78 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Catalogue of the Noctuidce in the Collection of the British Museum. 

 By Sir George F. Hampson, Bart. Published by the 

 Trustees of the British Museum. 



The author of this great descriptive Catalogue of the "Lepi- 

 doptera Phalaenas " has now completed his sixth volume, and the 

 third devoted to the Noctuidce of the world. This deals with the 

 Cuculliance, the third of the fifteen subfamilies into which the 

 Noctuidce are divided, 692 species belonging to 111 genera being 

 described in it. 



The moths enumerated and described in this volume are 

 to a very large extent Nearctic and Palsearctie in distribution, 

 comprising a number of our British species ; and as a thorough 

 revision of the classification and nomenclature has been made, 

 and a full list of habitats given to each species, it demands the 

 attention of British lepidopterists. This latter feature alone 

 would make the book important, for in many, if not in most of 

 the volumes relating to our fauna, the dispersal of the species is 

 not traced beyond these islands, and thus a stunted and in- 

 adequate conception is given of their distributional position. 

 At the same time affinities are shown to species lying beyond the 

 limits of our fauna, and thus a greater biological interest can 

 be afforded to a simple collection and identification of our British 

 moths. 



Sir George Hampson still maintains his standard of monu- 

 mental labour and precision, and such labour, perhaps unrecog- 

 nized by those who prefer some evolutionary speculation, has an 

 importance beyond mere taxonomical technique, and affords the 

 material on which a future evolutionary structure will be raised. 

 We notice that in this series of coloured plates the three-colour 

 process has been discarded, and a reversion to chromo-litho- 

 graphy has taken place. 



A Synonymic Catalogue of Orthoptera. By W. F. Kirby. Vol. II. 

 Orthoptera Saltatoria (Achetidae et Phasgonuridae). Pub- 

 lished by the Trustees of the British Museum. 



We heartily welcome the second volume of this excellent 

 catalogue, a compilation that will have the greatest influence in 

 directing and assisting an increased study of the large order of 



