serge's schmetterlingsbuch. 213 



Probably no man in Europe was better fitted to bring a book of this 

 character up-to-date, and, if he has not given us a scientific text- 

 book, he has so revolutionised the original that there is little or 

 nothing of Berge left in it, and he has based it on more modern 

 lines, so that it is, without doubt, the best picture book of its kind now 

 pubUshed in Europe, with fewer palpable blunders (though they are 

 still numerous enough, especially in the application of wrong names 

 to varietal foi-ms), much more detailed and accurate letterpress and 

 equally well illustrated with about 1600 figures on 53 coloured plates 

 and 219 text illustrations. Such a book as this must go for the 

 raising of the collector through Central Europe and give him a better 

 elementary idea of what has been done and what possibilities the study 

 of entomology holds out. The twenty preliminary chapters on the 

 general subject are good, contain a short summary of the information 

 obtainable on the subjects treated, together with a fair number of 

 references, so that the collector, if interested in any particular branch, 

 can go further on with its study, whilst, in addition, there are excellent 

 indexes to enable one to find one's way about what is necessarily a 

 large book. The plates are on the whole excellent, although some 

 are not quite on the same level as others. 



The inequality in difterent parts of the work is shown much more 

 markedly, however, in the letterpress. In some groups, the result is 

 — so far as the treatment of the imagines is concerned — fairly ample, 

 in other parts rather less complete. This is particularly noticeable in 

 the butterflies, Sphingids, Lachneids, Attacids, Noctuids, Athro- 

 cerids, Psychids, etc., which, having already been more or less com- 

 pletely monographed, at least locally, are in the higher plane, whilst 

 the Geometrids are altogether in a lower plane, although one suspects 

 that, had more time been given to tbe actual working out of references, 

 the details known about the Geometrids should be quite equal to those 

 of the other groups, but these, being more distributed and less easily 

 get-at-able, would have involved considerable time and labour, more, 

 evidently, than the writer felt called upon to spend. 



Biologically, the life-histories of the species are quite as hopeless 

 as usual. The description of the egg usually occupies about a line 

 of print, that of the larva half a dozen lines, and the pupa two or three 

 lines— even when the life-histories of the species is well-known ; one 

 suspects this to be the proprietor's, rather than the author's, fault, but 

 the hopelessness of such descriptions is well-illustrated by that of the 

 egg of Drymonia triwacula — " Das Ei kalbkugelig, weissgrun, fein 

 punktiert," or that of Hemaria titijits (which is, by the by, still called 

 scabiosae, Zell.) — "Das Ei kugelig, hellgrim," or that of Cerura fnrcula 

 — " Das Ei schwiirzlich. Die Puppe hellbraun mit griinlichen 

 Flugelscheiden," etc. One may note here that British authors have 

 no cause tor complaint against Dr. Rebel's reference to their work. 

 Scarcely a page occurs on which a British species is mentioned with- 

 out a reference, and on some pages a dozen may occur ; Barrett, Tutt, 

 Buckler and Hellins, are quoted wholesale, and their descriptions 

 summarised — whilst, of the German entomologists, the work of their 

 leading naturalist-lepidopterist. Max Gillmer, is repeatedly quoted. 



On the systematic side, in which perhaps greater progress has been 

 made during the last twenty years than in almost any other branch, 

 matters remain in statu quo. The author appears, in spite of recent 



