The Hemiptera Heteroptera of the British Islands

Abstract

IT is now nearly thirty years since Douglas and Scott first made the study of the British Hemiptera Heteroptera possible to ordinary students by the publication of a description of these insects in a volume issued by the Ray Society. The difficulties were then very great, for purely insular ideas in entomology were prevalent, and our hemipterous insects had not been sufficiently compared with continental species. Douglas and Scott did all that was possible at that time and produced a good work that has held the ground as the best published authority on the subject. Very much, however, has been done since that period, and restricted specialists in entomology, as in most other branches of natural science, have exercised unlimited time and patience in studying the classificatory problems of a single family or even of a large genus. Hence in a monograph of to-day the standard of advanced classification and descriptive facility is considerably raised from that which dominated the writings of the earlier authors. Mr. Saunders has not only aimed at this perfection, but has sought to place in the hands of the British student and collector a thoroughly trustworthy handbook by which he may understand and identify his collection, and in this we think the author has altogether succeeded. We must not look for bibliographical references or synonymical notes, the names of the describers of families, genera, and species being only indicated, while the habitats of the species are confined to such localities in the British Islands as are recorded by collectors; and this is perhaps all that can be expected in a local monograph. It is therefore in no spirit of criticism we express a regret that in all faunistic writings the complete recorded distribution of the species is not given. Thus even the purely British collector would not be the worse for learning that Zicrona cærulea, to be found in the suburbs of London, is not only widely distributed throughout the Palæarctic region, but is also found in Continental India and in the Malay Peninsula and Archipelago; or that Ischnorhynchus resedæ, to be taken even at Hampstead, is common throughout Europe and Siberia, and is also neither scarce in North nor in Central America. The Hemiptera Heteroptera of the British Islands. By Edward Saunders (London: L. Reeve and Co., 1892.)