202 NATURAL SCIENCE. march. 



Mr. Buckton's description of the imago of E. tenax would certainly 

 not enable anyone to recognise the fly, and he makes no mention of 

 the two vertical stripes of hair on the eyes, which alone are sufficient 

 to distinguish the species from any other member of the genus. In 

 the description oi Eristalis avbiistormn on page 15, we are told that the 

 eyes are "approximate at the vertex," although this species is no 

 exception to the rule that in the majority of what we may call ordinary 

 Diptera, the eyes in the female are wide apart. 



The chapter on " Life History " is quite the best portion of the 

 book, and we gladly recognise that the author has endeavoured to 

 study the living insect. But again we find serious errors of com- 

 mission and omission. Pipunculus, which belongs to a family nearly 

 allied to the Syrphidae, is called a gnat (p. 19); the author probably 

 intended to write Chironomus ; the larva of Eristalis tenax is said to 

 possess eight pairs of false feet, and that of E. arbustornw seven (p. 21), 

 which is exactly the reverse of what we were told seven pages 

 previously. Moreover, considering the title of the book, we think we 

 are justly entitled to complain that while nearly forty pages are 

 devoted to anatomical details, the life-history of the insect (if we 

 exclude four pages on the " Bugonia " myth later on) is dismissed in 

 less than twelve. We fail to find any reference to the protective 

 value, or otherwise, to the insect itself of its remarkable similarity to 

 the hive-bee, and the author does not appear to have made any 

 experiments upon the subject. 



"With regard to the anatomical portion of the book, the author 

 certainly seems to have plied scalpel and dissecting-needle assiduously, 

 but his observations are too often confused and superficial, he fails to 

 grasp the really important points of his subject, and he manifests 

 throughout a sadly imperfect acquaintance with the work of previous 

 writers. In his account of the internal structure of the eye he makes 

 no reference to Hickson, in dealing with the halteres and their 

 function he omits to allude to Jousset de Bellesme's book upon the 

 subject, and in his remarks on the nervous system he says nothing 

 about Brauer's memoir. Moreover, we are apt to distrust the author's 

 statements as to obscure points of internal anatomy when, with regard 

 to well-known external details with which every entomologist is 

 familiar, we find such flagrant misstatements as : — " The metathorax 



is principally represented by the scutellum." "The 



wings are affixed to the metanotum." The account of the structure 

 of the proboscis, too (pp. 35-37) is quite unintelligible, and the figure 

 on Plate V. merely serves to make confusion worse confounded. 



The pages headed "Development of Eristalis " are found on 

 examination not to refer to the ontogeny of the insect at all, but to 

 consist for the most part of vague musings upon the ancestry of the 

 Tracheata. The value of Mr. Buckton's reflections may be deduced 

 from the following sentence, which apparently is intended to convey 

 the author's last word upon the subject : — " Certain considerations 

 would lead us to the belief that aerial came from aquatic forms ; but 

 from the incomplete state of our knowledge caused by want of material, 

 generalization at present would appear to be very unsafe." 



Horticulture and Evolution. 

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