4/6 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [Dcc, '17 



considered and tested. Such consideration might easily postpone the 

 writing of an adequate review until the volume no longer had the 

 charm of novelty, but we feel that it would be an injustice to the 

 talented author, to his originality and his industry, to defer calling 

 it to the attention of American entomologists until the reviewer 

 felt that he had even partially digested its contents. 



The book is an essential to every biological, zoological or ento- 

 mological library. Its scope is shown by the following table of con- 

 tents : Chapter I. Introduction, 8 pages: II. The Imago, external 

 features and skeleton, 29 pp.: III. The Wings, 29 pp.: IV. The Larva 

 or nymph, 33 pp.; V. The Alimentary and E.xcretory systems, 20 pp.; 

 VI. The Nervous system, 17 pp.; VII. The Sense organs, 20 pp.: 

 VIII. The Circulatory system, 9 pp.; IX. The Respiratory system, 36 

 pp.; X. The Bodywall and Muscles, 10 pp.; XI. The Reproductive 

 system, 17 pp.; XII. Embryology, 14 pp.: XIII. Coloration, 15 pp.; 

 XIV. Classification, 23 pp.; XV. Zoogeographical distribution, 20 pp.: 

 XVI. The Geological record, 20 pp.; XVII. Bionomics, etc., 17 pp.; 

 XVIII. British species [included presumably on account of the book 

 forming one of the series above mentioned], 15 pp.: XIX. Collecting, 

 rearing and biological methods, 10 pp.; Appendix A. Bibliography, 

 13 pp.; B. Glossary, 5 pp.; C. Some important synonyms, i p. Index 

 of illustrations, 4 pp., Index of text, 12 pp. 



Among the novelties adopted* may be mentioned the suggested 

 phylogenetic succession of the pterostigma (pp. 52-53) and of the 

 abdominal appendages of the images (pp. 35, 37); the view that the 

 original Odonata were anisopterous as the Protodonata were (pp. 

 49, 51), that the basal fusion of veins R and M "was probably brought 

 about, like the reduction in Sc, by the adoption of the aquatic habit 

 by the larva, and the consequent shifting of the course of the oxy- 

 gen supply of the developing wing from the costal to the anal end 

 01 the alar trunk," "owing to the larval gills being situated at the 

 anal end of the body" (pp. 56, 46) ; the figuring of the hatching of 

 the larva of Anax (p. 68) ; the treatment of the rectal gills of the 

 larvae of the Anisoptera (pp. 178 et scq.), of their ontogeny (p. 186) 

 and of the caudal and lateral gills of Zygopterous lar\ae (pp. 190-200) ; 

 the phylogenetic treatment of color patterns (pp. 246 et seq.) ; the 



* ^lany of these, indeed, have already appeared in Mr. Tillyard's 

 numerous papers in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of Vez(j 

 South IVa'.es for recent years, and in the Journal of the Linnean 

 Society of London, Zoology, vol. xxxiii. Mr. Tillyard's interpreta- 

 tions of certain venational features are not discussed in this review; 

 they have been criticised by Prof. Needham in the News for April 

 last, pp. 169-173, and by Mr. Campion in a review of the present book 

 in The Entomologists' Monthly Magazine for September, pp. 212-215. 



