i68 THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



An account of the alterations effected by Dr. Sharp in the nomen- 

 clature is also detailed in the same volume, and several points 

 referring to species reputed as British are also noticed by Mr. Rye. 

 The letterpress and general style of the catalogue was altogether a 

 great advance on any previous effort in this direction, and from this 

 period dates a vast improvement in the production of literature relating 

 to entomological science. The catalogue was presented to the public 

 in the handsome 8vo. form adopted by the Young Naturalist and other 

 leading magazines of the present day. 



The eighth decade of the nineteenth century was certainly an 

 epoch in the history of British coleoptera, and will be remembered by 

 the student of this branch of entomology as the period in which the 

 first complete " Handbook of the Coleoptera, or Beetles, of Great 

 Britain and Ireland," was published. This work was brought out by 

 Mr. Herbert E. Cox, Member of the Entomological Society, in the 

 year 1874. To compile a work of this character requires a great 

 deal of patient research, assiduity, and carefulness in describing the 

 species ; that Mr. Cox possessed these qualifications in a high degree 

 is amply evidenced in the book he presented to us. To say that it 

 was entirely free from any blemishes whatsoever would be going per- 

 haps a little too far, but as a good trustworthy book for descriptions 

 of the British species it stand pre-eminent and unrivalled. Of course 

 here and there one meets with vague generic distinctions, and also 

 one or two omissions, but, taken as a whole, Mr. Cox's work may be 

 regarded as a great achievement, and one which may rank with the 

 highest entomological literature. As a contributor to the current 

 magazine either of that period or the present, I find no record of Mr. 

 Cox's notes, but my resources and time are limited, therefore, I 

 may have overlooked them. There is this much to be said, that the 

 author in question must have been a very extensive collector, or 

 he received a great deal of assistance from the advanced coleop- 

 terists of that time, as thoughout the book we find the following 

 expressions as to the prevalence or otherwise of the species : — " com- 

 mon," 11 not common," " rather common," " moderately common," 

 "rare," " very rare," " scarce," and others, which denote the author's 

 estimation of any individual insect. In the absence of the names of 

 the localities in which the beetles are to be found, these terms are 

 certainly misleading, and the student who expects to meet with such 

 species as Dytiscus lapponicus in the South of England, or even any- 

 where south of the Clyde, would drag for years perhaps and never 

 meet with them ; and this omission of the localities and also of 



