RHYNCHOTA. 
685 
RHYNCHOTA. 
A. Works in progress, 
Douglas, J. W., and Scott, J. Tlie British Hemiptera, vol. i* 
Hemiptera-Heteroptera. 8vo, pp. xii and 627, 21 plates. 
Ray Society, London, 1865. 
In this bulky volume the authors have described the species 
of British Heteroptera, -svliich they appear to have collected 
very diligently. There is, however, but little originality about 
the w^ork, which is founded chiefly upon Fieber^s Euro- 
paischen Hemiptera.^^ The species are almost all named in 
accordance with FiebeFs views; indeed it would appear from 
numerous remarks scattered through the work that many of 
them are determined by him. The majority of Fieber^s genera 
are adopted ; and this, of course, has rendered the establishment 
of new generic groups almost unnecessary, the few new 
genera proposed by the authors consisting chiefly of amalga- 
mations of two or more of Fieber’s genera. The illustrative 
plates, by Mr. E. W. Robinson, are very nicely executed ; and 
on the whole, although Messrs. Douglas and Scott^s work can 
by no means be regarded as a satisfactory production, it may 
still serve to enable our British entomologists to pay some little 
attention to the group of insects of which it treats. Its chief 
defect consists in the excessive multiplication of families, or, 
more properly, subfamilies, which is carried to an extent quite 
unnecessary, considering the comj)aratively small number of 
British species, not warranted in many cases by structural pe- 
culiarities, and tending always not to the elucidation, but to 
the obscuration of the subject. This defect, which prevails to 
an injurious extent almost throughout the work, reaches an 
absurd climax in the group of Capsina^ which is broken up into 
no fewer than twenty families ! Every one who is at all ac- 
quainted with these insects knows that they present the most 
striking uniformity in their more important structural charac- 
ters, so that there is really a difficulty in dividing them at all ; 
how, then, can characters be found to enable us to split them up 
into twenty groups of the value of families ? There is only one 
excuse for the formation of numerous subordinate groups of amore 
or less artificial cast, namely the desire to facilitate the study of a 
very extensive series of genera; but this can hardly be urged in tlic 
present case, considering that ten out of the Lventy families con- 
tain only a single genus each, and three of the remainder are 
composed each of only two genera. This defect would hardly 
be so injurious to the usefulness of the book if these numerous 
groups were tabulated ; but this is done neither for the families 
nor for the genera, nor are any diagnoses of the latter given. 
These deficiencies will all affect the usefulness of the volume. 
