94



Stick Insects (Carausins morosus).

BRITISH BIRDS. Thorburn.



British Birds, written and illustrated by A. Thorburn, F.Z.S. With 80 Plates

in colour, showing over 400 species. In four vols. Vol. IV. Price £6 6s.

Longmans, Green & Co., 39, Paternoster How, London.


Gulls, Plovers, waders, and sea-birds chiefly make up the

fourth and final volume of Mr. Thorburn’s beautiful work, to which

we have before now drawn the attention of members. The artist

excels in delineating and painting the portraits of sea and shore

birds, so that one finds many charming and beautiful pictures which

form a natural grouping of those birds which associate together in a

wild state at certain seasons of the year, such as Terns in one plate,

Dunlins and Sandpipers in another, and Gulls in another.


It is perhaps a pity that the figure of the European Crane

could not have been a solitary one, as it seems somewhat out of

place with a Stone-Curlew and two species of Bustards in the back¬

ground.


Plates 72, 74, and 76 are especially attractive, Gulls of

various species figuring in the first two, and Puffins, Razorbills, etc.,

in the third; hut the whole of this volume is made up of good work

and clever colouring.



STICK INSECTS (Carausius morosus).


Dear Mr. Astley,


I am surprised that you could not get information at the

Zoological Gardens respecting the insects that M. Delacour wrote

about. * The Field ’ published some time ago a note from the London

Zoological Gardens stating that stick-insects had been given for food

not only to the birds, hut also to some insectivorous mammals, such

as Marmosets, which had relished this addition to their fare.


Now, Carausins morosus are orthopterous insects, not beetles,

and they have been the object of the careful study of one of the

members of the Societe d’Acclimatation, namely, the Abbe Foucher,

who has bred enormous quantities ( Carausins and Cyphocrania) and

also leaf-insects in his insectarium. These studies have been



