84 



NATURE 



[February 22, 1894 



false'analogy with Nova Auriga, which is pointed out as 

 suggesting a possible original source of the sun's heat. 

 We should have imagined that phenomena which last 

 only for a it^ weeks, must be vastly different from those 

 which continue for millions of years. 



From one point of view the discourse on " the sun as a 

 star " is excellent. It is certainly interesting to know that 

 vlie sun is only one of many millions of stars, that it does 

 not travel so quickly in space as 1830 Groombridge ; or 

 again, that it is a certain number of times less massive 

 than Arcturus ; but not less interesting is the study of its 

 physical relation to the other stars — what stars it may 

 have resembled in the past, and what it will probably 

 resemble in the future. On this latter question much 

 light has been thrown by recent work ,on stellar and 

 nebular spectra, with which we cannot but suppose the 

 author to be familiar. The whole of this great problem, 

 however, is discussed in little more than a page of text 

 and a page of drawhtgs of stellar spectra, on various 

 scales, to which no direct reference is made. The fact 

 that carbon plays such a prominent part in the absorption 

 spectra of one group of stars is not mentioned, and the 

 author seems to have utterly failed to see the significance 

 of it in relation to the presence of carbon in the sun, of 

 which he makes so much in another chapter. From the 

 evolutionary point of view this is obviously a fact of the 

 first importance, indicating that as the sun goes on cool- 

 ing the carbon absorption will increase until finally its 

 spectrum will resemble that of such stars as 152 

 Schjellerup. The presence of a plate illustrating 

 various nebulas led us to suppose that we should be 

 treated to the story of the sun's probable growth from the 

 nebulous stage, but we were disappointed to find that 

 they were only intended to indicate that our sun is but 

 one of a myriad host of stars ! 



Sir Robert Ball's views of the cause of the Ice Age, 

 which have already been discussed in Nature, are very 

 clearly set forth, and he maintains that " it is impossible 

 to doubt the truth of the main factors in the astronomical 

 theory of the cause of Ice Ages " (p. 319). 



The final chapter, on " the movements of the solar 

 system," is an excellent exposition of the method by 

 which the direction of the sun's motion in space is 

 ascertained. 



We may perhaps repeat that the story of the sun is 

 told admirably so far as it is told at all, but we regret to 

 find that so many solar inquiries of the greatest interest 

 have not had the great benefit of description by the 

 author's graphic pen. 



We have nothing but praise for the excellence of the 

 majority of the plates and diagrams, and the printing is 

 also bold and clear. A. Fowler. 



THE LEPIDOPTERA OF THE ATLANTIC 

 ■ISLANDS. 

 The Butterflies and Moths ef Teneriffe. By A. E. Holt 

 White. Edited by Rashleigh Holt White, Vice- 

 President of the Selborne Society. Illustrated from the 

 Author's Drawings. (London : L. Reeve and Co., 1891..) 

 nPHE coleopterous fauna of the Atlantic Islands has 

 1. been well worked by the late Mr. Wollaston,but as 

 regards the Lepidoptera, the only obtainable information 

 NO. 1269, VOL. 49] 



has been either from large books (which rarely supply com- 

 plete or detailed information) or detached papers, some 

 of them very valuable, but not always easily accessible. 



Consequently, when Mrs. Holt White, the wife of one of 

 the descendants of a brother of Gilbert White, spent the 

 winter of 1892-93 in Teneriffe for the benefit of her 

 health, and occupied herself with the collecting and 

 rearing of butterflies and moths, she could find no avail- 

 able information on the subject, and bravely resolved to 

 do her best to supply the want. The result is the little 

 book before us, which, though making no pretensions to 

 be otherwise than popular, will yet be most useful to 

 scientific entomologists, by supplying them with detailed 

 descriptions and fairly good figures (though the first plate 

 of the four strikes us as being somewhat coarsely 

 coloured) of nearly all the larger Lepidoptera of a very 

 interesting, though very limited fauna. One moth is 

 described as new, and others are now figured for the 

 first time. 



A striking feature of the Atlantic Islands is the extreme 

 poverty of their lepidopterous fauna. Our British Lepidop- 

 tera are considered few ; but we can at least point to 

 upwards of 2000 species ; and even Iceland, though 

 possessing no indigenous butterflies, boasts of nearly as 

 many moths as Madeira or Teneriffe. Several causes 

 combine to produce the scarcity of Lepidoptera in the 

 Atlantic Islands. They" are islands, far from the main- 

 land, and on the extreme limits of the faunas to which 

 they respectively belong. The native flora has in some 

 places almost disappeared, and with it, of course, the 

 insects dependent on it. How far the present in- 

 sects of the islands are endemic, it is difficult to 

 say. Some are certainly peculiar to the islands ; the 

 bulk of the species of the northern islands are Euro- 

 pean, or representative of European species ; one or 

 two are American, but whether introduced, or whether 

 remnants of an outlying American fauna, it is at present 

 impossible to say ; and stranger still, one or two are East 

 Indian in their affinities, and are not species likely to have 

 been introduced by accident. The best representatives 

 of the last two classes are Pyravieis huntera and P. 

 callirhoc. 



The six principal groups of Atlantic islands from 

 north to south are the following: the Azores, Madeiras, 

 Canaries, Cape Verdes, Ascension, and St. Helena. Of 

 the Lepidoptera of the Cape Verdes and Ascension very 

 little IS recorded, and we need say no more of them in 

 this place. 



The Azores lie further to the north and west than 

 any of the other groups. Mr. Godman's " Natural His- 

 tory of the Azores " (1880) is our latest authority on the 

 Lepidoptera. He enumerates nine butterflies and twenty- 

 eight moths, all British, except the North American 

 Danais archippus, and the South European Hypena 

 obsitalis. It is worthy of remark that the typical Pieris 

 brassiras occurs in the Azores, instead of the allied 

 P. Wollastoni, which occurs both in the Madeiras and 

 Q2.ii2cc\&%,ox cheiranthi, which is confined to the Canaries. 

 P. Wollastoni, we may here note, much resembles the 

 North Indian P. nipalensis. 



In the Transactions of the Entomological Society for 

 1891, Mr. Bethune-Baker published "Notes on the Lepi' 

 doptera collected in Madeira by .tke late T. Vernon 



