22 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEV/S. [Jan., '92 



ripe experience in teaching this part of anatomy and we can heartily 

 recommend it. More text illustrations would be useful for beginners 

 who take up the work without the aid of a teacher. — H. S. 



In the December News we noticed an important paper on one of the 

 chief groups of aquatic insects, the Odonata Anisoptera of Illinois. Now 

 a still more extensive article, dealing with these and other fresh-water 

 hexapods, is presented to us in Bulletin 47 of the New York State Mu- 

 seum, under the title " Aquatic Insects in the Adirondacks, a study 

 conducted at the Entomologic Field Station, Saranac Inn, N. Y., under 

 the direction of E. P. Felt, State Entomologist," by James G. Needham 

 and Cornelius Batten. Albany, 1901. Pp. 383-596, 42 text figures, 36 

 plates, 6 of them colored. 



In partial fulfillment of instructions "To collect and study the habits 

 of aquatic insects, paying special attention to the conditions necessary 

 for the existence of the various species, their relative value as food for 

 fishes, the relations of the forms to each other, and their life histories," 

 the authors report that they have added extensive and important collec- 

 tions, especially of life-history material, to the State Mnseum at Albany ; 

 made some study of the place of aquatic insects in natural societies by 

 application of qualitative and qnantitative methods (Part II, pp. 400-410) ; 

 gathered a few data on the reproductive capacity of insects (p. 394) and 

 on the food relations of insects and fishes (pp. 395-6). But their print 

 cipal achievement has been the working out, by rearings, with more or 

 less completeness, of the life histories of about one hundred species of 

 aquatic insects, the immature stages of most of which are described in 

 Part III (pp. 410-589), viz., 2 stone-flies (Perlidae. pp. 412-418), 7 may-flies 

 (Ephemeridie, pp. 418-429) representing all the genera found in New 

 York, 62 dragonflies (Odonata Anisoptera, pp. 429-540), 4 Neuroptera 

 (2 Sialidae, 2 Hemerobiidae, pp. 540-561), 4 caddis-flies (Trichoptera, pp. 

 561-573). 5 Diptera, (pp. 573-582) and 2 beetles. There are keys to orders 

 of aquatic insect larva, to genera of nymphs of Ephemerida, to families, 

 subfamilies, genera and species of images and nymphs of Odonata Ani- 

 soptera and Neuroptera, and to families of larva; of Trichoptera. In the 

 Odonata one new variety ( Gomphus descriptus borcalis) and two new 

 genera {Helocordulia for Cordulia uhlcri Selys and selysn\}\\\&x, Doro- 

 cordulia for C. libera Selys, lepida Selys and lintneri Hagen), in the 

 Neuroptera two new species ^Sisyra umbrala, C/imacia dictyona) are 

 founded by Prof. Needham, the characters of both imagos and nymphs 

 or larva: being given. Messrs. Macgillivray, Cocjuillett and Ashmead 

 furnish descriptions of new species of saw-flies (Tenthredinidae), Diptera 

 and Hymenoptera, respectively, based on imagos (pp. 584-589) ; Mr. 

 Retten wrote the chapter on Trichoptera ; all the rest of the bulletin is 

 by the senior author. The figures are mostly very good and useful, but 

 either artist or lithographer is inexcusable for the wretched reproduction 

 of the venation on Plate 10. 



