336 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



THE LIFE OF INLAND WATERS. An elementary text book of fresh- 

 water biology for American students. By JAMES G. NEEDHAM, 

 Professor, and J. T. LLOYD, Instructor, in Limnology in Cornell 

 University. 1916. The Comstock Publishing Company, Ithaca, 

 New York. 9*4 x 6 l / 2 inches, 438 pp., 242 figs., 19 initials and tail 

 pieces. Price $3.00. 



This book has developed in connection with the course in general 

 limnology at Cornell University, begun in 1906. Its scope is naturally 

 much wider than that of entomology, but insects figure largely in its 

 pages. After an historical introduction (Chap. I, pp. 13-24)1 the na- 

 ture and types of aquatic environment are described (Chaps. II, III, 

 pp. 25-99). Under Chapter IV, Aquatic Organisms, pages 100-158 are 

 concerned with plants and pages 158-241 with animals; of the latter 

 section, the insects occupy pages 195-230, with 37 figures. Owing to 

 limitations of space, smaller taxonomic groups than families are not 

 considered. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is Chapter 

 V, Adjustment to Conditions of Aquatic Life (pp. 242-292), such as 

 flotation, improvement of form, avoidance of silt; withstanding the 

 wash of moving waters, etc., etc. Aquatic Societies, both limnetic and 

 littoral, are discussed in Chapter VI (pp. 293-375), which vies with its 

 predecessor in attractiveness. Finally, Inland Water Culture is treated 

 in Chapter VII (pp. 377-412). There is a bibliography under author's 

 names arranged alphabetically (pp. 413-419) and an index (pp. 421- 

 438). 



As mentioned above, the insects are formally treated in Chapter IV, 

 but many other references to them occur in subsequent pages. The 

 reader will not find in this volume any keys to the identification of 

 aquatic organisms but the numerous figures and the text will enable 

 him to become acquainted with the names, habits and environmental 

 relations of many plants and animals associated with any group of 

 water beings in which his interest chiefly lies. "It is the ecologic side 

 of the subject rather than the systematic or morphologic, that we have 

 emphasized," say the authors, and every entomologist looking into 

 this book will be the better for such a consideration of aquatic life 

 as he will find here. 



The text is pleasingly written, the type is clear and large, the illus- 

 trations useful or beautiful. We must, however, utter a protest against 

 a fault too common with our American books. This volume is too 

 heavy; it weighs 38 ounces, a quality which has already discouraged us 

 from carrying it with us to while away an enforced wait when read- 

 ing was almost the only resource. The common practice of printing 

 half-tones in the midst of the text, with the use of coated paper 

 throughout, is the responsible cause. P. P. C. (Adv.) 



