266 the entomologist's record. 



of the year," so far as those noticed are concerned, appear to be a poor 

 choice. 



Twenty years ago the eggs of lepidoptera were practically unknown. 

 Only a few lepidopterists in the world — so far as we remember, one in 

 America and one in England — knew how to describe them at all, so as to 

 be of use for scientific purposes. Until Chapman published the first of 

 his papers on the eggs of lepidoptera (1893) the application of their 

 characters to scientific purposes was of the vaguest, and had one at 

 that time offered £10 each, one could not have obtained a single 

 printing at all approximating the poorest (if such a term be admissible 

 where all are good) of the sixty photographs, now issued by Gowans 

 and Gray, Limited, in their little booklet — " Some Moths and Butter- 

 flies and their Eggs." For the improvement in the technique of 

 photographing the eggs of lepidoptera we owe almost everything to 

 Messrs. F. Noad Clark, and A. E. Tonge; and not the eggs 

 only, but also the larvae, pupae, and living imagines. And now we 

 have sixty plates, each with the imago and eggs on a separate plate, 

 of sixty species of lepidoptera, by A. E. Tonge, apparently at the 

 marvellous price of 6d. (or post free for 7d. from Gowans and Gray, 

 Ltd., 5, Robert Street, Adelphi, London, W.C.). From what one hears, 

 whenever discussions occur at the meetings of the Entomological 

 Society of London, involving the character of even the eggs of the 

 commonest species of lepidoptera, the booklet will prove as useful to 

 the most advanced entomologist as to the schoolboy; and one can 

 only advise every entomologist to get it at the earliest opportunity. 

 In our own hands the photographs raise a desire to discuss detail, 

 e.g., the difference between the egg of Enodia hyperanthus and 

 Coenonympha pamphilus, the upright egg of Urapteryx sambucaria 

 (in a flat-egged superfamily), etc. It is hard to shake off the 

 "old Adam," and so we find, the "flat-egged" Sphingids between 

 the " upright-egged " Urbicolids and Hylophilids, and the " flat- 

 egged " Lachneids, between the "upright-egged" Lymantriids and 

 Notodontids. It is just on these points that we expect Mr. Tonge to 

 put us all right some day. 



Gadeau de Kerville published some years ago, in the Ann. Ent. 

 Hoc. France, some interesting notes and figures on the pairing of 

 certain lepidoptera, in which, however, he came down a " cropper " 

 with regard to the mode of pairing of one of the Psychids. He has 

 now published a most important brochure entitled " Note sur l'accou- 

 plement, les oeufs et l'amour maternel des Insectes Orthopteres de la 

 Famille des Forficulidees," with figures showing the pairing habits of 

 Labidura riparia and Eorftcularia auric ularia. As a contribution to 

 the habits of this interesting group, the paper will prove most interesting 

 to all naturalists as well as to orthopterist specialists. The work is 

 obtainable from MM. Lecerf Fils, Rouen. 



Professor T. Hudson Beare has just been elected a member of the 

 Council of the Royal Society of Scotland, whilst the Royal Scottish 

 Society of Arts has expressed a desire that he should serve for the third 

 successive year as its President. 



As our subscribers were notified in previous issues of the Ent. Record, 

 etc., the sale of the first portion of the Rev. G. H. Raynor's collection 

 took place on October 22nd. The chief features of this British collec- 

 tion were the fine varieties and aberrational forms of Hpilosoma lubrici- 



