2)2 
POPULAR SCIENCE EE VIEW. 
THE BRITISH HEMIPTERA. * 
T HE study of British bugs can hardly be termed a very fascinating 
pursuit. Although the insect which takes up its abode in localities 
unknown for their relation to godliness, is not an Anglo-Saxon, still 
its English relatives have many of its obnoxious qualities, and among 
others that of emitting when touched an extremely unpleasant odour. Still 
the enthusiasm of naturalists — and to what limits does not that enthusiasm 
extend ? — has prevented our native hemiptera from completely wasting “ their 
sweetness ” upon the pages of mere periodicals. Messrs. Douglas and Scott 
have in the volume published by the Ray Society given us a minute 
zoological history of the Hemiptera-Heteroptera of these countries. The 
name Hemiptera is given to an order of insects whose members are known 
by the presence of a proboscis instead of the ordinary chewing apparatus, 
and of imperfectly formed wings. Now this order is divided into two sec- 
tions : in the one both sets of wings are of the same material and this is called 
Hemiptera-Homoptera ; in the other the anterior pair of wings is composed of 
a materia] different from that of the posterior one, and it is styled Hemiptera- 
iTeteroptera. It is with these latter that the work before us has to do. Although 
we cannot congratulate the authors upon their selection of a subject for 
investigation, still for this very reason we are bound to give them the highest 
praise for their exertions in adding to our knowledge of our insect fauna. 
Lepidoptera and Coleoptera have been carefully studied by several entomo- 
logists, but the Hemiptera remained undescribed by Englishmen. This was 
the less creditable to our insect-hunters, from the circumstance that upon the 
Continent the order has been carefully worked out by Fieber and Flor. 
Fieber’s “ Europaischen Hemiptera,” published in 1861, is a masterpiece of 
natural history literature, containing as it does descriptions of all the Eu- 
ropean species, and being the result of the observations of a lifetime. The 
“Rynchoten Li viands” of Flor is also a most valuable treatise, worked out in a 
philosophic manner, but differing materially from Fieber’s monograph. 
Fieber’s analytic method presents some objectionable features, and Flor’s 
numerous sub-genera are cumbrous and confusing ; but while the former is of 
great value from its comprehensiveness, the latter is equally worthy through 
the mode of classification it adopts. The plan of the Ray Society’s volume is 
somewhat different from that of either of the foregoing. First, we have a 
separation of the group into divisons and sub-divisons ; these in their turn are 
split into sections, and then again into families ; then follow the genera 
and species. All the descriptions have been made from actual specimens, 
and the synonomy and localities are, so far as we can perceive, accurate. The 
descriptions are, of course, entirely technical, and hence the book is one which 
can only be employed for reference ; but for this purpose it must prove the 
* “ The British Hemiptera. Yol. I. Hemiptera-Heteroptera.” By John W. 
Douglas and John Scott. London : Published for the Ray Society by 
Robert Hardwicke. 1865. 
