REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 211 



discoveries in insect physiology by Latter and Hopkins. The main 

 portion of the Address, however, was devoted to a plea for a more 

 liberal use in biological work of the theoretical or speculative method 

 which had proved so fruitful in other branches of science, and w'hich, 

 in the President's opinion, might wdth advantage be more freely 

 employed in connection with entomological investigation. Illustra- 

 tions were taken from the work of Bates on mimicry, Wallace on the 

 colours of insects, and Poulton's researches on variable colouring, all 

 of which had been prompted by hypothesis, and which had led to 

 discoveries of large bodies of facts which would never have been 

 gleaned by haphazard observation. The address puts forward so 

 thoroughly and clearly the respective claims of systematic and 

 philosophic entomology, that one cannot doubt but that every 

 entomologist of repute will as soon as possible make himself quite 

 conversant wdth it. 



JllEYIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



British Lepidoptera.''^ 



Advance is only chronicled when a man steps out of old ruts and 

 strikes out a new path for himself. Such a man our author appears to be, 

 for there can be no doubt that his book is entirely unlike any other 

 that has been offered to the British public. 



It has now become a generally recognised law that any system of 

 classification which may be finally adopted must be based on 

 evolutionary lines. Our author recognises this, for he states that 

 Darwin's Onijin of Species " effected a revolution in the principles of 

 classification " and " was first published at the end of the same year as 

 Stainton's Manual,'' and that " it is, perhaps, not very creditable to 

 British lepidopterists that so little progress should have been made 

 meanwhile in this direction," i.e., in the direction of obtaining 

 " satisfactory information on structural distinctions." This state- 

 ment is dated August 5th, 1895, and wants examining carefully. 



The first thought is that this statement is due to an oversight. In 

 March last a " Correlation of various recent systems in the classifica- 

 tion of the Lepidoptera," was read before the Entomological Society 

 of London, and was, we believe, submitted to our author. He, there- 

 fore, knew of the existence of the Avork of Comstock, Chapman, Dyar, 

 Hampson, Packard and others, in this direction. The second thought 

 is that the statement is naive, and the careful overhauling of the book 

 shows that our author know^s next to nothing about the work of his 

 contemporaries, and assumes, because he knows it not, that none has 

 been done, and that all work that has been done has been achieved by 

 his own unaided efforts ; and yet there is a suspicion, as we turn over 

 the last pages of the book, that he must have read Chapman's 1893 

 and 1894 publications on the values to be attributed to certain 

 Incomplete, although it is evident that they have never been 

 thoroughly assimilated. 



It is now w^ell recognised that no system of classification which is 

 not based on all the stages of an insect's life is likely to be accepted. 



* Handhnok of Britigh J.epidoptera, by E. Meyrick, B.A., F.E.8. [Macmillan 

 * Co., 10s. (5d. net]. 



