REeENT LITERATURE. 143 



BECENT LITERATURE. 



School Entomology. By E. DwroHT Sanderson and L. M. Peairs. 



New York : John Wiley & Sons, Inc. London : Chapman & 



Halh Ltd. 1917. 7s. net. 

 This is one of the Wiley Technical Series, for the use of what, in 

 the United States, are called vocational and industrial schools. In 

 America the secondary schools are well supplied with text-books on 

 agricultural subjects, and the teaching is sound and thorough. 

 Entomology — with us the Cinderella of agricultural science — takes a 

 foremost place in the educational curriculum, and in the rural dis- 

 tricts the new generation goes into the held of competition on the 

 land well equipped for the contest. We wish we could say the same 

 for the boys and girls leaving school in this country. Until quite 

 recently no general scheme of scientific training has been adopted in 

 the United Kingdom with this object. It is still inadequate and 

 incomplete. This text-book, though primarily designed for the United 

 States, should be in the hands of all our teachers and scholars. It is 

 sufficient, practical, and concise. The first chapters deal with the 

 rudiments of entomology ; the descriptions are illustrated with 

 admirable woodcuts explaining the characters of the several orders. 

 The rest of the volume is devoted to detailed accounts of insects 

 injurious to crops, and the means to meet and destroy them. An 

 English handbook on the same lines dealing with British insectology 

 and preventives is a desideratuin. H. R.-B. 



The Wonders of Instinct. By J. H. Fabre. With 16 Plates from 

 Photographs , by Paul H. Fabre. Translated by Alexander 

 Teixeira de Mattos and Bernard Miall. London : T. Fisher 

 Unwin, Ltd., 1918. 10s. 6d. 



Three supreme qualities are required of those who translate 

 Fabre — a delicate sense of the French idiom ; a poetic imagination ; 

 a first-hand knowledge of entomology. Fabre wrote exquisite French. 

 He was a poet of no mean order, though he selected prose for 

 his medium. He was among the greatest field naturalists of the 

 nineteenth century. Mr. Teixeira de Mattos and Mr. Bernard Miall 

 are conscientious translators enough. Their version is smooth and 

 usually correct, but it has caught little of the warmth and sunshine 

 which irradiate every page of the original. Fabre detested tlie 

 systematist as much as he despised the merely acquisitive collector. 

 The jargon of the text-books repelled him ; yet he mastered entomo- 

 logical phraseology and used it without pedantry. Passages in the 

 translation suggest a moderate acquaintance with the entomological 

 lexicon. Probably the translators' classics are none the worse for it. 

 Most entomologists read Fabre in the original, but there are many 

 besides who will welcome this fresh instalment in English with 

 enthusiasm. To those who like to think that the joys and sorrows 

 of these tiny creatures are akin in some sense to their own the 

 revelation of the truth may be disagreeable. But, if Fabre dispels the 

 pleasant illusion, he does it so gently and skilfully that the shock is 

 almost pleasant when the line between instinct and reason is exposed. 

 Fabre must have been immensely happy in his experiments. He 



