184 [August, 



'A Year op Costa Rica Natural History.' T>y A. S.. and P. P 

 Calvert. Pp. 577 aud numerous illustnitioiis. Macmillau Company, New 

 York, etc. 1917. Price 12*-. 6d. net. 



For many years past Prof. P. P. Calvert, of tlie University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, has made a special study of the American dragon-flies, or Odonata, autl 

 numerous papers hy him on these insects have been published from time to 

 time in scientific journals, not only in the United States, but in Britain also, 

 one of his most important memoirs having appeared in the ' Biologia Centrali- 



I Americana,' in 1901-1908. The investigation of the tropical forms fascinated 

 him to such an extent that he decided, soon after the last-named work was 

 finished, to visit Costa Rica to study the life-history, seasonal distribution, 



^etc, of some of these insect.s on the spot. Accordiugly, on M;iy 1st, 1909, 

 Calvert and his Avife arrived at Limon, the Atlantic port of that little 

 Republic. They resided in Costa Rica till Ma}"^ 1910, when the terrible earth- 

 quake at Cartage on the 4th of that mouth put au abrupt end to their sojouru 

 there, and they were lucky enough to escape with their lives, the destruction 

 of that city, the second in importance in the country, notwithstanding. The 

 railways now open enabled tliem to cross to Puntarenas on the Pacific, and to 

 visit the extensive Pauana regions along the Atlantic coast, locomotion there- 

 fore being comparatively easy, compared with the dilficulties tliey would have 

 encountered in the adjacent Republics, where most of the travelling has to be 

 done on horseback or on foot, even at the present time. The volume under, 

 review is the result of their twelve months' labour. It is chiefly devoted to 

 observations recorded in their diary, which deal with a variety of subjects — 

 the habits and distribution of plants and animals (especially insects), on humau 

 life and manners, on earthquakes and volcanoes, etc. — the technical results 

 liaving been already published elsewhere, and the book is as interesting to the 

 general reader as to the specialist. Amongst the most important entomologicar 

 discoveries made by them, at a place named Juan Villas, was the life-history 

 of a peculiar long-bodied dragon-fly, Mecistor/aster modesttts, which was found 

 to pass its earlier stages in the rain-water accumulated in the leaf-bases of 

 certain epiphytic pineapple-Uke Bromeliads on the branches of trees. There 

 are valuable notes on the other animals living in these same plants, on migra- 

 tory moths and butterflies, on the use of the anal brush in the male of the 

 butterfly Li/corea atergatis, on the use of the horns on the prothorax in the 

 males of various Lamellicori\ beetles, on luminous Elaterid larvae, on the ants 

 {Pseudomynna) living in the bull's-horn thorn {Acacia costaricensis), etc. 

 Two volcanoes were ascended, Irazu and Poas, and the craters examined. 

 Costa Rica and Nicaragua are, perhaps, amongst the richest fields for the 

 naturalist in the whole world, especially as regards their exuberant bird-life. 

 The former country is now of easy access in peace-time, and it is well worth 

 the journey, even from Europe, before it shares in the changes that will in- 

 evitably be brought about by the opening of the Panama Canal. The authors' 

 description of the parts of Costa Rica visited by them would apply, as they 

 state, almost equally well to the adjacent regions, and the present reviewer, 

 who has spent some years in the neighbouring Republics, north and south, for 

 similar purposes, can vouch for the accuracy of this statement. The book is 

 extremely well edited, freely illustrated, and printed on good unloaded paper, 



— G. c. a 



