REVIEWS. 
11 
need be a sealed book. The comprehensiveness of the plan deserves warm 
praise, but we wish the list of subscribers had borne better testimony to 
the due appreciation of the friendly care for foreigners, who are there repre¬ 
sented by the solitary name of Senator Von Heyden of Frankfort. May 
we not hope that the others have been too grateful for what has been done 
for them to avail themselves of the almost comically low price at which the 
first ten volumes are to be issued to subscribers, 7s. 6d. each volume, and 
that the same feelings may have operated widely at home ? Mr. Stainton 
naively remarks : “It is not published at a remunerative price.” We be¬ 
lieve him: eight beautiful plates, at less than one shilling per plate, and 
the letterpress gratis. That is the way subscribers are treated ; for which 
they one and all owe the author a salaam of eastern magnificence. “ The 
price,” he says, “ is regulated solely by the cost of colouring the plates: so 
that were the letterpress only in a single language, or altogether wanting? 
the price would be the same.” Commend us, therefore, to Mr. Stainton. 
One more tribute to his liberality, and we turn to other matters. In order 
to encourage communications elucidating the transformations of the species 
of Tineina, so many of which are at present unknown, he offers 11 to pre¬ 
sent to every one who shall first discover and communicate to him the 
transformations of twenty species with which he was previously unac¬ 
quainted a copy of the entire series of this work.” Possibly but few may 
thus earn the prize ; but still for so generous an offer we again say, com¬ 
mend us to Mr. Stainton. 
In the opening of his preface the author takes occasion to remark on the 
two classes into which, as he justly says, entomologists have been too long 
divided, collectors and observers. While expressing a hope that his present 
undertaking may prove of service to both these classes, he evidently ac¬ 
cords the palm of merit to the latter of them, whom, taking Reaumur and 
De Geer as its types, he defends against the complaint of the collectors 
that their labours are comparatively useless, because we are “ unable to de¬ 
termine to which of our named species their observations apply. The ob¬ 
servant entomologist,” he adds, “ makes no such complaint, he finds that 
the history of the entire habits and transformations of a species assists him 
far more essentially to determine the name of the insect than a description 
solely of the perfect insect.” Entirely concurring in the preference accorded 
to the mere observer over the mere collector, we do not think that our 
author has given full weight to the objection which he mentions. There is, 
if we mistake not, more sense in it than he is willing to allow. It is true 
that the description solely of the perfect insect may at times be scarcely suf¬ 
ficient to determine its specific name; it is true, also, that if to this descrip- 
