NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 359 
on which they write. But it is one thing to possess the 
necessary information and another to be able to impart it to 
others. The art of teaching is not given to every writer of 
books, and in this instance Mr. Kirby does not show that he 
possesses it. We will not say that his book does not contain a 
good deal of information of one sort or another, but, as it 
seems to us, it is not of a kind to satisfy the readers of an 
* Klementary Text-Book.” It so happened that while we were 
turning over the pages of this volume we received from a friend 
in Yorkshire a packet containing a number of Bees (Bombus 
pratorum) in the pupa stage, looking, in their tough, coriaceous 
envelopes, like so many broad beans which had been planted 
and dug up again before sprouting. It naturally occurred to us 
to turn to the Order Hymenoptera, Family Apide, to see what 
information was afforded concerning the transformations of 
Bees, the point we specially wished to investigate being the 
mode in which the pupa-case is formed, since it differs altogether 
in appearance from the white silky film or cocoon which the 
larva spins round itself in the cell. We were also curious to 
discover how long a period is passed in this curious pupa stage ; 
but to our surprise Mr. Kirby’s pages afforded no information on 
the subject, the reader being merely informed that “as long 
accounts of the economy of Bees are to be found in almost every 
book on Natural History, we may perhaps be allowed to pass the 
subject over in the present work.” This statement reads to us 
very oddly in an “‘ Hlementary Text-Book,” where one naturally 
expects to find such instruction as we have indicated. A similar 
dearth of information respecting the Hphemeride, and the 
Phryganeide, to which we turned only to be disappointed, forced 
upon us the conviction that ‘the title of the book is a misnomer, 
while the absence of an index is a serious drawback to a 
beginner who may be expected to be ignorant of classification, 
and who may not know where to find the species he is looking 
for if not in the index. A better title for the book would have 
been “Illustrations of Entomology,” for the most striking 
feature about it is the number of plates at the end, which 
contain more than 650 figures, nicely printed, though not 
original. Unfortunately no details of structure are figured, nor 
do we find any representations of larve or pupex, which again 
seems to us a mistake in a so-called ‘‘ Elementary Text-Book.” 
