578 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



appeared. It is a well-arranged and thoroughly up-to-date 

 textbook dealing with all branches of entomology other than 

 ordinal taxonomy. The classified bibliography at the end of 

 the work is particularly useful, and includes a number of 

 1922 references. G. H. Parker (Psyche, 29, 127-31) brings to 

 notice a possible instance of psedogenesis in Calliphora erythro- 

 cephala. This announcement, if confirmed, is of first-rate 

 importance. In one experiment, 50 jars were set up with 

 pieces of fresh meat and were examined 26 days later, when 

 they were ascertained to contain no larvae. On the following 

 day 25 jars were each inoculated with a single newly hatched 

 larva and 2 5 of the jars were retained as controls. After a further 

 12 days the controls were examined, but no larvse were found 

 in them : 3 of the infected vessels also contained no larvae, 

 those introduced into them having presumably died. In each 

 of 20 infected jars a single larva was present, and of the two 

 remaining infected vessels one contained 8 larvae, and the 

 other 21. The tests were carried out with such precautions 

 that it seems impossible that the results are due to accident. 

 It is noteworthy that the supposed paedogenesis only occurred 

 during autumn : at the appropriate time the author intends 

 to conduct an investigation of the larvae in order to ascertain 

 whether they contain parthenogenetic eggs or young. In 

 Quart. Journ. Mic. Set. (66, 4) are two papers on spermato- 

 genesis. R. H. Bowen emphasises the essential parallelism 

 existing between the production of sperms in Lepidoptera 

 and other insects, particularly Hemiptera. H. G. Cannon 

 describes certain details in the spermatogenesis of Anopleura. 

 An up-to-date illustrated account of " Social Life among 

 Insects " (The Lowell Lectures) is contributed by W. M. 

 Wheeler as a series of articles in the Scientific Monthly, 

 1922. G. C. Crampton (Can. Entom., 64, 206-16, 222-35) 

 discusses the relationships of the orders of insects from char- 

 acters afforded by the wing venation. In Phytopathology, 12, 

 No. 5, is a symposium by several authors on insects as dis- 

 seminators of plant diseases. The first case was noted in 

 1 89 1, when Waite showed that fire blight was transmitted in 

 this manner. There are now 16 or 17 bacterial diseases, and 

 about 40 fungal diseases, in which insects play a part in trans- 

 mission. H. M. Morris [Bull. Ent. Res., 13, 197-200) describes 

 an apparatus which enables insects and other Anthropods, 

 etc., to be separated from soil, by means of an arrangement 

 of sieves of different sizes and a steady current of water. The 

 same author {Ann. App. Biol., 9, 282-305) has investigated 

 the insect and other invertebrate fauna of arable land at 

 Rothamsted. A comparison of the fauna of manured and un- 

 manured land is made, together with the depths to which 



