7874 



Notices of New Books. 



It is not a little remarkable that out of the seven genera of bees sup- 

 posed by myself to be parasitic in 1834, Mr. Smith should have 

 proved six to be parasitic before 186*2 ; his labours seem to have won- 

 derfully established the conclusions I had drawn many years ago : 

 the seventh genus, Hylaeus, since called Prosopis, Mr. Smith con- 

 siders to have been proved non-parasitic both by Mr. Thwaites and 

 Mr. Sidney Saunders, and I most cheerfully bow to authorities so 

 deservedly esteemed. I always entertained a doubt on the subject, 

 and expressed that doubt by a note of interrogation. 



In Mr. Stainton's New British Species of Lepidoptera he makes no 

 mention of my Ephyra decoraria, supposed by Mr. Doubleday to be 

 a Nemoria. Whence this reticence I cannot imagine. I am glad to 

 see Mr. Stainton quoting with approbation Mr. Doubleday's " truly 

 philosophic note," — " Whether the Irish Zygaena is anything more 

 than a local variety of Minos time may perhaps prove." The spirit 

 of this " truly philosophic note" might be advantageously extended 

 to the whole of those minute Lepidoptera to which Mr. Stainton has 

 paid such undivided attention. 



On the whole the c Entomologist's Annual' for 1862 is superior to 

 either of its predecessors ; and I shall regret to read any announce- 

 ment of its discontinuance, on the ground recently advanced, in the 

 now defunct ' Intelligencer,' against periodical literature in matters of 

 Science. 



Edward Newman. 



' The Natural History of the Tineina? Vol. VI., containing De- 

 pressaria, Part I. By H. T. Stainton, assisted by Professor 

 Zeller and J. W. Douglas. London : John Van Voorst, 

 Paternoster Row. 280 pp. letter-press ; eight coloured plates. 



This volume not merely equals, it exceeds, those which have pre- 

 ceded it in the careful accuracy of its letter-press and the extreme 

 beauty and fidelity of its plates. There is an exquisite delicacy of 

 drawing in the representations both of the perfect insects and larvae, 

 and the difference exhibited between the larvae of closely allied spe- 

 cies will do more than any descriptions of the perfect insects to prove 

 them really distinct. 



Of some of Mr. Stainton's labours I am unable to see the merit, and 

 therefore, in truthfulness, have abstained from all praise ; but in his 

 'Natural History of the Tineina' he is erecting a monument which 



