Vol. xxii] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 437 



and inferred that the honey-bearer is simply a worker with an 



overgrown abdomen Although McCook gave excellent reasons 



for believing that the replete must develop from a worker of the or- 

 dinary type, he did not actually witness the transformation." 



Dr. McCook's opus fiiagnus was his American Spiders and 

 their Spinning Work. A Natural History of the Orbweaving 

 Spiders of the United States with special regard to their in- 

 dustry and habits^ in three quarto volumes, dated 1889, 1890 

 and 1893 (1894). The first treats of "Snares and Nests," the 

 second of "Motherhood and Babyhood, Life and Death," the 

 third contains "Biological Notes, Descriptions of Species." 

 The whole is illustrated by 853 text figures and forty colored 

 lithographic plates of 913 figures. The author explained that he 



"was induced to assume the disagreeable role of publisher by two 

 considerations, the first the wish to be free to present the boolj ac- 

 cording to his own ideas as to typography and illustration, which 

 however, were too luxurious to meet the views of ordinary publishers. 

 In the second place, as a commercial venture, the printing of a scien- 

 tific work of this sort, with so limited a circulation, gave no prospect 

 for remuneration for cost and care. It is indeed a w^ork of love and 

 must be carried forward chiefly from a desire to enlarge the bounds of 

 truth. Morover, the cost was too considerable to warrant any Scientific 

 Society to undertake the work of publishing from funds always too lim- 

 ited. The author therefore accepted the burden of cost, together with 

 the yet more uncongenial details of selling, as a part of his task." 



The edition was limited to 250 copies and the author had re- 

 ceived subscriptions for about 140 of these at the time of pub- 

 lication of the second volume. 



Of this work, Professor Thomas H. Montgomery, Jr., 

 writes : 



Dr. McCook's studies on spiders, brought together in the three 

 large and beautifully illustrated quarto volumes of his work, 

 'American Spiders and their Spinning Work,' represent the 

 most comprehensive accounts of the habits of spiders since 

 the times of Blackwall and Menge. These contain a wealth of 

 new observations particularly on the architecture of snares and 

 nests, as well as a full taxonomic treatment, accompanied by 

 colored plates, of the American Epeiridae. This work is a 

 classic of arachnological literature, and has been a powerful 

 stimulus to other naturalists." 



