Bibliographical Notices. 63 
Marks resembling those called Nerettes and Myrianites are produced 
by a variety of animals. The groups of ice-spicules which are 
formed during a frosty night also leave their impress on the mud. 
The author concluded by expressing the opinion that Cruziana, 
Nereites, Crossopodia, and Palcochorda were mere tracks, not marine 
vegetation, as has been suggested in the case of the first, or, in the 
second, the impression of the actual body of ciliated worms. 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 
Farm Insects: being the Natural History and Economy of the Insects 
injurious to the Field-crops of Great Britain and Ireland, and also 
those which infest Barns and Granaries. By Joun Curtis, F.L.S. 
Illustrated with numerous Engravings. 8vo. London: Van 
Voorst, 1883. 
Tue value of the work of the late John Curtis on Farm Insects is 
so generally recognized that we need do little more than call atten- 
tion to this reissue of it in its original form. No doubt economic 
entomology has made considerable progress since the first publica- 
tion of the book in its complete form in 1859; but while we may 
admit that this progress would enable us to correct some statements 
and to fill up gaps in the history of certain species which the author 
was compelled to leave, it is astonishing to notice how little the 
broad treatment of the subjects would need to be modified. The 
work of the great English entomologist was in fact so thoroughly 
done according to the lights of his day, that later writers have 
practically added but little to it, and we may say that the agricul- 
turist need wish for no better guide to the history of those minute 
and often hidden enemies whose attacks are frequently so fatal to 
his interests; while to the entomologist, at any rate, this reprint of 
a classical, work which has been long unprocurable will prove ex- 
ceedingly welcome, and he will hardly be inclined to regret that 
the contents of the book have not been meddled with. The plates 
alone, executed in the author’s happiest manner, are a delight to the 
entomological eye, quite apart from their practical usefulness ; they 
are, as the publisher says in his ‘ Advertisement,” *“* so excellent 
and so full of detail” that their reissue to the public, with the ac- 
companying text, not only needs no apology, but entitles him to the 
thanks of all interested in entomology. 
John Curtis, as we all know, was so careful and conscientious a 
worker, that it is no great wonder if his labours in the department 
of agricultural entomology carried him so far in advance that even 
now we have little to add to his account of the natural history of 
the farmer’s insect foes, and that all subsequent writers on the sub- 
ject have been compelled to borrow largely from his pages. It is 
