364 RECENT LITERATURE. 



Having regard to the heavy charges laid — and proved — against the 

 female mosquito, it is only fair to say that it is only the males, appa- 

 rently, who indulge in bibulous pleasures. 



As to the alleged breeding of mosquitos in mud, the author 

 believes that they must necessarily all perish when the mud dries up 

 completely, but that they may be able to live for some little time in 

 sufficiently wet mud. 



Mosquitos exist over almost the entire globe. Dr. Bessels, of the 

 Polaris Expedition, was obliged to interrupt his work in lat. 72° N. ; 

 while in Texas "hundreds of thousands of millions" of these insects 

 blow in upon the towns when the wind is in certain directions. They 

 are, however, devoured in enormous numbers in their immature stages ' 

 by the Hydrophilid^, Dytiscidse, various fish, and by the larvse of 

 dragonflies ; while in the winged state they fall an easy prey to 

 dragonflies and various birds, an observer finding six hundred in the 

 crop of a night-hawk. 



As preventives and remedies for use in houses, the author favours 

 a thorough screening and mosquito bars about the bed, and the burn- 

 ing of pyrethrum powder ; for bites, glycerine or indigo ; and for the 

 destruction of larvae and the abolition of breeding-places, the pouring 

 of kerosene on the breeding-pools, or the introduction of fish into 

 Ashless breeding-pools. G. W. K. 



Malcolm Bukr. Collecting in South Eastern Europe (1899, Trans. 

 Oxford Univ. Jun. Sci.Club, pp. 112-6). 



The author briefly describes the general features of the little-known 

 Herzegovina, Dalmatia, and Montenegro, and enumerates the principal 

 insects encountered. The fauna does not appear to be very rich, 

 although three new species of Orthoptera {Platycleis spp.) rewarded the 

 author's endeavours. Two of these, captured at Tisavica, appeared to 

 have an extraordinary distribution, for Mr. Burr " failed to find a single 

 specimen of either species outside the few beds of nettles to which each 

 appeared to be confined." 



Mr. Burr bears a good Scottish forename, though we believe he is 

 an Englishman ; but he is certainly qualifying for an Irishman by the 

 following remarkable sentences: "The father of the present Prince 



fell in love it so happened that he died childless." 



G. W. K. 



C. Darwin. Origin of Species. New Impression (John Murray). 1900. 

 This new impression is a reprint of the sixth (1872) edition, and is 

 well printed, though the paper is rather thin. It has been long anti- 

 cipated, as the copyright will shortly be out. A fine portrait forms the 

 frontispiece. As the price is exceedingly low there is now no excuse 

 whatever for the absence of this classic from the shelves of any one 

 having the remotest claim to the title of " zoologist." 



G. W. K. 



Obituary. — The regretted death of Josef Mik on the 13th October 

 is announced. The well-known Austrian dipterist was one of the 

 joint editors of the ' Wiener Entomologische Zeitung,' in which he 

 published a very large number of small papers. — G. W. K. 



