BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 395 



Natural History op Costa Rica. — This is a record of a year's 

 travel, collecting and study of the natural history of Costa Rica, from 

 May 1910 to May 1911.' The attention of the authors was especially 

 directed to the insect life of the regions visited. The book is essentially 

 a record of their personal experiences, and is far too much taken up with 

 the details of travel, data of accommodations, and kindred other un- 

 important incidents common to living and travel in Central America, 

 that may be interesting to the tourist but of no value to the naturalist. 

 The valuable parts of the book are the author's observations upon the 

 life histories, habits and distribution of the organisms studied by them; 

 their data of climate and topography, and their excellent and numerous 

 photographs of plants and animals, especially the insects. There is a 

 conspicuous lack of any broad conceptions of the distribution of the 

 species studied, or of their ecological relations, and the book would 

 have been much improved by some general summary and discussion 

 of the results secured. The observations recorded are valuable, how- 

 ever, and will certainly find their place in subsequent general consid- 

 erations of the biology of Costa Rica. In this respect the book is a 

 welcome and distinct contribution. Appendices contain a record of the 

 authors' itinerary, with notes upon the "weather," "weather" records 

 at Cartago, bibliographj^, and a list of the plants and animals men- 

 tioned in the text. The book will stand with Belt's A Naturalist in 

 Nicaragua, as a record of observations, but is not the equal of Belt's 

 work in insight into the ecological relations of the organisms studied, 

 and understanding of the problems of tropical biology, and it is hoped 

 that in some subsequent publication the authors will give us this 

 summation of their work. — W. L. Tower. 



^ Calvert, Amelia Smith, and Philip Powell. A Year of Costa Rican Natural 

 History. Pp. 577, figs. 137, 5 maps. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1917 



($3.00). 



