236 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS [XXXI, *2O 



its habitat, and occasionally by critical taxonomic information or discus- 

 sion. In many cases we find much to criticize in the latter, which is, in 

 a number of instances, too controversial for introduction in a work of 

 this character. A book for the tyro is no place for the airing of moot 

 points of relationship and nomenclature, and the average zoologist con- 

 siders the critical matter accumulated in the composition of such a man- 

 ual best published in advance in another paper, which action would re- 

 move the otherwise inevitable doubt and uncertainty from the mind of 

 the "tyro" to whom the manual is addressed. 



The keys are relatively full and the illustrations numerous, although 

 very few are original and many of those taken from other sources are 

 poorly reproduced, in some cases on account of too great a reduction. 



In the Blattidae we find Compsodes cucullatus (Saussure and Zehntner) 

 recorded from the United States for the first time. 



In the summary of the Saltatoria the author gives the impression that 

 all sound made by the insects of the suborder is produced by or with the 

 wings, overlooking the remarkable abdominal and limb sound-producing 

 specialization found in the Old World Pneumorinae and in which the 

 wings have no part. The grouse-locusts are considered a family equiva- 

 lent in rank to the remainder of the locusts, which are termed the family 

 Acrididae. The author shows a peculiar perversity in many of his con- 

 clusions regarding the rank of forms treated, shutting his eyes to certain 

 important structural features, often other than genitalic, which latter 

 types of characters he frequently condemns although drawing upon them 

 freely at other times. In more than one case he has fallen back upon a 

 color feature to use in relegating a form to the limbo of a "variety, " and 

 has ignored in his argument a structural feature mentioned in the descrip- 

 tion preceding it, and which a previous author had utilized. The con- 

 clusions reached in the critical discussions of a number of species and 

 races, as Radinotatum brevipenne, Trimerotropis acta, Podisma glacialis 

 variegata, the relationship of certain forms of Mermiria and of Chorto- 

 phaga are not sound and not supported by the facts in the cases. The 

 conception formed relative to the position of certain species described 

 as belonging to the genus Eotettix and also the conclusions on the rela- 

 tionship of many of the species of Melanoplns and certain of those of 

 Hesperotettix are open to serious question. The naming of the form of 

 Eritettix simplex which lacks supplementary carinae on the pronotum is 

 unfortunate, as it opens to some workers the necessity for naming a num- 

 ber of similar forms in the Amblytropidi as found elsewhere. The au- 

 thor's desire to retain his "sylvestrus", one of these forms of Macneillia 

 (there called Pedeticum), is possibly responsible for this attitude, which 

 is quite out of keeping with his treatment of many other forms. 



Under the Tettigoniidae we find many sharply criticizablc points, the 

 general conclusion reached in regard to the relationship of Amblycorypha 

 oblongifolia, A. floridana and A. floridana carinata being entirely unsound 

 ;ind not supported by the known and published farts. The iiomenc.lator.il 



