THE ZOOLOGIST 



FOE 1856. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



c Hie Natural History of the Tineina? Vol. I., containing Nepticula, 

 Part I., and Cemiostoma, Part I. By H. T. Stainton, assisted 

 by Professor Zeller and J. W. Douglas. London : Van 

 Voorst. Paris: Deyrolle. Berlin: Mittler and Son. 1855. 

 Demy 8vo, 338 pp. letter-press ; 8 coloured plates : 'price 

 12s. 6d. ; to Subscribers 7s. 6d. 



It is difficult to realize the idea of a complete work of which an 8vo 

 volume of 338 pages is but the tithe of a first instalment of an unlimited 

 number of series. The most sanguine of entomologists will scarcely 

 contemplate the possibility of living until the last volume of the last 

 series shall be complete. It is not, however, the province of the 

 reviewer to scan, through the telescope of imagination, the dim 

 prospect of a far-off future : his part is to deal with the first volume 

 of the first series just as it were the first, the last, and the only one. 

 Viewed in this light, the present volume is most valuable; it gives us 

 the histories of twenty-one species of Neplicula and three of Cemios- 

 toma ; all of them patiently worked out and illustrated by excellent 

 figures of the larva, food-plant and imago : there are, however, no 

 figures of the pupa, and this I feel an omission : it is true they may 

 be very similar in the several species, and this might be a sound 

 argument for not repeating them — it is scarcely one for omitting them 

 altogether. To myself it has always been a matter of regret that 

 more attention was not paid to the preparatory states of all our 

 insects: it is true that these states are often less enduring than the 

 perfect insect; and it is also true that we are naturally apt to prefer 

 the tangible and the visible : the acquisition and diffusion of know- 

 ledge for its own sake, and irrespective of all ulterior utilitarian objects, 

 XIV. B 



