88 THE entomologist's RECORD. 



tone blocks at all for serious and permanent work, seeing that the risk 

 is, at the least, so great ? These half-tone blocks in their results are 

 not really such superlatively fine things that we must have them at 

 any cost. For scientific illustrations they are at any rate not better 

 than carefully executed line process-blocks, which can be printed on any 

 reasonable paper. As I write, the second volume of Dr. August Weis- 

 mann's The Emlution Tlienry lies open before me at page 246. Will it 

 be maintained that the line process- block illustration on this page, of 

 galls on a twig and a leaf, is an inferior thing to the half-tone block of 

 the crustacean on page 242 ? From an artistic point of view it most 

 assuredly is not; and I venture to say that, from a scientific point of 

 view,, everything that could be required for accuracy or charm in the 

 crustacean could be given by a fine drawing made for the line process- 

 block.-'' 



But how does the matter stand in regard to the three-colour process? 

 If it is stated that illustrations in this method cannothQ printed on any 

 but clay-loaded paper, the statement is exaggerated. They can be 

 printed on such paper most easily, and, unless special care be taken, 

 most effectively ; that is all. When everything is said and done, how- 

 ever, so far as colour goes colotypes are a great deal better than three- 

 colour-process illustrations. Yes, it may be replied, but how much 

 more expensive ! That depends. Certainly up to 500, possibly up to 

 1000, the difference in price between the two methods for monochrome 

 illustrations would be mfinitesimal, and for coloured ones would not 

 be prohibitive. The cheapness of the three-colour process comes in 

 when you run into many thousands ; and for the best kind of scientific 

 works there is not, alas ! this demand. Moreover, the cry for cheap- 

 ness is not the only cry worth heeding, and if your work, as Professor 

 Poulton says, is going shortly to perish, or, as my cautious expert 

 friend says, is very probably gomg to perish, a wise man will think 

 twice before he welcomes even cheapness at such a risk. 



Only one word more. I have alluded to Dr. Weismann's book on 

 evolution, recently published by Mr. Edward Arnold. It is a work of 

 the highest importance, but it is no easy matter reading it. You want 

 everything to help you in reading it, that your attention may be un- 

 divided. What actually happens ? You take one of the volumes in 

 your hand, and every few minutes you have to shift it about or to put 

 it down, so vilely does its weight make you ache. And the reason of 

 this weight lies in the fact that it is printed throughout on clay-loaded 

 paper. And the reason of its being so printed is that some of the 

 illustrations up and down it may be half-tone blocks. I say frankly 

 that these illustrations could have been done by another process just 

 as well ; and that the annoyance and inconvenience caused by this 

 half-tone process in a book of this importance, we ought never to be 

 called upon to put up with. 



* Perhaps even a more obvious instance is on page 178, where the larva of 

 Sesia f<tellatarmn is a half-tone, and that of S^nerinthus ocellatusf a line process- 

 block. 



The Basses=AIpes and Hautes-Alpes in July {n-ith plate). 



By W. G. SHELDON. 



(Concluded from p. 67.) 

 On July 17th, we left Digne for that portion of the Hautes-Alpes 



