1897. SOME NEW BOOKS. 351 



Scraps from Serials. 



We have received Bulletin No. 6 (n.s.) of the Entomological Division 

 of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which contains the Proceedings 

 of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Association of Economic 

 Entomologists, held at Buflfalo in August, i8g6. The address of the 

 President, Mr. C. H. Fernald, deals with the Evolution of Economic 

 Entomology, giving a brief history of insect ravages from the plagues 

 of Egypt to the present day. There are a number of other papers 

 bearing on the special work of the Association. Of general interest 

 is an account by Mr. F. M. Webster of the areas in Ohio affected 

 by the Chinch Bug in three successive years (1894-6). Although 

 the successive appearance of the insects in different tracts of the 

 state could be in part explained by meteorological conditions, several 

 anomalous facts still await elucidation. 



Timehvi (vol. x., pt. 2, Dec, 1896) is full of interesting matters, chief 

 among which is Mr. Quelch's " Migratory Birds in British Guiana." 

 Some notes of fly-fishing in the colony are given by " Oxon," and from 

 his account one sees that far more than ordinary patience is required, 

 as the sand-flies and mosquitos are unwearying in their attacks, and 

 before 8 a.m., the fierce horizontal rays of the sun burn back, arms, 

 and hands, so that they become swollen and scarlet, while, reflected 

 from the water, they take the skin off the nose. H. B. Van Ree 

 writes practically on the culture and manufacture of Tobacco, while 

 history has its exponent in the Hon. N. Darnall Davis, who gives an 

 account of the Early English Colonies in Trinidad. 



La Natuyaleza, vol. ii., nos. 10 and 11, reach us from Mexico, 

 both published in 1896. Herpetology is represented by the description 

 of new species of Geophis and Amblystoma by Dr. Duges, who also 

 gives a note on the intestine of Cvocodiliis ainericanus, and a list of the 

 Reptilia and Batrachia of the Mexican States ; and by Dr. M. G. 

 Peracca, who writes on the reproduction of Iguana tuberculata. Botany 

 includes pp. 185-263 of Mociho y Sesse's Flora Mexicana, with index 

 A-H; Casimiroa ptihescens by Dr. Manuel M. Villada ; and Tahebuia 

 donnell-sviithii by J. N. Rose. Juan Ignacio de Armas writes on the 

 Zoology of Colon ; Mexican Anthropology is dealt with by Herrera 

 and Cicero; and Dr. Jose Ramirez' discourse to the eleventh Congress 

 of Americanists, on the autochthony of the primitive races of America, 

 is also printed. Duges also describes a new moth Ophideres vaphael. 



We have received vol. Ill, no. I, of Records of the Australian 

 Museum, edited by the curator, R. Etheridge, Jr., who contributes to 

 it articles on the circular and spiral incised ornament on Australian 

 aboriginal implements and weapons, including a spear from Angeldool, 

 N.S.W. ; on an Actinoceras from N.W. Australia, a genus of cephalopod 

 not hitherto recorded from the Carboniferous rocks of that country ; on 

 the discovery of bones, chiefly of Diprotodon, in granitic detritus at 

 Cunningham's Creek, near Hawarden, N.S.W. The late F. A. A. 

 Skuse announces that Peripatus leuckharti has been discovered 72 miles 

 S. of Sydney and near the Jenolan Caves, Blue Mts., N.S.W., and at a 

 height of 2000 feet at Cunningham's Gap, South Queensland. The 

 specimens stated by F. J. Bell and A. Sedgwick to come from Wide 

 Bay, Queensland, were, says Mr. Skuse, really collected by himself 

 in Brisbane. C. Hedley describes a North Papuan land-shell under 

 the name Thersites septentrionalis. A. J. North, after having delivered 

 himself of a new sub-species of Psophodes crepitans, gives some interest- 

 ing ornithological notes. We note that Mr. Hedley gives his 

 measurements in the metric system ; cannot the editor follow his 



