JuLy 23, 1914] 
NATURE 529 
Museum (Natural’ History); Longmans, Green 
and Co., 1914.) Price 7s. 6d. 
(3) A Revision of the Ichneumonidae based on the 
Collection in the British Museum (Natural His- 
tory). Part ii. Tribes Pimplides and Bassides. 
By C. Morley. Pp. xi+148. (London: British 
Museum (Natural History); Longmans, Green 
and Co., 1914.) Price 5s. 6d. 
(4) British Museum (Natural History). A Mono- 
graph of the Genus Sabicea. By H. F. Wern- 
ham. Pp. v+82+xii plates. (London: British 
Museum (Natural History); Longmans, Green 
and Co., 1914.) Price 6s. 
(5) Echinoderma of the Indian Museum. 
Vill,, Echinoidea (1)° “Am” Account ‘of the 
Echinoidea.”” By Prof. R. Koehler. Pp. 258+ 
xx plates. (Calcutta: Indian Museum, 1914.) 
Price 20 rupees. 
Part 
IE publication of these volumes justifies, we 
think, the view held by a large number of 
biologists, that one of the most important func- 
tions of a national museum is to act as a centre 
of research in systematic biology. These institu- 
tions alone possess collections sufficiently adequate 
in number of specimens and wide enough in scope 
for the successful accomplishment of such work, 
and besides collecting and storing such collections, 
it is clearly their duty to have them studied and 
classified. 
Mr. Morley’s work is a particularly forcible ex- 
ample of the importance of systematic biology, 
and of the responsibilities which rest on the 
nation of having such work done and published. 
At a time when the study of economic entomology 
is so much to the fore, and when it is ‘more than 
ever established that the one successful method 
of controlling insect pests is by means of their 
natural parasites, a revision of the most important 
group of parasitic insects is doubly needed, for 
it is imperative that parasites should be correctly 
identified before remedial measures, based on their 
use as controlling agents, are introduced. We 
are glad to note that our National Museum is 
alive to its duties in this connection. 
(1) We congratulate the New Zealand Govern- 
ment on its enterprise in publishing Mr. Suter’s 
manual, and the author on the successful accom- 
plishment of an enormous task. The extensive 
additions to our knowledge of the molluscan fauna 
of New Zealand during the last thirty years had 
rendered a re-issue of Hutton’s manual of 1880 
imperative. The latter work enumerated 447 
valid species, whereas the present volume deals 
with 1079 species, besides 108 subspecies and 
varieties. Mr. Suter brings our knowledge of the 
mollusca of New Zealand right up to date, and 
by giving useful keys to the genera and species 
WO» 2324, VOL. 93 | 
renders his work invaluable to students and 
specialists alike. His manual, moreover, pos- 
sesses one advantage over Hutton’s in that it is 
accompanied by a volume of plates. Mr. Suter 
does not, we think, correctly interpret the rules of 
priority in zoological nomenclature. The fact that 
a specific name is unaccompanied by a figure is 
not, in our opinion, sufficient excuse for the rejec- 
tion of that name, provided the description is 
sufficiently clear for identification purposes. 
Otherwise Mr. Suter’s work contains few serious 
errors or misprints, more especially as he had no 
opportunity of revising the later proof sheets. 
The name of the genus to which our common peri- 
winkle belongs is, however, surely misspelt. The 
use of ten different qualities of paper in the pro- 
duction of this volume may have been unavoid- 
able, but it does not enhance the appearance of 
the book. 
(2) In this volume dealing with certain sub- 
families of African antelopes, Mr. Lydekker con- 
tinues his valuable catalogue of the Ungulata in 
the British Museum collections. The work is 
provided liberally with useful keys for the identi- 
fication of families, genera, species and _ sub- 
species, and is accompanied by a number of useful 
photographs of heads and horns. We are very 
glad to notice that Mr. Lydekker has given special 
prominence to external characters, more particu- 
larly to the horns, for, besides rendering the work 
more readily acceptable to sportsmen, it is made 
of greater service to the museum curator who, 
more often than not, has only heads and horns at 
his disposal. 
(3) We congratulate Mr. Morley on the rapid 
progress he is making with his important and 
much-needed revision of the Ichneumonide. This 
part follows the same general lines as the two pre- 
ceding, and introduces nearly fifty species as new 
to science. Valuable as Mr. Morley’s work is, it 
is as yet merely a collection of critical notes on 
species which the author has had the opportunity 
of examining. We think that such work would 
be more fittingly published in the Transactions of 
some learned society, or in some other serial pub- 
lication, and this leads us to suggest that the 
British Museum authorities should consider the 
advisability of issuing a serial journal of their own 
for the publication of research such as Mr. Mor- 
ley’s, reserving their book publications for com- 
plete monographs, of the nature of those which 
are usually associated with their name. There is 
an abundance of work done under the auspices of 
the British Museum to justify such a periodical, 
and to keep it going. We hope that Mr. Morley’s 
revision is but the necessary prelude to a fuller 
| monograph. 
