Notes, Communications and Revieics. 131 



to their environment and the economic importance of those 

 organisms. * 



Perhaps the best praise we can give to this book is that we 

 wish it was longer. It should appeal to a wide circle of readers 

 both at home and in the tropics, and will serve to emphasise 

 the growing relationship of biology to medicine and agriculture. 

 The l)ook is well printed and the illustrations are very clear 

 and well suited to serve the purpose of an elementary treatise. 

 A novel feature is that, with the exception of the frontispiece, 

 all are original and were drawn by the authors from their own 

 preparations. The arrangement of the subject matter in the 

 book may give rise to differences of opinion, and we think it 

 would have been an advantage to have followed the zoological 

 classification more closely. We admit, however, that the 

 arrangement adopted interferes but little with the value of 

 the information contained in the book. If a second edition be 

 called for, references to the more important literature, placed 

 at the end of each chapter, would add to the utility of the 

 work. In conclusion, we may add that the perusal of such a 

 book as this brings home to us the following words of Ray 

 Lankester : — " Great is the contentment of those who have 

 long worked at apparently useless branches of science — such as 

 are the careful and elaborate distinction of every separate kind 

 of animal and the life-history and structure peculiar to each — 

 in the belief that all knowledge is good, to find that the science 

 they have cultivated has become suddenly and urgently of the 

 highest practical value." 



A. D. Imms. 



"Agriculture — Theoretical and Practical." — A textbook of 

 mixed farming for large and small farmers and for agricultural 

 students.— John Wrightson, M.R.A.C., F.C.S., and J. C. New- 

 sham, F.L.S. (628 pp., Crosby Lockwood & Son, 6s. net.) 

 During recent years there has been a notable increase in the 

 output of books dealing with agricultural subjects, and these 

 later books may, like those of an earlier date, be divided into 

 two groups — those which deal with agriculture as a whole, 

 and are intended for the general farmer and the agricultural 

 student, and those which deal more or less exhaustively with 

 one particular branch of agriculture, and are intended for those 

 farmers who have become specialists, and for lecturers and 

 advanced students. 



This book belongs to the first group, and is more ambitious 

 than many others of a similar size, in that it includes not only 

 sections on soils, manures, crops, live stock, feeding, l)ui]dings, 

 machinery, dairying, and animal and plant diseases, but also 

 on farm accounts, horticulture, poultry, rabbits, and bees. 



p 2 



