383 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



of my teachers : "Wie schiver sind dock 

 die Mittel zu erlangen, womit man zii 

 den Quellen steigt!" 



In view of the present development 

 of entomological literature, both Euro- 

 pean and American, it seems strange 

 that Dr. Lutz should be the first to 

 publish a genuine field book of the com- 

 mon insects of the northeastern United 

 States. He owes the idea, no doubt, to 

 the exigencies of his office as curator in 

 a large metropolitan museum where the 

 needs of the beginner in any branch of 

 natural history are very clearly and ur- 

 gently revealed. Both young and old 

 are continually asking him questions 

 and his endeavors to supply informa- 

 tion have enabled him to produce just 

 the kind of book that the entomological 

 specialist, who is interested in rare and 

 new species, cannot produce. The lat- 

 ter may be able to write monographs for 

 select esoteric circles of professionals, 

 but he is usually too tired of the com- 

 mon forms to care to write about them 

 in a spirited and instructive manner. 

 Dr. Lutz not only manages to be enter- 

 taining but lie at the same time accom- 

 plishes the more difficult feat of con- 

 densing into fewer than five hundred 

 small pages an enormous amount of 

 valuable information about our coin- 

 mon insects. He often summarizes in 

 a sentence a fact which it has taken the 

 plodding specialist months or even 

 years to establish. And if the reader 

 happens to be a plodding specialist and 

 comes upon such a brief summary of 

 his work, he experiences a startling, 

 and perhaps also a rather salutary real- 

 ization of the feebleness of his own ef- 

 forts and the immensity of entomologi- 

 cal science. 



Several parts of the volume will be 

 of considerable use even to the spe- 

 cialist, for example, the tables of the 

 common muscid flies, of the Bombinae 

 and other Hymenoptera, and especially 

 the chapter on galls. The beautiful 

 plates, of which there are 101, many of 

 them in color, are the work of ]\Irs. 



E. L. Beutenmiiller, whose skill in de- 

 picting insects is well known. 



Dr. lAitz's book seems to me, as a 

 teacher, to be particularly timely and 

 valuable, because it covers the very 

 ground I believe should be covered in 

 elementary entomological instruction. 

 In most institutions that attempt to 

 provide such instruction, the time set 

 apart for it is very limited and is usu- 

 ally devoted to the dissection of a cock- 

 roach or a grasshopper, with the result 

 that the pupil acquires some knowledge 

 of the integument and viscera of a sin- 

 gle insect but can make no use of his 

 knowledge in the field, in the garden, 

 or in the household. After some years 

 of experience with this method of teach- 

 ing entomology I have reached the con- 

 clusion that it is far better to let the 

 beginner devote his time to a large 

 number of common insects of all orders. 

 He will, of course, know little about 

 any one species, but he will be kept 

 attentive and enthusiastic and inciden- 

 tally and unconsciously will be rearing 

 a scafl'olding of knowledge on which he 

 can build with ever increasing assur- 

 ance and profit. Dr. Lutz's volume may 

 be heartily recommended both as a text 

 for the classroom work and as a vade 

 mecum for the field excursions which 

 would, of course, form an essential part 

 of such a course of instruction. 



There are in the work a few matters 

 of detail that one might be inclined to 

 criticize. For instance, the dipterist 

 will probably object to the insertion of 

 the Coleoptera between his favorite in- 

 sects and the Hymenoptera. 



The work is fortunate even in the 

 season of its publication, for after the 

 very trying winter we have endured it 

 is just the book we need to induce us 

 to get out into the woods and fields, as 

 far as possible from the environment 

 in which we have been daily confronted 

 by the scarcity of coal, sugar, and 

 Avheat bread, and to commune with the 

 insects — although they also, to be sure, 

 have their economic difficulties. 



