Reviews and Notices of Books. 345 



such remarks should have been withheld at the commencement of 

 a new work, and that as it goes on in future years the authors will 

 of themselves adopt such a plan as we have indicated, but we 

 learn from Mr Stainton's preface that no such course is contem- 

 plated, and we are threatened in another year with a very different 

 kind of supplement. Mr Stainton says, " The object of the pre- 

 sent annual is to record systematically the discoveries of each year ; 

 but it need not thereby be a purely technical work, and with the 

 view of making it attractive as well as useful, several amusing 

 chapters would have been introduced had space permitted. If the 

 demand should be sufficiently great to warrant such a proceeding, 

 the bulk of next year's Annual will be increased, without any 

 alteration in the price, and I may then be able to give some ' Say- 

 ings and Doings at St Osyth,' by Mr Douglas ; ' Results of a 

 Summer's Residence at Fochabers,' by Mr Scott ; and a chapter 

 ' On the comparative degrees of usefulness of Public and Private 

 Collections,' or other communications of a like nature." We hope 

 Mr Stainton will reconsider this. However excellent the papers 

 alluded to may be in their way, he may rest assured that that is 

 not the sort of thing his readers want. They do not look for 

 amusement in a scientific work, and the best way to make it at- 

 tractive is to make it useful. 



Mr Stainton no doubt foresees that he will have a lack of mat- 

 ter next year ; and seeing that the discoveries of the last twenty 

 years have all been required to fill the pages of this small volume, 

 it is undoubted that if he confines himself to the narrow bounds 

 he has laid down, he will not have matter for a dozen pages. 

 But if instead of filling up the deficiency with " amusing chapters," 

 he and his coadjutors will set themselves to give the information 

 we desiderate, he will find that his yearly pages will be all too 

 small to hold the half of the valuable matter he has to communi- 

 cate. Let them take Erichson's " Report on the Contributions to 

 the Natural History of Insects, &c. during the year 1842," of 

 which a translation was published by the Ray Society in 1845, 

 as a model ; and however short they may come of that unequalled 

 production, we shall venture to say that the " Annual" will then 

 give more satisfaction than if it contained the liveliest articles 

 that ever were tendered to a monthly magazine. 



Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club. 1854. 



8vo. (Printed for Members only.) 

 Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists 9 Club. 1853. 8vo. 

 Malvern Naturalists 1 Field Club. 1855. 8vo. 



The proceedings of the active Club placed first on our list, now 



