BOOK NOTICES 127 



excellent up-to-date manual on the British aquatic birds, native and 

 migratory. It contains many excellent illustrations, of which 56 

 are full-page and 68 are text figures, a goodly number of which are 

 original, and all are acceptable and worthy of reproduction. 



A NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. Vol. i. 

 By J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. London : Elliot Stock, 66 Paternoster Row, 

 E.G. Price 2 is. net. 



With astonishing rapidity and unflagging industry Mr. Tutt has 

 again issued one of his important volumes on British Lepidoptera. 

 We were partly prepared for the appearance of the one now under 

 consideration, since it consists of the first twenty parts of the work 

 announced under the above title, which has been appearing 

 regularly for some months. No one foresaw, however, not even the 

 author himself (as he frankly confesses), that the account of the 

 Rhopalocera would run to such a length. With 470 pages in the 

 volume and only ten species dealt with, it strikes one that surely 

 everything has been said about the creatures that need be. The 

 only fear is whether some of the details given are not really de trop. 

 For instance, does it serve any useful purpose to give a list, extend- 

 ing over half-a-dozen closely printed pages, of the times of appearance 

 of the Small Copper? However, the author may have his reasons 

 for entering into such minute detail, and, at any rate, the possession 

 of such a volume renders all other works superfluous, excepting, of 

 course, such as are embellished with fine coloured plates. 



The introductory chapters are particularly interesting, and full 

 of information such as might be difficult to find elsewhere. These 

 preliminary chapters are fourteen in number, four of which deal with 

 egg-laying, egg-structure, and the photographing and collecting of 

 eggs, while the structure (external and internal) and habits of larvae 

 furnish material for other seven which run to over sixty pages. The 

 species treated of in Part II. (the bulk of the volume) are the eight 

 " Skippers " and the two " Coppers," and it must be somewhat 

 alarming to the young amateur to find so many of them under new 

 and unfamiliar generic names. However, our indefatigable and 

 always careful author has gone fully into questions of classification 

 and nomenclature, and before his special knowledge in such matters 

 we can only bow the head in silent acquiescence. 



The serious student of Lepidoptera in Scotland will find the 

 present volume, like its predecessors, absolutely indispensable. The 

 twenty excellent photographic plates help materially to render the 

 book attractive as well as useful. Got up in the same style as 

 the previous four volumes, the text is so closely printed that the 

 pages have a somewhat forbidding aspect. When one commences 

 to read, however, this feeling soon passes away, especially in the 

 introductory chapters, and the reader commences instead to admire 

 the energy and enterprise of the author. 



