310 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
passage from Mr. Wallace’s ‘Contributions to the Theory of Natural 
Selection’ :—‘* Distastefulness alone would, however, be of little service to 
caterpillars, because their soft and juicy bodies are so delicate that if seized 
and afterwards rejected by a bird they would almost certainly be killed. 
Some constant and easily perceived signal was therefore necessary to serve 
as a warning to birds never to touch these uneatable kinds, and a very 
gaudy and conspicuous colouring, with the habit of fully exposing them- 
selves to view, becomes such a signal, being in strong contrast with the 
green or brown tints and retiring habits of the eatable kinds.” (See also 
Proc. Ent. Soc., March 4, 1867.) 
During the meeting the Rev. A. Eaton stated that he had observed a 
male specimen of Colias Edusa in Dorset on June 3rd. Mr. 8. Stevens had 
likewise seen six specimens near Gravesend on June 4th.—R. MExpota, 
Hon. See. 
NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 
Zoological Classification: a Handy Book of Reference, with 
Tables of the Subkingdoms, Classes, Orders, §c., of the 
Animal Kingdom, their Characters, and Lists of the Families 
and principal Genera. By Francis P. Pascor, F.LS. 
London: John Van Voorst. 1877. 12mo. pp. vi., 204. 
WHOLESOME it is for specialist workers in Natural History to 
have their attention every now and then diverted from their par- 
ticular object of study, not merely to the investigations of their 
brethren in kindred branches, but directed to the results at which 
generalizers are arriving. In this way the first are led by successive 
steps to wider and wider notions, so as gradually to realize the 
conception that there are other nuts in the world beside the narrow 
cell in which each, maggot-like, has been existing; and this dis- 
covery cannot fail to make the specialist’s labour more useful by 
showing him how he can turn his efforts so as best to aid the 
systematist. 
Mr. Pascoe then, in this little book, has set an excellent example, 
and it is one that requires a certain amount of courage to set. So 
divided and subdivided have become the multitudinous branches of 
Zoology, and to such an extent has the special knowledge of some 
of them been pushed, that in these days it is quite certain that 
nobody can draw up a general Classification which shall pretend to 
enter into any detail without almost all specialists, on taking it up, 
