Vol. xxv] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 85 
which would be willingly carried on field trips and excursions, if it were 
not so heavy. It has 362 plus xiii pages, 9'4x6™% inches, and weighs 42 
ounces. It is too heavy to read without a support, and too large and 
too heavy to go into any ordinary pocket. Much of its weight is due 
to the sized paper used throughout the volume for the sake of the half 
tones. When will all concerned’ in the manufacture of books see the 
absurdity and foolishness of this practice and, instead, give us a light 
weight paper for the text and limit the use of the heavy sort to inter- 
spersed plates to which the half tones shall be confined ? 
The entomologist will not find many data relating to his subject 
matter in Dr. Adams’ book, but he will find many suggestions as to the 
kinds of work that is worth doing and as to the ways in which it may 
be done. Dr. Shelford’s book is a contribution to the data of ecology 
and their organization. Dr. Adams is concerned with showing and de- 
veloping jthe ecological “point of view, the importance of an under- 
standing of explanatory processes and of the methods of scientific in- 
vestigation. * * * At present ecology is a science with its facts 
out of all proportion to their organization or integration. There is 
thus an immediate need of integration and this above all requires a 
clear conception of the scientific method as a tool and independent 
thinking as well.” 
How different Dr. Adams’ book is from Dr. Shelford’s may be seen 
from the following list of chapter headings: I. Aim, Content and 
Point of View. Il. The Value and Method of Ecological Surveys. III. 
Field Study. IV. The Collection, Preservation and Determination of 
Specimens. V. References to Scientific Technique. VI. References 
to Important Sources of Information on the Life Histories and Habits 
of Insects and Allied Invertebrates. VII. The Laws of Environmental 
Change or the “Orderly Sequence of External Nature.” (The dy- 
namic or process relations of the environment). VIII. The Laws of 
Orderly Sequence of Metabolism, Growth, Development, Physiological 
Conditions and Behavior, or “The Living Organism and the Changes 
which Take Place in It.’ (The dynamic or process relations of the 
animal). IX. The Continuous Process of Adjustment between the 
Environment and the Animal, with Special Reference to other Organ- 
isms. (The dynamic or process relations of animal associations ‘and 
aggregations). 
Special features of the book are the quotations from eminent biologi- 
cal writers, placed at the heads of chapters or of sections, indicating 
the value, importance or method of ecological inquiries, and the bibli- 
ographies. Indeed from page 84 (that is six pages from the beginning 
of chapter VII) to page 149 the book is almost entirely bibliography. 
It is thus, as the author hopes in the preface, “a useful source book.” 
“Particular attention is called to the fact that it is not to be assumed 
