Vol. XXV] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 87 



SECOND INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF ENTOMOLOGY. 

 VOLUME II. TRANSACTIONS, of this Congress, held at Oxford in 

 August, 1912, has appeared. It is edited by K. Jordan and H. Eltring- 

 ham and is dated Oxford, October I4th, 1913. Printed by Hazell, Wat- 

 son & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. It is large octavo and con- 

 sists of 489 pages and Plates III to XXXIV, all in black and white. 

 There are thirty-eight papers by as many authors, titles of which were 

 given in the NEWS for October, 1912. As it corresponds in size and 

 contents to Vol. II, Memoires, of the First Congress, it seems a pity 

 that the same name was not used for the present issue instead of 

 "Transactions." 



C. PICADO. LES BROMELIACEES EPIPHYTES CONSIDEREES COM ME MILIEU 

 EIOLOGIQUE. Bulletin Scientifique de la France et de la Belgique, /e Serie 

 T. XLVII, fasc. 3, pp. 215-360, pis. VI-XXIV, 54 text figs. Paris, 21 

 Oct., 1913. 



Previous writings on the biology and the fauna of the epiphytic 

 Bromeliaceae can be divided into three categories, says Senor Picado : 

 A. Those which have for their object the bromelicolous* animals inde- 

 pendently of the conditions of the medium ; B. Those which bear on 

 the biology of the Bromeliaceae ; C. Those on the relations between 

 the Bromeliaceae and their fauna. It is in this third class that his own 

 interesting and excellent memoir belongs. 



After a historical sketch (chapter I) of previous researches on the 

 general subject, the biology of the epiphytic Bromeliaceae (chapter II) 

 is considered with special reference to his observations on those of his 

 native country, Costa Rica, whose government granted a subvention for 

 this work. The climatic conditions favorable to 'the growth of these 

 plants, some features of their structure, macroscopic and microscopic, 

 with a resume of the work of Schimper and of Tietze (1906) on their 

 physiology, lead up to fuller statements of the author's researches on 

 the phenomena of nutrition in these plants than have heretofore appeared 

 in the Comptes Rendus (1912) of the Paris Academy. His results may 

 be briefly summarized that a gum secreted by the plant digests starches 

 and albuminoids and the products of the digestion are absorbed by the 

 leaves, whereby putrefaction in the water held between the leaf bases 

 is avoided. In chapter III a bromeliad is regarded as composed of a 

 central water-containing aquarium, divided into as many compartments 

 as there are living leaves, and a peripheral more or less continuous tcr- 

 rarium, enclosed by the outer older dead or dying leaves, wherein is 

 found no water but a cellulose mud due to the gradual breaking down 

 of leaf fragments. These two zones of unlike character, the perman- 



*In the NEWS and elsewhere we have used the adjective bromeliadi- 

 colous, while Senor Picado has employed the shorter form as above. 



