Insects. 1887 



and delineating, what was ray surprise when I perceived a black body floating upon 

 the surface of the liquid ; this upon attentive examination proved to be a pupa. If 

 I had not felt certain of having rigorously isolated my larva, I could not have believed 

 that this pupa had any connexion with it, so little did it resemble the previous stage. 

 The curious chrysalis, so unexpectedly presented, balanced itself like a boat at the 

 least breath of air ; and in meditating upon its mission, I felt myself more than ever 

 humiliated before the astonishing conservative provisions of Nature. There, where 

 the uneducated eye would have seen nothing but an inert fragment of wood blackened 

 by putrefaction, I perceived the hermetically sealed cradle of a tender nymph, swathed 

 and motionless, the future hope of the Tetanocera. I felt that this precious foetal re- 

 ceptacle was destined, by the Supreme Intelligence, to brave the storm during five 

 months of the most inclement season ; to become the sport of the waves ; to preserve 

 its vitality in defiance of the ice which would imprison it for days, and perhaps weeks ; 

 and at length, on the exclusion of the winged insect in the coming spring, to proclaim 

 aloud the intelligent solicitudes of Providence. This chrysalis had need to be formed 

 of a tissue at once impermeable, resisting and elastic, in order to shield its frail in- 

 habitant from direct contact with the water, and to break the force of its buffetings 

 and inevitable shocks ; it had also need of a form which should prevent it from being 

 submerged at any time, and thus exposing, in the midst of so many dangers, so many 

 elements of destruction, that precious deposit of a life then simply lethargic. This, 

 surely, if I do not deceive myself, is the true philosophy of science. — Report of the 

 Meeting of the Acadcmie des Sciences, on the 14th June, 1847, in the ' Nouvelle Revue 

 Encyclopedique ' for that month. 



Revision of British Hydro cantharidce. By H. Schacm, M.D., Sec. Ent. Soc. of 



Having paid for some time past much attention to the group of Hydrocantharida?, 

 and having compared typical specimens of nearly all the European species described 

 within the last fifteen years by continental authors, I took advantage of a short 

 stay in London to examine the species contained in the principal English collections, 

 in order to reduce to one standard, where practicable, the different names used by 

 British and continental entomologists. 



It will be seen, by the following pages, that this difference of nomenclature is very 

 great. It is, however, easily to be accounted for. The insular position of Great 

 Britain must naturally tempt the collectors of that country to confine themselves en- 

 tirely to the study of the productions of their own soil, of which they could hope 

 eventually to obtain an almost complete knowledge ; and they have succeeded so well in 

 collecting these productions, that perhaps, with the exception of Sweden and Norway 

 only, the entomological fauna of Great Britain is at present better known than that 

 of any other country in Europe. This exclusive interest for British insects, has, how- 

 ever, militated against that exchange of specimens with foreign entomologists which is 

 so necessary for the exact determination of species in all the more difficult genera 

 and groups. British entomologists were compelled to determine their insects entirely 

 according to the descriptions of continental writers; and it will be freely admitted 



