102 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Argynnis selene, Cosmotriche Rotatoria, Aplecta tincta, A. nebidosa, 

 Noctaa hrimnea, N. triangulum, and TriphcBna pronuha, with several 

 Geometrids. I took these in two or three days in woods near Oxford. 

 C, Mellows ; Oxford. 



EECENT LITEEATUEE. 



The Genitalia of the Group Noctuidce of the Lepidoptera of the 

 British Islands. By F. N. Pieece, F.E.S. Pp. xii., 88, pis. 

 xxxii. Liverpool : A. W. Duncan, 65, South John Street. 

 1909. 7s. 6d. 



This book marks an era in the study of the British Lepidoptera. 

 Mr. Pierce tells us it is the outcome of twenty years' study, and 

 many students of British Lepidoptera during that period have known 

 him as expert in making preparations of the organs here treated of 

 and as learned in the study of the specimens so treated. The maga- 

 zines during that period report many instances in which questions 

 of specific identity or diiTerentiation have been referred to him for 

 investigation, not only in the Noctu^ but more or less throughout 

 the Lepidoptera, and always with a result advancing our knowledge. 



The volume is the first attempt that has been made to describe 

 these appendages throughout a whole family of the fauna of a dis- 

 trict. There are figures of the genitalia of some three hundred 

 and fifteen species, the Noctuge of the British Islands. Of course, 

 this is after all but a flea-bite to what an examination of all the Noctuos 

 would be, the Catalogue of these by Sir George Hampson presenting 

 a vista of almost interminable volumes. 



The earliest observations on the genitalia of the Noctuse that we 

 recollect are those of Lederer (' Noctuinen Europa,' 1857) ; he figures 

 the end of the clasp in thirty species. It is interesting to note that 

 his figures are crude to the last degree, yet illustrate that these parts 

 vary in the different species. Down almost to the present time we 

 find much vagueness in figures of these organs, as in a recent 

 illustration in a German periodical figures appeared of the genitalia 

 of Everes argiades to prove its identity with alcetas, yet the figures 

 would have served equally well for Gupido minimus or even sebrus. 

 Even Scudder's figures are often rather vague, and quite inadequate 

 to convey any very definite idea of the structures, and would often 

 fail to distinguish allied species, although they are very nicely drawn. 



One of the earliest really satisfactory plates of male appendages 

 of NoctuEe is plate xi. in the first vol. of ' Iris ' (1884) of four 

 species of the lucernea group of Agrotids. 



Dr. K. Jordan's figures in the Novit. Zool. are certainly far and 

 away the most excellent in all respects. His account of the appen- 

 dage of the Sphinges is certainly the most complete and accurate 

 piece of work of this class that exists, and though only part of a genex'al 

 monograph of the Sphinges, is itself a most important monograph, 

 and one wishes it were less enfolded with the other material. It 

 includes of course our British Sphinges, but these are so few species 

 that it hardly strikes us that it is dealing with a British family. 



Those who still retain any doubts as to the value of these organs 



