402 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Dec, '06 



'Gli Insetti, loro organizzazione, sviluppo, abitudini e rapporti 

 coll'uomo. — By Prof. Antonio Berlese, Director of the Royal Sta- 

 tion for Agricultural Entomology in Florence. Milan, Societa 

 Editrice Libraria, 1906. Published in parts at one lira each. 



With such excellent recent general American books on insects as those 

 of Kellogg and of Folsom, it would seem difficult for a book in a foreign 

 language to meet any great demand in this country, yet the admirable 

 work of Professor Berlese, of which seventeen parts have already been 

 published, will undoubtedly prove a very important addition to the libra- 

 ries of all institutions in which advanced morphology is being studied and 

 in all laboratories in which the study of insects is undertaken from any 

 point of view. 



Berlese is a master, a man of broad ideas, thorough training, admirable 

 in technic, clear in demonstration, an excellent writer, and a capable 

 draftsman. His work when completed will be both sound and compre- 

 hensive. It will comprise two volumes, of which the first will in a general 

 way contain the anatomy, and the second the biology of insects. The 

 first volume will consist of from seven to eight hundred pages, and will 

 be accompanied by about one thousand figures. Of these, 550 pages 

 have been published in seventeen parts, and the printed parts contain six 

 hundred figures and four plates. 



The subjects considered in the first volume, by chapters, are : I. Brief 

 history of entomology ; II. Size of insects ; III. Plan of the insect struc- 

 ture ; IV. Embryology in general ; V. Morphology in general ; VI. 

 Exoskeleton ; VII. Endoskeleton ; VIII. Muscular system ; IX. Integ- 

 ument and its structure ; X. Glands. 



There still remain to be published chapters on the nervous system and 

 organs of sense, organs of digestion, organs of circulation, organs of res- 

 piration, organs of secretion, and sexual organs. In the part already 

 completed, the chapters on morphology are marvels of detail and thor- 

 oughness. The work itself is a large octavo, and more than ninety pages 

 are devoted, for example, to the study of exoskeleton of the head, while 

 nearly eighty pages are occupied with the treatment of the muscular sys- 

 tem. Nearly all of the numerous and strikingly apt illustrations are 

 original, having been drawn by Dr. Berlese himself. Each section of the 

 work is followed by a very complete bibliography, and the author has 

 shown a perfect knowledge of the work of other men, the publications of 

 American authors having been considered and studied with a thorough- 

 ness quite unusual among European authors. 



The second volume, which has been reserved for the treatment of 

 biology of insects, will contain a careful consideration of all questions of 

 economic importance, and it will undoubtedly be of interest to learn from 

 this work Berlese's final views on the subject of parasitism, and espe- 

 cially the relations of insects and birds, upon which point he has long been 

 at odds with other Italian zoologists. — L. O. Howard. 



