CHAPTER V 
BOOKS USEFUL TO THE STUDENT OF BRITISH 
COLEOPTERA. 
When the hirst edition of this book was published, 
there was no work on British Coleoptera that had 
appeared since the publication of Stephens' Manual of 
British Coleoptera (London, 1839, one vol.), which 
formed an abridgement of the “ Illustrations of British 
Entomology : Mandibulata” (1828) by the same author : 
so many species had been added since the appearance of 
these works, and they were in themselves so full of 
errors and so confused in nomenclature, that they 
were practically of little or no use : the same remark 
applied to the letter-press of the “ Genera of British 
Insects ” of Curtis, but the plates of this work are 
still as valuable as ever, and are models of what plates 
ought to be. 
In 1874, Mr. Janson published “ A Handbook of the 
Coleoptera of Great Britain and Ireland,” by H. E. 
Cox, which has beeD, and still is, of great service to 
students, but is very incomplete as containing no 
reference to habits and localities; these are supplied in 
Fowler’s “ Coleoptera of the British Islands” (Reeve 
and Co.), of which three volumes have already ap- 
peared, and the remaining two are either in the press 
or in course of preparation. 
