40 [February, 



leuieiu. 



Indian InvSbct Life : A Manual of the Insects of the Plains 

 (Tropical India). By H. Maxwell-Lefroy, M.A., F.Z.S., F.E.S., Entomo- 

 logist, assisted by F. M. Howlett. B.A., F.E.S., Second Entomologist, Imperial 

 Department of Agriculture for India. (Published under the Authority of the 

 Government of India) Agricultviral Research Institute, Pusa. Calcutta and 

 Simila : Thacker, Spink & Co. : London, W. Thacker & Co., 2, Creed Lane. 1909. 



This handsome and well illvistrated volume of 786 quarto pages has been 

 compiled primarily for the use of students of Entomology in India, and for 

 those interested in the subject ; and the joint authors may well be congratii- 

 lated on the clear and methodical style in which their work is presented, and 

 on the able manner in which they have dealt with the enormous mass of more 

 or less scattered literature relating to the insect fauna of India. Following 

 generally the now well-known arrangement adopted by Dr. Shaip in his two 

 voliunes on " Insects " in the " Cambridge Natural History," each Order as 

 represented in India is treated with considerable fulness of detail, and with 

 reference to the best and most recent authorities. Throughout the book the 

 economic side of Entomology is kept prominently in view, as might have been 

 expected from the nature of the work carried out by the author and his 

 colleagues at the Agricultural Research Institute at Pusa, Bengal ; and a large 

 number of the plates are devoted to the illustration of the life-history of the 

 nimierous forms of insect life which are injurious or destructive to the agi-icid- 

 tural and forest products of our Indian Empire, and add gi'eatly to the 

 practical value of the woi-k. The " Interludes " dealing with such subjects as 

 " Entomology in India," " How Insects protect themselves," " Insects as Food," 

 " Migration," " Silk," — to name only a few, are exceedingly well written and 

 intei-esting. Although the restriction to the " Insects of the Plains " of India 

 involves the omission of all but very slight reference to the splendid fauna of 

 the Himalayan region, a large number of striking and peculiar forms in all 

 Orders are referred to and delineated in the numerous text-figiu'es, and in the 

 84 plates. These latter are for the most part executed by the " three colour " 

 process by the Calcutta Phototype Company, from drawings by native artists, 

 and although somewhat unequal in quality, are often exceedingly effective, 

 notably so in the case of some of the large Saturniid silk-moths which are repre- 

 sented on a black ground. It is unfortunate that the reproduction of these 

 illustrations has involved the use of a very heavily " loaded " paper (the actual 

 weight of this " Manual " is just three ounces short of seven pounds), as, 

 besides the inconvenience of handling this ponderous voliune, its durability for 

 any length of time, especially in such a climate as tliat of India, is open to 

 erravc doubt. 



Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society: Meeting held at the 

 Royal Institution, Liverpool, Monday, November loth, 1909. — Mr. C. E Stott, 

 Vice-President, in the Chair. 



