XXXli. '21] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS 125 



INSECTS AND HUMAN WELFARE. An Account of the More Important 

 Relations of Insects to the Health of Man, to Agriculture and to For- 

 estry. By CHARLES THOMAS BRUES, Assistant Professor of Economic 

 Entomology, Bussey Institution, Harvard University. Cambridge 

 I Mass.], Harvard University Press, 1920. 8vo., pp. xii, 104, 42 tigs., 

 $2.50. "The present volume is an attempt to present some of the prin- 

 ciples and practices of economic entomology in a form that will illus- 

 trate the biological relationships of insects to their environment. . . . 

 The past few decades have witnessed great changes, whereby the field 

 of the entomologist has been greatly extended, and he has been com- 

 pelled, not unwillingly, to improve his methods of investigation and to 

 take advantage of the rapid progress made not only in zoology and 

 botany, but in medicine and chemistry as well. He has naturally greatly 

 improved his efficiency, and lias been enabled to increase his useful] 

 to humanity many fold. The general public rarely appreciates fully the 

 many economic problems in relation to insects which continually pre- 

 sent themselves . . . the entomologist . . . has to deal with 

 a wonderfully varied and extensive series of animals. This very fact 

 makes it difficult to deal with insects in the brief and generalized man- 

 ner applicable to other groups of animals. ... In the following 

 pages I have considered few of the details which may be found in 

 many other carefully prepared volumes, but have rather attempted to 

 avoid, as consistently as possible, matters not directly necessary for a 

 brief consideration of insects as they affect human welfare." Having^ 

 thus sketched the plan of the work in the preface, the subject matter is 

 treated in five chapters: Insects and the Public Health (pp. 3-38), 

 Insects and the Food Supply (pp. 39-62), Forest Insects (pp. 63-86), 

 Household Insects (pp. 87-99), The Outlook for the Future (pp. 100- 

 104). 



In this last, after referring to the general, but unfortunate, viewpoint 

 from which all living tilings are regarded as either useful or injurious 

 to man, emphasis is laid on the variety of the methods by which noxious 

 insects are combatted, the most promising way being regarded as the 

 biological, the use of parasites. The appearance of insect pests in 

 countries hitherto free from them will continue and "the specific prob- 

 lems of the entomologist will become more international in character." 

 Quarantines will result only in retardation, not in exclusion, of the 

 immigrants, and the extension of the ranges of certain di>. -'ing 1 



insects will doubtless afford many unpleasant surprises. 



Some curious errors occur in figure 20, on page 44, where Colias 

 [Eurymus] philodice appears as "Pontia />/n/<><//iv." the Ameiican con- 

 gener of the European, cabbage butterfly, and is stated to have the 

 same food plant. The remark that the economic entomologist has no 

 criticism to make of non-rotation of crops i on page 45) is hardly 

 comprehensible until one reads page 57. The text reference to liv. ,i'>. 

 on pai.'i- "1. lionld lie transferred to Periplaneta americana from Blatta 



