IN his Studies in Insect Life (Fisher Unwin), the Master 

 of Christ's College, Cambridge, Dr. Shipley, enlivens 

 with unexpected touches of humour a book containing a 

 vast amount of technical information. The bed-bug, for 

 example, would not appear to be a subject either attrac- 

 tive or pleasant, but the writer manages to make it both; 

 The " folding back of the proboscis gives the insect a 

 demure and even a devout expression ; it appears to be 

 engaged in prayer, but a bug never prays." It appears 

 that this unpleasant creature, together with the black- 

 beetle, was introduced into England, with other even 

 more injurious noveltieSj in the reign of Henry VIII. 

 It can live for a long time without food, and has even 

 been kept incarcerated in a pill-box for a year without 

 Succumbing to hunger. When the box was opened the 

 insects were as thin as oiled paper, and so transparent 

 that one could read The Times through them at any 

 rate, " the larger print, such as the leading articles and 

 letters frorri admirals." In connection with this matter 

 of insect pests we have had to experience the shattering 

 of a life-long illusion ^-the monkey is singularly free from 

 fleas, so that another myth has gone to join Alfred and 

 his Cakes and other tales of youth. The chapters on bees 

 contain all the information given by Maeterlinck^ herd 

 given in much less space and quite as pleasantly. We 

 have always felt that the Humble or Bumble Bee was a 

 more attractive creature than its cousin of the hive ; and 

 Dr. Shipley also finds them " more human and much less 

 exasperating." " The workers work as hard as an Apis, but 



