Notices of New Books. 



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Notices of New Books. 



c The Natural History of the Tineina? Vol. vii. (containing Buc- 

 culatrix, Part i., and Nepticula, Part ii). By H. T. Stainton, 

 assisted by Professor Zeller, J. W. Douglas and Professor 

 Fjrey. London: Van Voorst. 1862. 252 pp. letterpress; 

 11 coloured plates. 



This is one of the very few works which began well, and which have 

 nevertheless improved as they proceeded. I prefer this seventh 

 volume to either of its predecessors : it is more entomological. At 

 the commencement both author and artists were eminently truthful : 

 they copied and described what they believed they saw, and copied 

 and described with a Chinese fidelity that at the same moment 

 proclaimed their conscientious love of truth and their ignorance 

 of the laws of homology. The descriptions at pp. 2 and 172 in vol. i., 

 and the figures of larvae on plate iv., exhibit confused ideas of those 

 absolute natural laws for the position of legs and claspers, without the 

 guidance of which we must infallibly go astray. In descriptions of 

 the imago this conscientious method has its advantages, — hence the 

 great value of Mr. Stainton's volume of the * Insecta Britannica,' which, 

 despite apparent pedantry in the use of italics and some other trifling 

 defects, will long be justly considered an invaluable contribution to 

 the science of Entomology. All this is amended now, and the figures 

 of larvae, alike artistic and scientifically truthful, leave nothing to be 

 desired. The life-histories of the species are equally excellent with 

 the figures, but the arrangement is still susceptible of improvement. 

 For instance, the " description of the larva" and " its mode of life " 

 are inconveniently separated by the interposition of the description of 

 the imago : there is also a want felt in the frequent absence of all 

 notice of the pupa, a state which in these Micros may be supposed to 

 present very interesting characters ; indeed, where observed, as in 

 Micropteryx and other genera, their structure has been found strikingly 

 different from that in the more familiar Macro-Lepidoptera, and equally 

 different one from another, thus furnishing me with an additional argu- 

 ment in favour of the opinion I expressed long ago that these Micros 

 are allied or rather associated by the single character of their diminu- 

 tive size. But this is enough of generalizing. I will now select for 

 quotation a few of the life-histories which I have characterized as being 

 so excellent, the title of this work having already explained that the 

 VOL. XX. 3 F 



