Vol. V, No. 3.] INSECT I^IFE. [IssuedJanuary, 1893. 



SPECIAL NOTES. 



A Text-book of Agricultural Entomology.— We have jnst received from 

 Miss E. A. Ormerod a copy of lier new " Text-book of Agricultural En- 

 tomology," which has just been published by Simpkin, Marshall, Ham- 

 ilton, Kent & Co. (Limited), London, 1892. The first edition of this 

 text-book was published in 1884, and consisted of ten lectures delivered 

 in 1883 at the Institute of Agriculture of South Kensington. The first 

 edition met with almost no sale until last year, when attention was drawn 

 to it as conveying information in one of the branches of agricultural 

 instruction brought forward under the arrangements of the new County 

 Councils, and it then sold ofl* so rapidly as to necessitate the prepara- 

 tion of a second edition. In a handy volume of two hundred and thirty 

 odd pages Miss Ormerod has condensed a great deal of information 

 which will be useful to English farmers and fruit-growers, and has illus- 

 trated her text by over 160 figures, 50 of them being drawn from life, 

 while the others are taken from previous publications. The arrange- 

 ment of the work is on the plan of the little Italian work of Dr. Fran- 

 ceschini, which we reviewed some time ago. In other words, instead 

 of arranging the subjects under the crops which they infest, they are 

 arranged according to zoological classification. Chapters i and ii are 

 devoted to a consideration of the different states and the classifica- 

 tion of insects; chapters iii and IV to injurious insects of the order 

 Diptera; chapters v and vi to the Coleoptera; chapters vii and viii 

 to the Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera, respectively; chapter ix to the 

 Homoptera, and chapter x to the Mollusca and Anguillulidtie, etc. The 

 latest remedies known to the author are usually given. English horti- 

 culturists have not taken up the arsenical poisons so widely used in 

 this country until the last year or two, but Miss Ormerod recommends 

 them for leaf eating caterpillars in the orchards, although she does not 

 give proportions and methods of application on account of the neces- 

 sity for restricting the size of her volume. She covers the point, how- 

 ever, by offering in a foot-note to send a pamphlet giving all necessary 

 details to all applicants gratuitously. The emulsions of kerosene and 

 soap are mentioned only incidentally, and no space is given to the im- 

 portant subject of insecticide machinery. In spite of these omissions 

 the work is a most convenient one and will serve to extend a knowledge 

 of injurious insects among the class of people who most need this in- 

 formation. 



