NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 155 



Mr. Slater exhibited specimens of a species of weevil which had been 

 doing much damage to maize sent to the Colonial Exhibition. 



Mr. W. White read a paper on " Experiments upon the Colour-relation 

 between the pupas of Pieris rapm and their immediate surroundings," 

 which comprised a detailed account and discussion of a series of observations 

 carried on, at the author's instigation, by Mr. G. C. Griffiths, of Bristol. 

 The various experiments were intended to act as a further test of the 

 conclusions arrived at by Mr. E. B. Poulton in his paper on the subject 

 recently published in the Transactions of the Royal Society ; and to effect 

 this object different and additional influences had been brought to bear on 

 these pupae, so that an analogy might be drawn between the two sets of 

 results. Mr. Poulton, Lord Walsingham, Mr. Jacoby, Dr. Sharp, Mr. 

 White, and others took part in the discussion which ensued. — H. Goss, 

 Hon. Secretary. 



NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 



The Birds of Dorsetshire : a Contribution to the History of the 

 County. By J. C. Mansel Pleydell, F.L.S., President of 

 the Dorsetshire Natural History and Antiquarian Field 

 Club. 8vo, pp. 179. With frontispiece and other illustra- 

 tions. London: R.H.Porter. Dorchester: M. E. Case. 

 1888. 



The preparation of county catalogues of birds proceeds as 

 fast as the most ardent ornithologist could desire ; for it must 

 be allowed that three volumes in the first quarter of the New 

 Year are quite as many as could have been hoped for, if not 

 more than could have been reasonably expected. In our last 

 number (p. 114) we noticed Mr. A. C. Smith's 'Birds of Wilt- 

 shire;' we have now before us Mr. Mansel Pleydell's volume 

 on the adjacent county of Dorset ; and in our next we hope 

 to review the late Dr. Bull's ' Birds of Herefordshire.' 



The more we look at these county " avifaunas,'' the more we 

 regret that there was not, five-and-twenty years ago, some 

 definite and uniform plan concerted by ornithologists for their 

 publication ; so that the volumes might range not only in size 

 and type, but also in the classification and nomenclature adopted, 

 a plan which would have been extremely convenient. In the 

 present instance Mr. Mansel Pleydell has made a start in that 

 direction by following the lines of Rodd's 'Birds of Cornwall' 



