22 THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



A Manual of North American Butterflies, by Charles J. Maynard : 

 8vo., pp. 226. Boston : DeWolfc, Fiske & Co., 1891. 

 We are always glad to welcome the publication of a new book which 

 is likely to render more easy, and consequently to popularize, the study 

 of entomology. The author of the work before us has, no doubt, had 

 this object in view when preparing this manual, in which are brought to- 

 gether "for the first time, descriptions of all the species of butterflies 

 which occur in North America, north of Mexico." He has evidently 

 taken a great deal of pains in the execution of his task, and expended 

 much labour upon the descriptions of over six hundred and thirty species 

 of butterflies, and in the preparation of the illustrations, for "not only is 

 a coloured plate given of one species of nearly all the genera, but wood 

 cuts are given of some portion of about 250 species, illustrating some 

 peculiar character by which the insect may be known ; both plates and 

 wood cuts have, with a single exception, been drawn and engraved by the 

 author himself" The wood cuts, giving a wing, or a portion of a wing, of 

 a number of closely allied species, will be found very useful helps by any 

 one employing the book for the identification of his specimens, and are 

 much superior to the coloured plates. Anyone with a hrgQ stock of speci- 

 mens on hand, and with a few named in different genera to start with, will 

 find this book a very useful and handy manual for the naming of his 

 material, but this, we fear, is the extent of its value.  The author has 

 adopted the comparative method in his descriptions, which^ involves a 

 constant reference to some other species, which the beginner in the study 

 may chance not to have, and be woefully puzzled in conse^iencj;. There 

 are no synopses, or comparative tables, of either genera or species given, 

 but the author selects a species as his "type" and compares tf:e other mem- 

 bers of the genus with it. If the student possesses a specimen of this 

 typical species his way will be fairly easy, but without it the invest. Ration 

 will be sadly difficult, if not hopeless. Another very serious defect in 

 the book is the entire absence of all reference to the preparatory sUges 

 of the insects, and consequently to their food-plants, habits, dates oi^. ap- 

 pearance, etc. We trust that the author may be enabled to issue a second 

 edition of the work, and make it a thorough and complete " manual "oy 

 remedying the defects that we have referred to. That this may be done 

 in a concise form and in a most useful manner is admirably proved by 

 Stainton's " Manual of the British Moths and Butterflies," which we would 

 commend to our author as a model for imitation when he enters upon the 

 preparation of his next edition. 



Mailed January 14th. 



