370 BihltograpMcal Notices. 



to the author's ohjections to Von Siebold's views, we may say that 

 he does not seem to liave comprehended their foil significance, 

 and that Ave cannot think that the arguments used by him at all in- 

 validate the hypothesis of the parthenogeiietic origin of drone-egga. 

 Mr. Muun's book, which we recommend to the notice of all bee- 

 masters and general entomologists, is illustrated with a considerable 

 number of plates, some of which show the form and structure of 

 different kinds of hives and other apiarian apparatus, whilst the 

 rest exhibit figures of bees and their cells and combs in various 

 conditions. The latter are coloured, and are drawn by the author 

 himself; their execution is rough, but they are generaUy very 

 characteristic. 



British Insects : a Familiar Description of the Form, Structure, 

 Habits, and Transformations of Insects. By E. F. Staveley. 

 8vo. London : lleeve, 1871 . 



IMiss Staveley has followed up her excellent little book on the 

 British Spiders with an equally good work on the insects of our 

 islands, although, as might be expected from the difference in the 

 extent of the two subjects, the treatment here necessarily adopted 

 causes a fundamental difference between the two books. Miss 

 , Staveley's ' British Spiders ' was in fact an abridgment of Mr. Black- 

 wall's great work on the same class of animals, containing charac- 

 ters of all the species and figaires illustrating all the genera ; so that 

 it would enable the serious study of the Araneida to be carried on 

 to a considerable extent, and might be used as a pocket summary of 

 Blackwall's monograph ; whilst in the ' British Insects ' the author 

 has aimed only at guiding the beginner's first steps in the study of 

 entomology. The number of species referred to is necessarily small 

 ill comparison with the enormous insect-population of Britain ; and 

 the figures given only illustrate the great groups or families. 



But Miss Staveley has carried out the one jilan as well as she did 

 the other, and has produced an admirable manual for the tyro in 

 entomology. Her classification, indeed, is somewhat antiquated, 

 being founded chiefly upon the ' Introduction to the Modern Classi- 

 fication of Insects ' of I'l^of. Westwood ; so that we here once more 

 meet with the orders Euplexoptera, Thysanoptera, Trichoptera, 

 Aphaniptera, Homoptera, and Heteroptera, which most entomolo- 

 gists have long since given up. The Strepsii)tera are mentioned as 

 puzzling insects, but placed with the Coleoptera. Perhaps the un- 

 due multiplication of orders has advantages for the beginner in some 

 cases, by enabling the definitions of these groups to be drawn up 

 with less liability to exceptions ; and probably this feeling may' 

 have weighed with the author in adopting Westwood's classifica- 

 tion ; but we think that, in the case of the Homojitera and Hetero- 

 ptera, at any rate, greater perspicuity would have been attained by 

 uniting them in a single order characterized by the structure of the 

 mouth. 



The information given as to the structure and natural history of 



