70 NATURAL SCIENCE. July, 



" Hemiptera." No work on the most popular of insect-orders, on 

 such a scale as the present, has appeared for many years. The 

 great increase of collectors and observers, while it has added vastly 

 to the facts available for such a book, renders the author's task of 

 sifting and arranging his material more onerous than in former 

 times. 



The introduction on the Lepidoptera generally occupies only ten 

 pages, and anatomical statements are made very loosely. We are 

 told that "insects of this order are never provided with jaws," that 

 " they take food ... by means of a flexible proboscis or trunk which 

 is really a long, hollow, double tongue," and that they are " also pro- 

 vided with a pair of palpi attached to the labium or lower lip." Not 

 a word informs the student that the " tongue " and the labium are 

 each formed by the union of parts of a pair of jaws. 



The old arrangement of the families is followed in the main, the 

 Papilionidse coming first and the Hesperidae last. It seems a pity 

 that the issue of this work was not used to familiarise British lepi- 

 dopterists with Bates' order, now generally accepted, in which the 

 Danaidae stand at the head of the series, and the Papilionidae are 

 relegated to the place required by their affinities, just before the 

 Hesperidae. 



In the systematic and faunistic portion of the work, however, 

 which is in such publications the principal consideration, Mr. Barrett's 

 long practical experience ensures a valuable result. After a good and 

 original description of each butterfly, and its larva and pupa when 

 known, we are furnished with notes on the variation shown by the 

 insect, its localities, and habits. The attention paid to varieties is 

 the feature of the work, and many remarkable local or aberrant forms 

 are figured in the plates. But there is comparatively little suggestion 

 on the vexed question of the causes of variation. Possibly this may 

 be furnished in later volumes. 



Naturalists will read with considerable interest the excellent 

 notes on habits and localities given with each species, and will note 

 with regret how many of our finest butterflies are on the road to 

 extinction, if not extinct already. The generation of entomologists 

 who saw Chrysophanus dispar alive is now passing away, and it seems 

 that the present generation will see the last of Aporia crataegi, Lyccena 

 avion, and L. acis as British insects. On the other hand, we have 

 several additions recorded. Danais archippus, Lyccena bcrtica, L. argiades, 

 and Hcspena Hneola are now considered as entitled to a place in our 

 fauna, though, owing to the absence of the food-plant of its larva, the 

 first-named butterfly can never be more than a casual visitor to our 

 shores. 



The figures of the butterflies are generally good, but the cater- 

 pillars are often drawn in. an attitude very suggestive of " blown " 

 specimens. 



The Hawks and Owls of the United States in their Relation to Agri- 

 culture. By A. K. Fisher, M.D., U.S. Department of Agriculture, Division 

 of Ornithology and Mammalogy; Bulletin No. 3. Pp. 210, pis. 26. Washington, 

 1893. 



Illustrated by well-executed coloured plates of twenty-six of the 

 species described, this excellent little monograph of the diurnal and 

 nocturnal birds of prey inhabiting the United States should prove 

 valuable alike to the field naturalist, the agriculturist, and the game- 



