22 

NATURE 
[May 11, 1871 

liar with ordinary rock specimens. It would be better 
that Geology of this sort should be associated with a sub- 
ject like mining, instead of being placed in the position 
it at present occupies. 
Mineralogy, in any right sense, is only applied che- 
mistry, and would be more in place as a recognised 
portion of the chemical curriculum in such an Institution 
than as a part of geology. Few geologists pretend to 
mineralogy beyond a sufficient knowledge of the general 
external characters of rocks for the recognition of the 
commoner varieties. Palaeontology, on the other hand, 
as a subject of systematic study, is but a phase of 
biology, and cannot without violence be linked with sub- 
jects arising out of the laws which govern the inorganic 
world. 
In thus enlarging upon our former remarks, we are 
actuated solely by a desire for the success of an under- 
taking which has our entire sympathy. 
Just as we are going to press we learn that it has been 
determined to push forward the arrangements so as to 
enable the College to open its doors in October. This is 
a wise decision on many grounds. The first week in 
October has become the recognised time for the com- 
mencement of winter courses of lectures, and delay beyond 
that might easily entail the loss of a whole year. Of the 
30,000/, required, upwards of 17,coo/. has already been 
subscribed, without any systematic canvass, and we can 
scarcely doubt that the remainder will be forthcoming. 
On public grounds we would venture earnestly to second 
the appeal made by the Committee, and to express the 
hope that the liberality of the coal-owners, manufacturers, 
and merchants of the district will enable them to open the 
Institution free from pecuniary embarrassment, and clear 
of the manifold difficulties that beset an undertaking 
burdened at the outset with debt. We also hear at the 
same moment that the Committee has again debated the 
question of a biological professorship. That body seems 
to be undecided as to whether it would be less ridiculous 
to ignore biology entirely, or to include it with a number 
of quite distinct branches of science in a sort of mis- 
cellaneous professorship, and the prevailing view ow 
seems to be that, on the whole, the former alternative is 
the least conspicuously absurd. Surely there is a third 
course open to the Committee. We trust wiser counsels 
will prevail, and that we may never have to record that in 
Newcastle—the home of Bewick and Selby, Fryer and 
Alder, Winch and Robertson, not to name a host of 
living biologists—in the focus of the Tyneside Naturalists’ 
Field Club—a College of Natural Science has been estab- 
lished in which Natural History in its higher aspects is 
excluded as a subject of study. 


STAVELEY’S BRITISH INSECTS 
British Insects. A familiar Description of the Form, 
Structure, Habits, and Transformations of Insects. By 
E, F. Staveley, Author of “ British Spiders.” (London : 
L. Reeve and Co., 1871.) 
O compose a work on so extensive and difficult a 
subject as “ British Insects,” which shall convey a 
large amount of useful and interesting information without 
being too much overloaded with bare facts,—which shall 
be accurate without being dry, and amusing without being 
flippant,—is no easy task, yet it is accomplished by the 

author of this work in a very creditable manner. The 
introductory chapters are condensed and clear, just giving 
enough information on the general structure and economy 
of insects to interest the uninitiated reader, and lead him 
on to the more detailed account of each order given in 
the succeeding chapters. 
An excellent feature of the work is the clearness of the 
type, and the well-executed woodcuts which somewhat 
too sparingly illustrate the text, while sixteen coloured 
plates by Mr. Robinson contain admirably life-like 
portraits of nearly a hundred of our most conspicuous or 
most interesting insects. A few extracts will best illus- 
trate the author’s style. In the chapter on the larve of 
Lepidoptera it is remarked, that there is neither time 
nor place in which we may not find the traces of these 
creatures or the creatures themselves. 
“Tf at one time of the year we tear a handful of moss 
from the trunk of a tree, out drop some little brown 
chrysalids ; if at another we drag a tuft of grass up by 
the roots, there we find silken tubes, the homes of some 
small caterpillars. We find them in fungi, we find them 
in grain, we find them in teazle-heads, in fir-cones, in rose- 
buds, and in fruit; and the Hymenopterist, carefully 
watching the insect emerging from a gall, discovers that 
he has reared in it a moth! On the face of a lichen- 
covered rock we see a moving fragment, and lo! a little 
caterpillar, neatly encased like a caddis-worm in a tent of 
lichen, is moving and feeding, safe even from the bird’s 
sharp eye. We open our drawers, and there, oh, sight of 
horror! What is that streak of white silk upon the best 
garment—the garment laid by, too good for common wear? 
We look farther ; what is that dusty little roll? It is a 
great-coat on a microscopic scale. It matches our best 
garment ominously. It moves—a head peeps out—some 
little legs, and away it walks !—tell not the housekeeper !— 
away it walks in safety from the admiring Entomologist.” 
As an example of the woodcut illustrations we give 
the series showing the progressive stages in the trans- 
formations of the dragon-fly. The sluggish mud-coloured 
pupa ascends the stem of a grass or any other stalk of 
convenient size which rises above the surface of the water, 
after a time the skin cracks behind, between the wing 
cases, and the head and thorax of the enclosed fly are 
drawn out. The abdomen follows, the insect turning up 
and clinging to the pupa case, where it remains till the 
wings increase to the full size so rapidly that they can be 
seen to grow. 
In the chapter on Diptera there are some good remarks 
on the many erroneous uses of the term “ Fly.” 
“Being a ‘ popular name’ the people have a right to 
mean what they choose by it, and they avail themselves 
of the right—some meaning by it one thing, some another, 
some every flying insect for which they know no other 
name. Thus the ‘fly’ of the former is usually the little 
hopping turnip beetle; the ‘ fly’ of the hop-grower is an 
aphis; the ‘ fly’ of the herdsmana gad ; while to the citizen 
almost anything to be seen with wings (except pigeons 
and sparrows) is a fly. There are some, again, to whom 
flies are flies, one fly ¢/e fly, the common well-known little 
black house-fly. Here at last is something definite. No, not 
even now ; for these will, at least, claim their young house- 
fly, and their full-grown house-fly, and expect you to 
believe that late in the year their house-fly takes to biting 
you, little dreaming that the little fly, and the big fly, and 
the fly which bites you, not only are different species but 
even belong to different genera ; that the little fly never 
grows big, that the big fly never was little, and that their 
house-fly could not bite you if he would. What, then, 
