336 ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. [ July, 16 
Tue Lire or INLAND Waters. An elementary text book of fresh- 
water biology for American students. By James G. NEEDHAM, 
Professor, and J. T. Lioyp, Instructor, in Limnology in Cornell 
University. 1916. The Comstock Publishing Company, Ithaca, 
New York. 9% x 6% inches, 438 pp., 242 figs., 19 initials and tail 
pieces. Price $3.00. 
This book has developed in connection with the course in general 
limnology at Cornell University, begun in 1906. Its scope is naturally 
much wider than that of entomology, but insects figure largely in its 
pages. After an historical introduction (Chap. I, pp. 13-24), the na- 
ture and types of aquatic environment are described (Chaps. II, III, 
pp. 25-99). Under Chapter IV, Aquatic Organisms, pages 100-158 are 
concerned with plants and pages 158-241 with animals; of the latter 
section, the insects occupy pages 195-230, with 37 figures. Owing to 
limitations of space, smaller taxonomic groups than families are not 
considered. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book is Chapter 
V, Adjustment to Conditions of Aquatic Life (pp. 242-292), such as 
flotation, improvement of form, avoidance of silt; withstanding the 
wash of moving waters, etc., etc. Aquatic Societies, both limnetic and 
littoral, are discussed in Chapter VI (pp. 293-375), which vies with its 
predecessor in attractiveness. Finally, Inland Water Culture is treated» 
in Chapter VII (pp. 377-412). There is a bibliography under author’s 
names arranged alphabetically (pp. 413-419) and an index (pp. 42I- 
438). 
As mentioned above, the insects are formally treated in Chapter IV, 
but’ many other references to them occur in subsequent pages. The 
reader will not find in this volume any keys.to the identification of 
aquatic organisms but the numerous figures and the text will enable 
him to become acquainted with the names, habits and environmental 
relations of many plants and animals associated with any group of 
water beings in which his interest chiefly lies. “It is the ecologic side 
of the subject rather than the systematic or morphologic, that we have 
emphasized,” ,say the authors, and every entomologist looking into 
this book will be the better for such a consideration of aquatic life 
as he will find here. 
The text is pleasingly written, the type is clear and large, the illus- 
trations useful or beautiful. We must, however, utter a protest against 
a fault too common with our American books. This volume is too 
heavy; it weighs 38 ounces, a quality which has already discouraged us 
from carrying it with us to while away an enforced wait when read- 
ing was almost the only resource. The common practice of printing 
half-tones in the midst of the text, with the use of coated paper 
throughout, is the responsible cause—P. P. C. (Adv.) 
