ENTOMOLOGY-COLEOPTERA.

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preceding the first ventral, the second being sometimes, in'conjunction withthe third, opposed to this one. Something similar occurs, also, in otherorders of insects, where the abdomen is closely attached to the thorax, butin that case there is commonly but one dorsal segment opposite to the firstventral.

Of Guerin’s Species et Iconographie geuerique desAnimaux articules, no more has come to hand than theportions noticed in last year’s Report (p. 122.)

l)ie Kafer Europa’s, nach derNatur beschrieben von Dr,H. C. Kiister, mit Beitragen mehrerer Entomologen. lerBand. Niirnberg, 1844. Yerlag von Bauer und Raspe.

The plan of this work is very good. The species are described very fully,each on a separate leaf, in no determinate order, so that the possessorcan arrange them as he pleases. Experience, it is true, proves the expedi-ency of treating a series of allied species in their relative connexion, partlythat the specific characters may be brought out more prominently, partlythat the medley of synonyms may be duly sifted. But the unfettered formof the work admits of this also when requisite. On the other hand it allowsof interesting discoveries being published without delay. In a work of thesort this may counterbalance the higher value in a scientific point of view,which a connected systematic treatment confers on a Eauna. In respect toits geographical limits, the European Eauna presents some difficulties. Theauthor makes it extend over the whole basin of the Mediterranean, takingin also the coasts of the Black Sea , Asia Minor , Syria , Egypt , Barbary,Madeira, and the Canary Islands . But the Eauna of Northern Africa ,along with much that is in common to it and Southern Europe , has manypeculiar and purely African forms to show, and would introduce into theEuropean Fauna elements quite foreign to it, as Graphipterm and Steraspis.In this direction the Mediterranean is a sufficient boundary. The limit isnot so easily drawn on the Asiatic side, since through the whole of Northern Asia no natural line of demarcation presents itself, and the Eauna of Dauria,

witli those of the three preceding segments, as hysterotliorax (after-chest),and hysteronotum (after-chine.) llatzeburg (Ent. Zeit. 1844, p. 151) hasperceived, and stated in general terms, the existence of a fourth thoracicsegment following that which bears the hind pair of wings. Newport(Todd’s Cyclopaedia of Anatomy , ii, p. 911) has called it thoraeico-abdommal,as if not entirely belonging either to the thorax or abdomen. If the analogyto the perfect insect has the weight assumed in this note, the segmentimmediately following the three that hear the legs, or the fifth of the body,in larvae, must be considered normally as a segment of the thorax, althoughin descriptions it may be needless to vary the terms in common use.—T r.