3X6 [No^Binber, 



tliirteen lighthoiises, and to one of them no foAver than ninety specimens were 

 attracted on three consecutive nights. We trust that these important observa- 

 tions will be continiied, and that even more interesting resixlts will be obtained. 



" British Ants, etc." By H. St. J. K. Donisthorpe, F.Z.S., etc With 

 18 Plates and 92 Diagrams. Plymouth : William Brendon & Soia. 1915. 



We cannot hope in such space as is here at oxir disposal to do real justice to 

 this important and handsome volume. But «e can at least congratulate its 

 author on having produced the most interesting, the most accurate, the best 

 illustrated, and — beyond all comparison — the most complete accotmt of the 

 British ant fauna that has ever been published. 



It commences with a minute and careful explanation, clear in itself and 

 >made still clearer by the help of diagrams, of the external and internal structure 

 of an ant, and of the terminology applied to its various parts by the most recent 

 myrmecological experts. It is not Mr. Donisthoi-pe's fault that this terminology 

 should differ a good deal (and generally, in oiir opinion, for the worse) from that 

 hithei'to acquiesced in by most writers on other groups of Hymenoptera. Still, 

 we regret his acceptance of " epinotum," instead of the far older propodeum, and 

 of " strigils " for the calcaria antica. (Strigilis was introdiiced by W. Kirby in 

 1802 to denote not the calcar, but the excavation in the metatarsus which faces 

 it!) Brachius again is "an ill phrase" grammatically; and it seems un- 

 reasonable to call a nerve which is not in the " median area " at all " trans- 

 versomedialis." 



Next, under the heading " Life History," we come to a series of well- 

 arranged and extremely interesting sections, dealing with the " matings " of the 

 sexes, the foundation of new colonies — a most curious subject, till lately quite 

 unexplored, but now to a great extent cleai-ed up by researches in which 

 Mr. Donisthorpe himself has taken a leading part— the development of the 

 individual ant in all its stages from oviposition to the emergence of the imago, 

 etc. The photographs from nature of eggs, larvae, and pupae, here introduced 

 are triily beautiful, and worthy of the text which they illustrate. We can give 

 them no higher praise. 



Passing on to what Mr. Donisthorpe calls the " Polymorphism of Ants," we 

 must confess ourselves inclined to protest against his endorsement of the scheme 

 and terminology which he quotes at length from the well-known work of 

 Professor Wheeler. It seems to us altogether unreasonable to classify together 

 as "phases" (sic) of a single phenomenon, to which the name "Polymorphism " 

 is to be restricted, a series of phenomena so different in nature and origin as 

 (1) the distinctions between normal S S and ? ? ; (2) the differences between 

 perfectly and imperfectly developed females, "qtieens" and "workers" ; (3) the 

 differences between workers belonging to various " castes," such differeaces 

 being related to their different functions in the community ; (4) pathological 

 malformations caused by internal pai'asites ; (5) monstrosities combining charac- 

 ters of different sexes ; and (G) mere individual differences of size in individuals 

 otherwise similar, To construct a kind of Table, bringing all these phenomena 



