26 THE entomologist's RECORD. 



these (with the sole exception of the tliscal spot of the hindwing) 

 almost absorbed in the general darkening. The distal half of the 

 fringes remains white. — Louis B.Prout, F.E.S.,62 Graham Road, N.E. 

 Decewber Sth, 1911. 



Vanessa antiopa in Hampshire. — I have to record the capture of 

 a specimen of Vanessa antiopa in August by a boy at Curdridge, a village 

 in South Hants. The specimen ^yas taken to Lady Jenkyns, who 

 presented it to the Rev. G. E. C. Osborne, Rector of Botley, in whose 

 collection it now is. — Rev. J. E. Tarbat, Fareham, Hants. 



CURRENT NOTES AND SHORT NOTICES. 



T/ic Life and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by 

 Alexander de Mattos (Adam and Chas., Black). In reading this well 

 got up book of essays we are again and again reminded of the contents 

 of six portly volumes on our book-shelves, on the covers of which 

 is impressed the revered name of that prince of the observers 

 of nature, Reaumur. Fabre is the modern Reaumur. But there is a 

 circumstantial difference in the two men. The latter groped as it were 

 in the dark, he had no predecessors whose example he could follow, he 

 dealt only with facts as he actually saw them, he was influenced by no 

 more or less nebulous theories, and he made few deductions of a 

 philosophical nature, nor did he ascribe motives for the actions and 

 habits he depicted so well. Fabre, while equally assiduous, equally 

 accurate and exhaustive in the detail of his observations, ascribes 

 motives for the varying habits, and makes inferences influenced 

 more or less by the generally received conceptions of the theories 

 proposed by many a previous naturalist. While it is with some 

 amount of reserve that we read his deductions, we cannot fail to admire 

 the skill and ingenuity with which our present author has compelled 

 the various living objects of his study to give up the marvellous secrets 

 of their life and love. With some of the creatures, whose ways of life 

 are so faithfully described, we have been familiar from our childhood. 

 The Typl)aei(s buried the sheep manure which laid scattered on the hill 

 above our school. W^e were alwaj's meeting the scavenger Gentrupes 

 with its burden of parasites, as it slaved away on its self-imposed task 

 of burying excrementitious matter. We have still the Scorpion 

 which we watched in life, obtained from a box of imported eggs. The 

 charming essays given us in this volume we can read again and again. 

 They are like fairy tales, only that the little fairies are real living 

 identities, and the happenings will be re-enacted for all those patient 

 observers who wish it. W^e would that all Fabre's essays could be 

 published in this country, and the publishers are to be congratulated 

 on this, may we say, instalment, both for the get up and illustration, 

 and for the moderate price. 



A most enjoyable evening w^as spent with the Entomological Club 

 on Thursday, November 16th, at the Savage Club, when Mr. H. 

 Rowland-Brown was the host. The members and guests present 

 included Prof. Selwyn Image, Drs. T. A. Chapman and F. A. Dixey, 

 Revs. F. D. MoricG and G. Wheeler, Messrs. R. Adkin, J. E. Collin, 

 H. Donisthorpe, A. H. Jones, G. A. K. Marshall, R. M. Prideaux, A. 

 Sich and R. South. Sympathetic reference was made to the death of 

 Mr. Verrall by all the members of the club present, its late prosperity, 



