14 
ARCANA ENTOMOLOGICA. 
port ant u Dictionnaire Universel cPHistoire Naturelle,” edited by 
M. D’Orbigny, assisted in the articulated portion by Messieurs 
Audouin, Blanchard, Brulle, Doyere, Desjardins, Duponchel, Lucas, 
and Milne Edwards. 
The natural history portion of the Cabinet Cyclopaedia was 
chiefly written by Mr. Swainson, with the view of developing his 
peculiar views of classification, and in which there is no attempt at 
alphabetical arrangement; the British Cyclopaedia of Natural 
History, in three large octavo volumes, is therefore the only dic¬ 
tionary we yet possess upon general natural history. This work, 
of which the entomological articles, commencing with the word 
Aphodiidae, were written by me, was intended to take a generalised 
view of the operations of nature rather than to afford minute and 
technical details. The families, therefore, and chief genera were 
alone treated upon, such of the latter as afforded no materials 
beyond structural details being but slightly mentioned, and the sub¬ 
genera only named in the family articles. The nomenclaturist and 
collector have need, however, of more precise details relative to 
genera, sub-genera, and species; and from the great additions re¬ 
cently made to this branch of the science in numerous works, the 
labour of research is so much increased as to deter many from de¬ 
scribing new objects, under the fear that they may have already been 
described. The announcement, therefore, of an English Encyclo¬ 
paedia of Natural History, in which every genus and sub-genus, and 
even synonymical names, are intended to be comprised, will be 
greeted by English zoologists—although from the great extent to 
which such a work must run (and it will be worse than useless unless 
it be carried throughout to this extent), its success as a commercial 
speculation appears highly doubtful. The public mind in fact has 
not yet been sufficiently awakened to the advantages and pleasures 
to be derived from the cultivation of the science of natural history 
in general; nor can such a result be reasonably expected until 
natural history be made a branch of general education, as it is in 
several Continental States. 
On the Study of Natural History as a Branch of General Education 
in Schools and Colleges. By Robert Patterson, Vice-President of the 
Natural History Society of Belfast.—Belfast, 1840, 8vo, 28 pages. 
No stronger proof of the propriety of the views detailed by Mr. 
Patterson in this pamphlet can be given than in the circumstances 
stated in the preceding article. When we find, that “ in the great 
