231 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



A Natural History of the British Lepidoptera. By J. W. Tutt, F.E.S. 

 Loudou : Swan Sonuenscbein & Co., Paternoster Row. Berlin : 

 Friedlander & Soliu, 11, Karlstrasse. 



The second volume of Mr. Tutt's great work fulfils the promise of 

 the second, and indeed supplies some chapters which were wanting to 

 complete matters of a general character. That most striking of all 

 the attributes of insects, metamorphosis, is in this second volume 

 treated at length, the observations and theories of the well-known 

 leading authorities on the subject being stated and discussed with 

 especial reference to the many recent contributions to the knowledge 

 of it by Dr. Chapman, to which great prominence is given, and whose 

 views are generally adopted by Mr. Tutt. There is a separate chapter 

 on phenomena incidental to metamorphosis, such as the passing some- 

 times of several years in the pupal stage, and the impossibility in such 

 cases of forcing. The external morphology of the pupa has a chapter 

 to itself, the author correcting some common errors as to the structure 

 and significance of the different parts, and setting forth the view that 

 the pupa is the (modified) representative of the ancestral form of the 

 insect, from which the larva on the one side, and the imago on the 

 other, have been developed. Professor Poulton's views are discussed 

 very fully, and in some cases combated. Many interesting questions 

 are treated in a separate chapter on the internal structure of the pupa, 

 including the formation of the wings and of the scales upon them. 

 The chapter on the phylogeny of the lepidopterous pupa is by Dr. 

 Chapman, whose previously published writings on the subject are well 

 known, and it is unnecessary to say that it is characterised by great 

 fulness of original observation and carefully thought-out conclusions. 



The introductory chapters noticed occupy as far as the hundredth 

 page ; the rest of the volume, comprising 467 pages, is taken up with 

 descriptions of species and all that belongs to them in the same copious 

 style as in the first volume. Over three hundred of these pages are 

 occupied with the superfamily of the Psychides, that strange tribe 

 with the extraordinary females — fleshy bags — to our eyes singularly 

 repellent and even loathsome, but most fascinating and attractive to 

 their gay and active partners. There is no accounting for tastes, 

 especially where sex comes in. These three hundred pages present 

 all that is known of the British species, with very full references to 

 many others, and a complete catalogue of the species of the Palaearctic 

 region. Vast labour has been devoted by the author and his coadjutors 

 to this part of his work, a study of which is indispensable to all who 

 desire to be fully informed on this obscure and difficult subject. 



The rest of the volume is occupied with a portion of the " Lach- 

 ueides," which many will know better by the older name of the 

 Lasiocampidae, or, as Stainton called them, the Bombycidte, the woolly 

 brown moths with large and beautiful caterpillars, which are the 

 delight of young collectors and breeders. The present volume takes 

 in our old and familiar friends the " December moth " (Pcecilocampa 

 populi), Trichiura cratcBgi, the " small eggar," Lachnis [Eriogaster] 

 lanestris, and the "lackeys," Maiacosoma (Clisiocampa) 7ieustria and 

 ca$trensis. 



