252 THE entomologist's record. 



part of the work descriptions of 242 species are gathered together from 

 various sorirces, and the author thinks that very few have escaped him. 

 He is careful also to tell us that very possibly it will prove that some 

 of these are not distinct, but are synonymous, due perhaps in some 

 degree to carelessness of describers, more often to the insufficient 

 description of earlier students. It might have been well had these 

 been carefully elucidated by the author, but this would hardly have 

 been possible, consistently with the aim of getting together at once all 

 the material the author could find as a basis for further work, rather 

 than providing a finished monograph of the group. If we regard it as 

 what it proposes to be, a collection of the known material for the use 

 of the student of medicine in the field, Ave must congratulate the 

 author on having produced a work with such well digested arrange- 

 ment. Of the 242 species, 72 are given as European and 24 as 

 British. Of the latter several are genuine mosquitoes (i.e., blood- 

 sucking gnats), but our weather is rarely hot or dry enough to give 

 them a taste for anything beyond their natural food of vegetable juices. 

 It is for this reason that they are rarely very troublesome in this 

 country, and not because the insects themselves are absent. We are 

 inclined to suspect, however, that it is very much due also to the com- 

 parative rarity of the insects. One rarely sees Cidex pipiens, or especi- 

 ally ('. annulatus, without finding them ready to bite, but then they 

 usually appear by ones and twos, and not in swarms. — T. A. C. 



The Transactions of the City of London Entomological and Natural 

 History Society, 1899, demy 8vo., pp. 1-80. — Price 2s. [Published at 

 the Society's Eooms, London Institution, Finsbury Circus, E.C.] . — ■ 

 The Transactions of the Citij of London Entomoloz/ical and Natural Historij 

 Soviet >/ for 1899 consist of three parts : (1) The proceedings at the 

 meetings, (2) Original papers, and (3) The continuation of the Fauna 

 of the London District. The first part contains a large number of 

 incidental notes and observations on the species exhibited by the 

 members, most of them of great value, more particularly to field 

 naturalists, whilst here and there {e.</., p. 11, "The Coleoptera of 

 Weymouth," Donisthorpe) one finds important abstracts of papers not 

 printed in full. The papers in the second part are most valuable ; 

 " Notes on Spilosoma luhricipeda," by A. W. Mera ; " Poisonous plants 

 in relation to medical jurisprudence," by F. Bouskell, F.E.S. ; " The 

 lifehistory of Oporahia aiitumnata, Bkh.," by L. B. Prout, F.E.S. ; 

 " Variation in broods of Axylia putris, Cucidlia umhratica, Spilosoma 

 vrtieae, and Malacosonia castrensis," by A. Bacot ; " Some marsh 

 beetles of the Lea Valley," by F. B. Jennings, F.E.S. Mr. Prout's 

 paper is particularly important to all lepidopterists, and no one should 

 miss it who is at all interested in the Geometrids. " The Fauna of 

 the London List," is carried on throughout the Noctuids, Deltoids and 

 a part of the Geometrids. The nomenclature used will probably be to 

 a large extent that finally accepted under the now generally recognised 

 laws of priority, and we should be glad if correspondents would as 

 far as possible keep entirely to the revised nomenclature as investi- 

 gated by Mr. Prout and here published. The Transactions should 

 certainly be in the hands of all lepidopterists. 



Erratum. — p. 213, line 33, for 12mm. read l-2mm. 



