Retrospect of various works published during 1856

Retrospect of various works published during 1856

The demands of a still increasing number of Zoological, Botanical, and Geological communications, in the pages of various foreign Serials, which call for our notice, as they are more liable there to lie hidden from the knowledge of British Naturalists, than the more considerable and independent works of Natural History, that issue from the press at home or in other countries, have circumscribed the space we could afford to reviews of the latter class of works, and limited the number of our articles in this department. In compensation, we propose now, at the commencement of a new year, to indulge ourselves in a lightly skimming retrospect of the scientific literature of the year 1856, as it bears upon the study of the native Fauna and Flora in particular. But even here, we are obliged to set certain bounds to ourselves ; so, passing by various splendid illustrated works in progress, and many of another sort, devoted to the Vertebrata and Mollusca, as well as those upon General Botany and Paleontology, we will descend at once to the Articulata, and commence with the different orders of Insects.

I. Diptera. We have elsewhere inserted a critique of Mr. Walker's volumes, intended to serve for a British Fauna of this order, the last of which was published the beginning of the year. The same indefatigable hand has brought out the concluding part of the Diptera Saundersiana also, in the course of the same year, while two other articles, also by him, in the Journal of the Linnean Society, from materials supplied by the same rich collection, make known fresh harvests of Mr. Wallace's gathering on the virgin soil of Malacca and Borneo, and afford a proof what unexplored treasures are yet in keeping for the students of this order, when voyagers and travellers shall have better learned not to overlook so much the less obtrusive and more fragile races of flying insects, for the gaudier charms of the beetles and the butterflies. It is not long since we gave, in this Journal, an article on Recent Works upon the Diptera of Northern Europe, and we expect it will not be very long before a like call is made upon us in the name of those of Southern Europe. The lists of Austrian Diptera by Dr. Schiner, on which Dr. Loew has expressed such a favourable judgment (see the Volume for 1856, page 92), are proceeding through the different families in succession, and we have lately received, besides, a small volume by Prof. Rondani of Parma, the welcome forerunner of a general work which he has undertaken on the Diptera of Italy, from which country many interesting accessions to the European Fauna of this order may reasonably be looked for.

II. Lepidoptera. The most interesting intelligence we have in the Bibliography of this order is the completion of Dr. Herrich-Schaeffer's great and sumptuous work. Prof. Frey of Zurich has produced a modest and meritorious volume on the Tineae and Pterophori of Switzerland, which will be useful to the British " Tinearist" also, though possessed already, as we may assume him to be, of Mr. Stainton's volume on the British Tineina. Of the last-named author's polyglott Natural History of this tribe, sufficient materials have not yet accrued, as it seems, for the publication of another of the annual volumes. The Manual of British Butterflies and Moths also is to take a deliberate nap at the end of the Noctuina and the beginning of the year, while awaiting the appearance of Guenee's work on that group,shortly to be forthcoming in Roret's " Suites a Buffon."

III. Hymenoptera. Dr. Nylander has given a Monograph of the Formicidae of France, in the " Annales des Sciences Naturelles," wherein he has reduced again several of the new genera, which Mayr had dismembered from Myrmica, chiefly by distinctions drawn from the varying number of joints of the palpi. From Ruthe we have the promise of a Monograph of the Braconidae of Germany, which is likely to be valuable, both from his copious materials and the minute accuracy of his investigation, judging by the specimen he has given in the groups of Microctoni. At home, we have no important accession to the literature of this order, except the British Museum Catalogue of British Ichneumonidae, by Mr. Desvignes. We have not yet had the opportunity of examining it, but we feel assured beforehand of its utility, from the author's thorough knowledge of his subject.

IV. Coleoptera. If for a republication of a standard work of Entomology generally, Kirby and Spence's Introduction is the best value for the lowest price we know ; so are Lacordaire's volumes on the Genera of Coleoptera the cheapest of an original work. Estimated by the labour and materials they must have required, the information condensed in them, and the time and pains which they save the student, were it only as an index to the species, they would be worth their weight in silver at least. The third volume, containing the genera of the Pectinicornia and Lamellicornia, has appeared, and we have reason to hope that the fourth will speedily follow. To all the students of this order among ourselves, a long-desired and very welcome acquisition is the first part of a revised list of the Rhynchophorous beetles of Britain, Bruchidae—Curculionidae, by Mr. Walton, lately published as another of the Blue books of the British Museum. We have noticed, also, with much satisfaction, the Monograph of the European species of Catops, by Mr. Murray, in the Annals of Natural History, illustrated with many wood-cuts, exhibiting the minutiae of sculpture, the microscopical investigation of which he has here applied to the discrimination of the species of this rather perplexing group, and has carried it out to a degree of refinement hitherto unattempted for the purposes of Descriptive Entomology. Although no independent work, of any extent, on this order has issued from the press in Britain, during the past year, yet the Entomologists' Annual, continued for 1857 by the enterprising and persevering editor, bears witness that the study of the indigenous species has been pursued with commendable zeal, the additions to the British Fauna in this order, for the year 1856, amounting to not less than sixty species, two of which, however, are stigmatised with a note of suspicion, as possible " importations."Mr. Stainton informs us—and who should be better authority than the Editor of the " Entomologist's Intelligencer"—that there is at present a cry out for a " Manual of British Beetles." How much this clever writer himself, and his "Manual of British Butterflies and Moths," may have had to do with exposing the want, and suggesting the feasibility, of such an undertaking, and thus evoking that importunate voice which pursues him, as he confesses, even to the shades of Lewisham, it is not necessary now to inquire. We should be sorry if we were—most erroneously—accounted unfavourable to anything tending to make the science more popular, and to aid the amateur collector in giving to his gatherings both a local habitation and a name. On this head we are quite at one with our valued contributor, Dr. Loew, whose remarks the reader will find in the volume for 1856; see page 68, and elsewhere in the same article. Still, we would venture to deprecate anything like a hasty compilation of the sort referred to, got up merely to meet the supposed demand. It is not unnatural to conjecture that such a Manual would probably be framed on the model of Mr. Stainton's popular monthly issue for the benefit of the Butterfly-collectors.Now, although the Lepidopterist of to-day is scientifically much in advance of the "Aurelian" of the last generation, still the study of the Coleoptera has kept its vantage-ground in the literature of Entomology ; and it demands to be treated accordingly. A writer on British Coleoptera, who, confining himself to his local materials, should at the same time indulge in changes of the system and nomenclature, in accordance with his private views, as to parts of his subject which he had perhaps studied almost for the first time, when he thought of setting about to teach others ; views which—however original and just they might be—the concise and popular treatment of the subject, imposed on him by the form of his work, would not allow him to prop up with that copious array of exposition, illustration, and definition, which is requisite for the introduction of new aphorisms,— a writer, we say, in such a case, would be too apt only to embarrass that class of readers on whom he calculates, and would certainly do much less to promote the study of the science, than if he had contented himself with adopting some approved arrangement of the European Coleoptera, and giving so much of the distinctive characters, in the analytic form,—or any other that he might consider more suitable,—as would give a clue to the received names of the species and their position in a more general system. If, on the other hand, the intending author of a Manual of British Beetles should conscientiously purpose to acquire—if he do not possess it already—that thorough knowledge of the classification and specific distinctions, of which he has to give the practical results in a brief and familiar form, suitable to the wants of the numerous body of collectors, who have little time for study, and little mastery of the minuter technicalities of Zoological science,— it may be questionable whether the time is indeed yet come for attempting a work of such large scientific exigency, on the basis of a limited Fauna like that of Britain, while important new works, destined to do a like service for the more copious Fauna of Continental Europe, are in progress, and yet far from their completion. For our own part, as mere amateurs in the matter of the native Coleoptera, we are disposed, for the time being, to rest content with Stephens' Manual, and that gradual revision of it, which the families are undergoing in succession, at the hands of Messrs.Walton, Dawson, and Clark, Waterhouse and Jansen, Murray, Wollaston,and others.

To those who desire a more comprehensive book of reference—if they can read German with any degree of facility, we would recommend Redtenbacher's Fauna Austriaca, as a very useful guide ; the intrinsic scientific merits and originality of which have perhaps hardly received their due meed of acknowledgment, in consequence of the professedly popular purpose for which it was composed, and which it has so well answered. We are happy to hear that a New edition is about to appear, in which, besides numerous additions to the list of the proper Austrian species, those of the rest of Germany—which in the first edition were huddled apart into an Appendix—will be embodied in the general analytical tables of the text. A work which promises to become still more useful to the British Cole opterist—-first, as it is not so strictly confined to the dichotomous method, with its, apparently inevitable, occasional ambiguities ;—secondly, because the territory of the Fauna agrees with Britain better, in Geographical meridian and Hydrographic circumstances,—is the " Faune Entomologique Francaise, Coleopteres, par MM. Fairmaire et Laboulbene," of which we have lately received the third part, completing the first volume of 665 pages, 12mo., giving brief but clear characters of two thousand and forty French species, besides many indigenous in the neighbouring countries— Britain among the rest—which are considered not unlikely yet to be found in France ; the whole arranged under convenient sections descending from genus to species, and illustrated with ample data, in the most concise form, respecting the local distribution within those limits. As a matter of course, this work comprehends a far greater multitude of species than are known in the British islands, and among them many southern types, not to be looked for here at any time. But of the actually known British species, there appear to be comparatively few not included in it. A general collation of the work—so far as it has been carried—with Stephens' Manual of British Beetles—or, indeed, with any other complete list of the indigenous species of this order, which we possess as yet—would lead to a very erroneous estimate of the proportion. We have confined ourselves to the comparison of a single family, one of the most extensive and most thoroughly investigated, and which, of all the great families of the order, has been earliest made the subject of a complete revision, subsequent to the date of Stephens' Manual. Of the two hundred and ninety-two indigenous species of Geodephaga given in Dawson's Manual, we find but twenty which are not described in the Faune Francaise ; and these are mostly of very limited local range, or extreme rarity ; one-third of the number being species first and recently characterised by Mr. Dawson himself, all of which, perhaps, can scarcely be considered as yet sufficiently " ventilated." We apprehend, too, that the number not in common to both will be yet further diminished by the supplemental additions promised ; and the authors seem disposed, as they advance, to be more liberal in the indication of the probable natives of France, so that the proportion of deficiencies is not likely to be increased, at least, in the families to follow. The first volume of this Fauna of France, now published complete at fifteen shillings, has those two thousand and forty species, distributed under the following families: Cicindelidse 12 species, Carabidae 590, Dytiscidae 149, Gyrinidae 10, Hydrophilida* 88, Histridas 94, Silphidas 113, Pterygidae 34, Scaphididae 5, Scydmaenidae 31, Pselaphidae 47, and Staphylinidae 867 species, besides those introduced incidentally, in the manner aforesaid. The authors have been in correspondence with their fellowlabourers,— the continuators of Erichson's Insect Fauna of Germany, which we have to notice also presently ;—and, accordingly, the new groups, therein proposed by Kraatz, for the better determination of the difficult tribe of Aleocharini, are not left undistinguished in the French text. The most accurate determination of the species, and of the trivial names according to their legitimate priority, has been taken from the recent monographers who have treated particular families most carefully in these respects. Where such help has been wanting, the authors do not seem, indeed, to have used as much diligence or judgment in their more extensive work as Mr. Dawson has done in his Monograph, in regard to the latter point at least ; but as they have ventured to exert less original decision, so they have laid themselves less open, perhaps, to common-place adverse criticism. It appears that they recognize in general sound principles of scientific nomenclature and chronological precedency, but they have by no means invariably adhered to these in practice. We are not prepared, indeed, to blame them for having retained—whether deliberately or from mere traditional habit—the modern trivial names of many species, to the exclusion of the more ancient, but now unfamiliar ones of the last century ; as for example—Carabus monilis (catenulatus Scop.) ; C. catenulatus (purpurascens Payk.) ; Loricera pilicornis (caerulescens Linn.) ; Chlaenius holosericeus (tristis Schaller) ; Feronia striola (atra Vill.) ; Anchomenus prasinus (dorsalis Bruennich) ; Trechus paludosus (rubens Fabr.) ; Bembidium guttula (riparium PayJc.) ; Noterus crassicornis (clavicornis Deg.) ; Hydroporus pictus (punctulatus Mueller) ; H. lineatus (velox Mueller), and several others ; where our own inclination would have been to restore the ancient names, which are assignable without any reasonable doubt in most of these cases. A point at which they have laid themselves more open to criticism is, that for want of antiquarian research, they have adopted some changes of the commonly received nomenclature,which do not yet attain to the ultimate Q. E. I. of the very earliest scientific nomenclature. In such cases they must be judged to have parted with a confessed advantage, for the sake of a supposed greater, but eventually an illusory gain. We take for an instance Carabus angusticollis JP6., reduced to assimilis Ph., the earlier of these two names undoubtedly, but Scopoli had described the species long before, and characteristically, as C. junceus. Micralymma johnstonse Wwd., the typical name, has fallen on slight characters. We observe that he adheres to his previous opinion that the Phytosus nigriventris is a distinct species, and not the other sex of Ph. spinifer, as English authors have considered it ;—and on this head we have no decisive observations wherewith to oppose him. Again, he characterises the Aleochara obscurella of Thomson, from the Swedish coast, as a distinct species, by the name of Al. grisea. The distinctions he has assigned are so minute, and most of them merely comparative, that we scarcely venture to pronounce confidently that the common species of the British coasts represents this Al. grisea, as is most probable. If Kraatz is right in separating them as species, the Al. obscurella of the Faune Francaise is probably identical with the British and Swedish species. Kraatz again seems to imagine that the sexual difference of size may indicate yet another species to be separated from Al. obscurella. We suspect that the authors of the Faune Francaise have been led, in the like manner, to multiply species unnecessarily in some instances ;—thus the characters given of Diglossa submarina seem rather unsatisfactory, and some of the supposed differences between this and D. mersa are confessedly inconstant.Dr. Schaum in his descriptions of Carabidae, in the part before us, has expatiated on the subject of varieties to such a degree as threatens to make the first a very ponderous volume, if he goes on as he has begun here. It must be confessed, however, that the treatment of the nominal species of this great genus, previously, had been such as to leave much rubbish for the critic to clear away. Forty-eight pages of this part are devoted to the characteristic of the thirty species of Carabus, which are admitted as genuine species, and natives of Germany. More valuable yet, in our eyes, than these special details, however elaborate, are the learned author's generalities on the families and on the classification of the order.Commencing with the carnivorous beetles, he has reverted to an older view than that now generally received, in excluding the family Gyrinidse from the united group of land and water carnivorous beetles, the Adephaga of Clairville. Of Kiesenwetter's share of the undertaking no part has yet appeared. It would be hard to overrate the prospective utility of this work to the scientific Entomologist ; and we heartily wish it a steady and uninterrupted progress, and an increasing number of readers. For the convenience of the mere British collector, the Faune Francaise will, probably, be found the more suitable, as.it will certainly be far the most portable, if both works are continued on the scale commenced respectively. We can scarcely wish it were otherwise, as there is occasion for both of these attempts to supply much-felt existing deficiencies ; and while each is particularly accommodated to its own circle of readers, they may both be serviceable to all, as mutually supplementary. We reserve for a future occasion a more particular critical examination of them, when further advanced towards their completion respectively : our object now has been only, or chiefly, to bring them under the notice of British Entomologists, who are discontented with the home-made provision for the wants of the Beetle-collector, and desirous of some stronger food to promote scientific growth. While they are only in progress, we recommend, for present use, Redtenbacher's book, as already complete in its own sphere of investigation, and as approved by our private experience, in its application as a guide to the correct and easy determination of the great majority of the British beetles also.

V. Neuroptera. There has been a lull, as if of exhaustion, in this order, since the appearance of Fischer's excellent Monograph of the European Orthoptera ; Fieber having only followed in the wake of that, and Von Brauer's investigations being concerned with Physiology more than Taxiology. The Entomologist's Annual, again, furnishes British collectors with a popular description of the native Libellulidae by a master in the science, Dr. Hagen. Mr. Stainton deserves their best thanks for the effective aid he has enlisted on behalf of British Entomology ; and we hope to see many more such contributions introduced to home readers, through his intervention.

VI. Hemiptera. The system of Heteroptera, in the completed work of Hahn and Henrich-Schseffer, has been receiving large additions, both in genera and species, at the hands of Staal, chiefly from the materials collected by Wahlberg in Caffraria. Kirschbaum has added materially to the European species of Capsus, &c, in his list of the Capsini of Wiesbaden. The illustrated Monograph of Aphides, by Koch, seems to have come to a stand still. We have been looking out in vain, also, for the promised volume on the British Hemiptera, by Mr. Dallas, which was to have preceded the concluding volume of the Diptera, in the series of "Insecta Britannica." Although Mr. Walker's volume is out, and Mr. Dallas makes no sign, we hope the other is not superseded, but only lying by awhile, to ripen more completely.

In general Entomology, probably the most important production of the past year has been the Seventh edition of Kirby and Spence's Introduction, which we reviewed at the time of its appearance ; while the most novel, undoubtedly, is a weekly newspaper for Entomologists, which, we perceive the spirited editor proposes to continue, during the next season also, in spite of the loss incurred on a weekly penny paper addressed to a reading public so limited. We understand that Mr. Curtis is occupied in preparing a new collected edition of his Reports on Insects noxious to Agriculture, originally contributed to the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. It is a subject of congratulation that these valuable papers will thus be rescued from the comparative oblivion in which they were buried there, in consequence of the very limited interchange of their respective knowledge which takes place, as yet, between the Farmer and the Naturalist. It is an exemplification of this, that Noerdlinger, in his new and pretty copious work on the " Little Enemies of Agriculture," has not derived any of the materials from the numerous essays in English on this subject to be found in the abovenamed Journal and in the Gardener's Chronicle. Zoologie Agricole, par E. Blanchard, which includes the insects noxious to the crops, has been continued in monthly parts.

In Insect Physiology we have a paper on the Respiration of Insects, by Mr. Lubbock, in the Entomologist's Annual, professedly popular rather than profound ; an interesting communication, by M. Hicks, in the Journal of the Linnean Society, on a peculiar structure observed in the Halteres of the Diptera, which, on this ground, he concludes to be organs of sense,— as also certain parts at the base of the wings of insects in general, wherein a similar structure may be traced. The latest number of Siebold's Journal of Scientific Zoology contains some valuable observations by Stempler on the development of the Scales of the wings and other parts, in the Lepidoptera, establishing more particularly than had been done before the perfect analogy, in origin and growth, between this kind of covering and the more usual form of the hairs of the Articulata ; which latter type has been investigated morphologically by Menzel, in a paper in the Stettin Entomological Journal of 1856, as well as in some previous separate publications.

Crustacea. Several important additions to the Literature of the Class have appeared during the past year ; chiefly in Wiegmann's Archives of Natural History, and the Proceedings of the Swedish Academy of Science,and of the Danish Royal Society. On the Entomostraca we have a paper by Mr. Lubbock in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London, and another by Fischer in the Transactions of the Bavarian Academy, both illustrated with numerous figures.

Arachnida. An essay on the Cheraetida3 (Pseudoscorpii,) by Dr. Menge, in the Transactions of the Natural History Society of Dantzig, is noticed elsewhere, in the Reviews of Foreign Serials. Annelida. The Embryology and Alternate generations of the Intestinal worms have been yet further elucidated in various quarters, chiefly by Siebold, Kuechenmeister, Leuckart, Beneden, and Philippi. An interesting popular sketch of the recent discoveries in this province of Natural History, which have excited such a lively interest, has also been given by Mr. De Quatrefages, in the Revue des Deux Mondes. The Prize in Physical Science, which was offered for the best account of the structure and development of the common Earthworm, having been awarded to Mr. Udekem, his essay has been included in the publications of the Belgian Academy. Protozoa, etc. The phenomenon of Encystment has been demonstrated, in some additional instances, among the Infusoria. For a valuable contribution to the Natural History of Spongilla we must refer the reader to the original paper by Lieberkuehn, in Mueller's Archives of Anatomy, which we have noticed elsewhere, among the Foreign Serials.

A translation into English, from the German edition, of Van den Hoeven's Manual of Zoology, by W. Clark, and also one by Dr. Knox, of Milne-Edwards' Elementary Course of Zoology, from the latest French edition, have recently appeared. Of the two volumes which compose the former work only one has yet come out in the English, embellished with the same plates as the German edition, and costing, singly, as much as the, latter does complete. Milne-Edwards' admirable text-book is now, for the first time, given, in an English dress, in its integrity—even the most glaring blunder of an unlearned compositor being faithfully reproduced ;—but it has long been familiar to us, in substance, through the medium of extracts copied into other popular works—openly, and with- due acknowledgment, on the part of some authors ;—in other cases clandestinely, to deck some Jackdaw of science with the borrowed plumes of an unearned reputation.More important, than either of those two translations, for the promotion of scientific Zoology among English scholars, is that of Siebold's Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrate Animals, by the late Dr. Waldo Burnett, which we have received from the other side of the Atlantic. The publication there of a work so purely scientific, and of which no version has been adventured in England, is but one of many proofs of the deep hold which the Natural Sciences are taking in North America, even side by side with the fierce excitement of gold-winning in some of the newly settled States A new and enlarged edition of the original work, in German, is also commenced ; but the appearance of the volume of Invertebrata, by Siebold, has been hitherto delayed, while two parts of the Vertebrata, by his coadjutor, Stannius, have come out already. Of another important work, and this a new one, on Zoological structure and classification—" Zoonomic Letters," by Dr. H. Burmeister—the first volume, commencing with the lowest forms of Animal life, has reached us ; but this work will require a separate critical notice at our hands hereafter.AHH