The President's Address. 
121 
treatise, embodying at their proper places the thousands of independent 
notices scattered through a crowd of transactions and periodicals — dispos- 
ing of questions of disputed synonymy — deciding the great questions of 
disputed arrangement, and where these appear wrong correcting them, 
or otFering a new solution of the difficulty, — is a task requiring the pa- 
tience of Sisyphus and the powers of labour of Hercules, combined with 
talents, attainments, and facilities possessed by very few. Such is the 
task which is now being successfully carried out by Professor Lacordaire. 
Five volumes have already appeared : the first is occupied with the 
Carabidce ; the second, the Staphylinidce and Clavicornes ; the third, 
the Lamellicornes ; the fourth, the Biiprestidce, Elateridce, and Malaco- 
dermata; and the fifth, with the Heteromera. The manner in which 
a systematic view of the subject is given is this : — The characters of 
the different groups, larger and smaller, are separately detailed ; a 
full exposition of the characters of each genus, with its synonymy, 
is then separately given; a notice of its geographical distribution, 
or any specialty relating to it, is added ; and in a note, a list of all the 
species hitherto described is given in the shortest space possible, with 
occasional synonymical corrections. A beautiful atlas or volume of plates, 
giving figures and details of the rarer genera, is to accompany the work ; 
and here, as -in the text, every care is taken to save unnecessary expense. 
In the lists of the species given in the notes, for instance, instead of bur- 
dening them with the species which have been described in the chief 
monographs on the subject, Professor Lacordaire assumes that these are 
already in the library of every entomologist, and merely says, " To the 
150 species (or whatever the number may be) described by Dejean, add 
the following." So in the plates, nothing that is to be found in works 
easily accessible is here repeated. This has been carried so far as even 
to assume the aspect of a defect — at least I am sure that the majority of 
purchasers would gladly have paid a little more for a larger series of 
figures of rare genera than has yet been given. The result of Professor 
Lacordaire's labours, however, is that this is undoubtedly the most useful 
entomological work of the present day. It is a perfect storehouse of 
information, and forms a new starting-point from which entomologists 
may take a fresh departure. In according to it so much commendation, 
I am far from implying that it is perfect, or implicitly to be trusted to. 
It is ex necessitate in great part a compilation, and, as in all compila- 
tions, the accuracy of the work depends upon the accuracy of the original 
describer, not of the compiler. 
Next in importance to this work of Professor Lacordaire we have a 
number of very valuable monographs. The concurrent opinion of ento- 
mologists has been of late years expressed so strongly against the prac- 
tice, once common, of giving isolated specific descriptions of individual 
insects in transactions or periodicals, that such descriptions are now be- 
coming proscribed, unless where some special reason exists for signalizing 
an individual — as, for instance, its being of a very anomalous character, 
so that its true position may be matter of doubt, or its supplying a vacant 
gap, or furnishing an interesting unknown representative in one country 
of a group peculiar to another country. Except under such circum- 
stances, one does not now often meet those isolated descriptions with which 
the young beginner used to essay his flight. Something connected is 
now looked for, and entomological writings either assume the form of 
monographs or local faunas. I shall first glance at the recent monographs. 
One very important one is a monograph of the Elateridce by M. Candeze 
of Liege (a pupil of M. Lacordaire), which has been executed with a care 
and skill worthy of his great master. M. I'Abbe de Marseuil's mono- 
graph of the Bisteridw, lately published in the Annales of the Entomo- 
