Vol. Xxix] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 155 



We shall doubtless have a series of articles correcting, expanding 

 and improving this truly great work, of which one is threatened above. 



Meantime, no working hemipterist can afford to do without this, the 

 first, real, authoritative Catalogue of our Hemipterous fauna. Some 

 may get it to curse, but all will keep it to bless. J. R. DE LA TORRE 

 BUENO, White Plains, New York. 



FIELD BOOK OF INSECTS. With special reference to those of North- 

 eastern United States, aiming to answer common questions. By 

 FRANK E. LUTZ, Ph.D., Associate Curator, Dept. of Invertebrate Zool- 

 ogy, American Museum of Natural History. With about 800 illustra- 

 tions, many in color. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 

 The Knickerbocker Press, 1918, Pp. ix, 509. $2.50. 



The very first thing the author of this attractive volume tells us is 

 that ten years ago he felt sure there was little excuse for additional 

 general entomologies. He doesn't admit that his opinion has changed, 

 but rather throws the burden of this book on the publishers who evi- 

 dently wished to extend a series of "Field Books" already in existence. 

 We believe that this is the most convenient pocket book on all groups 

 of North American insects that has yet appeared. It measures 7 x 4^4 

 x i inches, weighs 15 ounces, is printed in clear type of the same size 

 as that in which these words are and well spaced, and deals (so it 

 claims) with about 1400 species, of which nearly 600 are illustrated by 

 one or more figures. In selecting the species to be discussed Dr. Lutz 

 has been guided by what the public, in evidence at his museum, seem to 

 want to know. The two extremes of desire appear to be, "How much 

 is a moth worth?" and "Why are bed bugs?" An answer to the former 

 is given on page 154, but we have looked in vain on page 106 (and 

 elsewhere) for any response to the other, assuredly more philosophical, 

 conundrum. We are far from laying anything against the author for 

 this omission, however. The book is entertainingly written and every 

 here and there the reader is made acquainted, by means of a well-chosen 

 and not superfluous passage, with some of the best entomological liter- 

 ature. Who will soon forget the venerability of the cockroach after 

 reading page 62? Ever and anon the author gives us one of his 

 own witty sayings as when, in discussing some of the difficulties of the 

 classification of the Serricorn Coleoptera, he remarks that nature appar- 

 ently does not use a card catalog (p. 306), while farther down on the 

 same page is the delicious story of the Breakbacks. 



The insects are taken up seriatim by orders (24 of them), but the 

 Lepidoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera and Hymenoptera occupy about 340 

 of the 509 pages. Here and there are keys to the more interesting fam- 

 ilies, genera or species. Great reliance for identification is naturally 

 placed on the figures, about 700 of which are new and the work of 

 Mrs. E. L. Beutenmiiller. The colored illustrations are on 24 plates 



