longer exists in regard to 
India, for we may reasonably hope that all the orders of insects 
will ultimately be treated as fully as those already in course 
of publication. But even as regards the British Islands we 
have no sufficiently comprehensive scientific or popular works at 
present on the Diptera and a portion of the Hymenoptera, though 
Mr. Verrall has commenced a series of volumes on the former 
order and Mr. Claud Morley has promised us a volume on the 
Ichneumonide. 
To those who are acquainted with Col. Bingham’s previous work 
it will only be necessary to say that the volume before us is executed 
in his usual careful manner and according to the plan which has 
been uniformly followed in all the volumes of ‘ The Fauna of British 
India” He has described 577 species in the volume before us, 
498 Formicide and 79 Chrysidide. Among these are a few new 
species. The number of British species known in 187J—2, according 
to the catalogues of Smith and Marshall, and not greatly increased 
since, stood at 31 Myrmicide and 22 Chrysidide. This will 
serve to illustrate the difference between a temperate and a tropical 
fauna. 
