RECENT LITERATURE. 107 



but possessed to an exceptional degree the gift of enabling others to 

 see the things that he himself had seen. Many of his essays are now 

 to be had in EngUsh translations. The volume under notice contains 

 fifteen of them, all of absorbing interest, and rendered in a style that 

 has lost little of the lucidity and charm which characterize the 

 originals. Instead, however, of the ants, bees or wasps, which the 

 title of the volume suggests, the insects treated of are mostly 

 creatures of quite different habits and character — cicadas and 

 crickets, the grey locust, the golden Carabus and beetles of other 

 kinds, the praying mantis, the great peacock or emperor moth, and 

 the oak-egger, with a few more insects whose habits of life are not 

 usually described as social. 



If the names just mentioned are not all to be found within the 

 pages of the book, it is the translator's fault, not ours. His work on 

 the whole would have deserved nothing but praise, had he not 

 shown too great a want of care where the names of insects are con- 

 cerned, turning as he does, on every possible occasion, a Carabus into 

 a ScarabcBUs, a locust into a cricket, or a moth into a butterfly. 

 Transformations of that striking character are merely disconcerting 

 to the reader, and do not in the least add to the attractiveness of 

 the volume. f T f 



IcJmeumonologia Britannica. The Ichneumons of Great Britain ; a 

 DescrijJtive Account of the Families, Genera, and Si^ecies indi- 

 genous to the British Isles, together toith Notes as to Classifica- 

 tion, Localities, Habitats, Hosts, c§c. Tryphoninse, iv. By 

 Claude Morley, F.Z.S., F.E.S. Pp. i.-xvi. 1-341. H. & W. 

 Brown, 20, Fulham Road, London, S.W. 1911. 

 To the student of Ichneumonidae these volumes should be a boon. 

 The present one is not only of the same high standard as those 

 preceding it, but its general usefulness is, perhaps, even greater 

 because of the excellent illustrations in the text. These figures, 

 reproduced from enlarged engravings by Mr. Rupert Stenton, re- 

 present one species of almost every genus treated in the volume. 



In 1901 the number of British species of Ichneumons referred to 

 the subfamily Tryphoninae appears to have been something over four 

 hundred. Under our author's revision the total now barely exceeds 

 three hundred and thirty. These are treated under five tribal head- 

 ings as follows : — 



Genera. Species. 



Tribe Metopiides 1 5 



,, Sphinctides 1 1 



„ Exochides 10 75 



,, Bassides 6 48 



„ Tryphonides 32 205 



50 334 



So far as known, the Metopiides prey upon larvae of moths, chiefly 

 species of the so-called " Bombycidae." Sphinctus serotinus, ap- 

 parently the only Palaearctic member of the tribe Sphinctides, is 

 parasitic on Limacodes testudo. Species belonging to Exochides 



