BOOK NOTICES 63 



MAMMALIA. By Frank Evers Beddard, M.A. (Oxon.) F.R.S., 

 Vice-Secretary and Prosector of the Zoological Society of London. 

 (London : Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1902.) 



It is no doubt a general opinion among zoologists that one of 

 the last books among their wants in Natural History literature is a 

 new work on Mammals. This may be so, but a survey of the 

 advance in our knowledge of this Class during the past decade (it is 

 eleven years since the last important work on the subject was 

 published) will make it evident that an up-to-date volume would be 

 distinctly useful. Mr. Beddard's book includes all the latest 

 discoveries, which comprise a number of interesting and important 

 new types, both recent and fossil. In his preface the author tells 

 us that he has treated fully certain orders and species, while the 

 accounts of others, such as the Rodentia and Chiroptera (with their 

 very numerous forms), and such familiar animals as the lion and 

 leopard have been, rightly, we think, curtailed, and the pages thus 

 saved have been devoted to other and more important groups and 

 species. The systematic portion of the volume is preceded by a 

 series of chapters containing much useful information on structure, 

 distribution (past and present), and ancestors. Like the other 

 volumes of the excellent and useful "Cambridge Natural History," 

 of which it forms the tenth, the book is abundantly enriched 

 with numerous illustrations in the text, comprising anatomical 

 diagrams and portraits of species. The book bears 'evidence of 

 careful preparation, and though it does not supersede other works in 

 which the various families of the Mammalia are treated of in a more 

 comprehensive, and hence more thorough, fashion, yet for the reasons 

 stated it is both distinctly valuable and acceptable. 



A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. By 

 J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. Vol. iii. (London : Swan Sonnenschein and 

 Co., July 1902.) 



With remarkable and praiseworthy promptitude the successive 

 volumes of this thoroughly scientific work are appearing to gladden 

 the heart of the earnest worker in the most popular group of British 

 insects, and we hardly know which to admire most, the zeal of the 

 author in so rapidly producing the mass of information which is 

 contained in each volume, or the thoroughness with which his work 

 is done. Before dealing with the work more in detail, we must 

 emphatically assert that, in our opinion, it is far and away the best 

 account of our native Lepidoptera that has ever been published. 

 And as much of the information relates to Scotland, both as regards 

 distribution and variation, we cordially recommend the work to 

 the notice of our northern entomologists. To the really scientific 

 lepidopterist, indeed, Mr. Tutt's volumes are quite indispensable. 



The present volume deals with the remainder of the sixth super- 

 family (Lachneides) of the Sphingo-Micropterygid Stirps, the seventh 



