The President's Address. 



125 



respects so similar to our own, that any new discoveries in Britain may be 

 reasonably expected to be species already known there ; and we thus have 

 not only a most careful guide to the species already known in Europe, but 

 the means of deciphering any novelties. There is another book of a simi- 

 lar nature which would be very useful to British entomologists, but is in a 

 manner superseded by the two preceding works — a series of volumes, by 

 M. Mulsant, descriptive of different sections of Coleoptera in France. 

 It is a good many years since he published the Lamellicomes of France, 

 the Palpicomes of France, the Longicornes of France, the Securipalpes 

 of France, and now we have the Het-eromera of France in progress. 

 Every one must admit the value of M, Mulsant's works; but their 

 extreme minuteness of description renders them less popular than they 

 deserve. 



So far as regards the European fauna, a great many additions can 

 scarcely be expected. A number of new species from the Llandes and 

 the Pyrenees have been described by M. von Kiesenwetter and others ; and 

 some interesting small species, constituting new genera, have been dis- 

 covered by M. Jac. du Val, near Montpelier, and described in his Genera, 

 des Coleopteres. Spain has done a little by the hands of Professor 

 Graells of Madrid, and Dr Rosenhauer of Erlangen has described some 

 new species from Andalusia. But the ehief novelties of interest have 

 been drawn from two sources not thought of till of late years — namely, 

 ants' nests and subterranean grottoes ; the additions drawn from the 

 former source have been chiefly Staphylinidce, and will be found in a 

 paper by M. Kraatz upon the Termitophila (both those in the nests of 

 termites and ants) published in the Linnea Entomologica last year. The 

 Troglodytes or subterranean families have produced several interesting 

 new eyeless species, and one or two genera. The most interesting points 

 are the fact, that every new cave, or cave-district, produces not the old 

 previously known cave-animals, but new species, peculiar to itself. A 

 curious blind new genus, Leptomastax hypogens, has been found on 

 the sands of the Bay of Besika, near Constantinople, and described first 

 by M. Pirazzoli, and afterwards by M. Leon Fairmaire. It is peculiarly 

 formed, allied to the Scydmcenidce, and has no affinity to any of the cave- 

 insects we have yet seen, but has considerable resemblance to a small ant ; 

 and although found at large, as it were, I have no doubt it is an ant's- 

 nest species, and will yet be found in its proper residence. 



Few new additions have been made to the fauna of the north of Europe, 

 Prince Napoleon's expedition appears only to have produced one new 

 species, described by Reiche under the name of Patrobus Napoleonis ; 

 but a good deal of useful geographical material relating to that quarter 

 will be found in two papers by Maklin and Osten-Sacken, published in 

 1857 in the Stettiner Ent. Zeitung, which continues to go on prospering, 

 and I trust long to prosper, under the able headship of its perpetual presi- 

 dent Herr Dohrn (one of our foreign members), and nowise injured by 

 the rise of its newly established formidable rival the Berliner Entomol. 

 Zeitschrift, in which are to be found some very valuable papers. Among 

 the more important original papers which have appeared in this Journal 

 falls here to be mentioned a fauna of the Coleoptera of Greece, by Dr 

 Kraatz and M. von Kiesenwetter. 



Many Russian and Siberian species have been described by Count 

 Motschoulsky in his Etudes Entomologiques, and the Bulletins of the 

 Imperial Society of Moscow. A considerable number of species taken 

 during the Crimean war, in the Dobrudska, Crimea, and other shores of 

 the Black Sea, have been described in the Annates of the Entomological 

 Society of France, and elsewhere. The Baron Chaudoir continues to 

 enlarge our knowledge of the Caucasian and Mingrelian regions ; and 



VOL. n. R 



