July, 1907.] THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 63 



Australian Insects. By Walter W. Froggatt, F.L.S., Govern- 

 ment Entomologist of New South Wales. With 37 plates, 

 containing 270 figures, also 180 text blocks. 450 + xiv. pp. 

 Sydney, 1907 : Wra. Brooks and Co. Ltd. 15s. 



Australian entomologists owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. 

 Froggatt for his masterly volume on the insects of our island 

 continent, and by the process of reasoning the Field Naturalists' 

 Club of Victoria can to some extent claim a share of their thanks ; 

 for when in August, 1905, Mr. Froggatt gave a presidential 

 address to the New South Wales Naturalists' Club, he said : — 



" Nearly twenty-five years ago I was collecting beetles, and gaining colonial 

 experience, in the north-west corner of New South Wales, known then as the 

 Grey Ranges, now as Milparinka, when I heard that a party of ladies and 

 gentlemen had met together in Melbourne and founded a Field Naturalists' 

 Club. On my return to civilization I communicated with several members, 

 and, through the courtesy of Mr. Charles French, then in the Botanic Gardens, 

 and as ardent a beetle collector then as now, I began to name up my collections. 

 After that my interest in natural history never flagged. I had always been a 

 bush naturalist, but the assistance gained from the F.N.C. of Victoria set me 

 on a definite track, and I therefore consider I owe a great deal to our first 

 Field Naturalists' Club." 



The work is a handsome octavo volume of 450 pages, and 

 will form a sure foundation on which our entomologists can 

 set to work and re-arrange and name their collections. The 

 classification of insects, like that of any other group in natural 

 history, is always a matter of individual opinion ; in the 

 volume under notice the author has closely followed that of the 

 " Cambridge Natural History," with one notable exception — he 

 places the Termitidae (white ants) and allied families in the 

 Orthoptera, after the Blattidae (cockroaches). The orders are 

 dealt with in the following sequence : — Aptera, Orthoptera, 

 Neuroptera, Hymenoptera, Coleoptera, Lepidoptera (sub-orders 

 Rhopalocera and Heterocera), Diptera, Hemiptera (sub-orders 

 Homoptera, Anoplura, and Mallophaga), and Thysanoptera. 

 It must not be supposed that every genus of Australian insect 

 is dealt with in the volume— that would be impossible — but the 

 author mentions sufficient to enable most of our larger insects to 

 be identified, as also those which are proving themselves pests or 

 injurious to vegetation, &c., and while serving as a text-book the 

 descriptions of life-histories given afford most interesting reading. 

 He is 10 be congratulated on the adoption of familiar English 

 names for most of the families and almost all the species illus- 

 trated. The plates and illustrations are in all cases very clearly 

 executed, and in many of them tiie insects are figured on an 

 enlarged scale, which makes them doubly useful. In a short 

 notice like this it is impossible to call attention to the many 

 points one would like to do. The work concludes with three 

 useful chapters — viz., on the collection and preservation of 



