Vol. XXV] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 85 



which would be willingly carried on field trips and excursions, if it were 

 not so heavy. It has 362 plus xiii pages, g l /2x6 J /2 inches, and weighs 42 

 ounces. It is too heavy to read without a support, and too large and 

 too heavy to go into any ordinary pocket. Much of its weight is due 

 to the sized paper used throughout the volume for the sake of the half 

 tones. When will all concerned in the manufacture of books see the 

 absurdity and foolishness of this practice and, instead, give us a light 

 weight paper for the text and limit the use of the heavy sort to inter- 

 spersed plates to which the half tones shall be confined? 



The entomologist will not find many data relating to his subject 

 matter in Dr. Adams' book, but he will find many suggestions as to the 

 kinds of work that is worth doing and as to the ways in which it may 

 be done. Dr. Shelford's book is a contribution to the data of ecology 

 and their organization. Dr. Adams is concerned with showing and de- 

 veloping (the ecological "point of view, the importance of an under- 

 standing of explanatory processes and of the methods of scientific in- 

 vestigation. * * * At present ecology is a science with its facts 

 out of all proportion to their organization or integration. There is 

 thus an immediate need of integration and this above all requires a 

 clear conception of the scientific method as a tool and independent 

 thinking as well." 



How different Dr. Adams' book is from Dr. Shelford's may be seen 

 from the following list of chapter headings : I. Aim, Content and 

 Point of View. II. The Value and Method of Ecological Surveys. III. 

 Field Study. IV. The Collection, Preservation and Determination of 

 Specimens. V. References to Scientific Technique. VI. References 

 to Important Sources of Information on the Life Histories and Habits 

 of Insects and Allied Invertebrates. VII. The Laws of Environmental 

 Change or the "Orderly Sequence of External Nature." (The dy- 

 namic or process relations of the environment). VIII. The Laws of 

 Orderly Sequence of Metabolism, Growth, Development, Physiological 

 Conditions and Behavior, or "The Living Organism and the Changes 

 which Take Place in It." (The dynamic or process relations of the 

 animal). IX. The Continuous Process of Adjustment between the 

 Environment and the Animal, with Special Reference to other Organ- 

 isms. (The dynamic or process relations of animal associations and 

 aggregations). 



Special features of the book are the quotations from eminent biologi- 

 cal writers, placed at the heads of chapters or of sections, indicating 

 the value, importance or method of ecological inquiries, and the bibli- 

 ographies. Indeed from page 84 (that is six pages from the beginning 

 of chapter VII) to page 149 the book is almost entirely bibliography. 

 It is thus, as the author hopes in the preface, "a useful source book." 

 "Particular attention is called to the fact that it is not to be assumed 



