148 
NATURE 
[OcToBER 26, 1916 
rogue,” are words of distinct origin. With the 
very doubtful exception of the passage in “ King 
Lear,” Shakespeare’s “chough” (as the present 
writer maintained many years ago in the Zoo- 
logist) is not the Corn‘sh chough (Pyrrhocorax 
graculus), but the jackdaw (Corvus monedula), 
and, to be strictly accurate, Tereus was not the 
brother, but the brother-in-law, of Philomela. 
The numerous illustrations require no recom- 
mendation. They are our old familiar friends 
from Yarrell and Howard Saunders. 
OUR BOOKSHELF. 
The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and 
Kashmir. By Sir James Douie. Pp. xiv +373. 
(Cambridge: At the University Press, 1916.) 
Price 6s. net. 
Tue editor of the Cambridge series of Provincial 
Geographies of India made a happy selection when 
he entrusted the Panjab to Sir James Douie, who. 
during thirty-five years’ work as a member of the 
Indian Civil Service has held the posts of Chief 
Secretary, Financial Commissioner, and Officiating 
Lieutenant-Governor ; what he does not know of the 
Province in which he served is not worth knowing. 
In a series of chapters packed with information he 
discusses the physiography, ethnology, sociology, 
history, archeology, and administration of an area 
of one quarter of a million square miles, compar- 
able in extent, as well as in other respects, with 
Austria-Hungary. To summarise this amount of 
information within a limited space naturally pre- 
vents the elaboration of detail. 
is an epitome of the information contained in the 
Imperial and Provincial Gazetteers, and in num- 
berless other official publications. 
An excellent feature of the work is the large 
series of photographs, maps, and diagrams. In 
the illustrations it is pleasant to notice that the 
personal element is well represented in John 
Lawrence, Charles Aitchison, Denzil Ibbetson, and 
Michael O’Dwyer—some of the able adminis- 
trators for which the Province has been noted— 
and in those of native celebrities. In a new 
edition we may suggest the inclusion of some 
great soldiers—Pollock, Nott, Gough, Nicholson, 
Edwardes, Roberts, and Donald Stewart. It 
would also be a help to students to provide a short 
list of the more useful books dealing with various 
aspects of history, social life, travel and sport. 
The mistake (p. 24) of fixing Lord Roberts’s march 
to Kabul in 1898 should be corrected. Every 
young officer, military and civil, posted to India 
should possess a copy of this useful book, and it 
might with advantage be introduced into the geo- 
graphy course in British and Indian schools. 
The Student’s Handbook to the University and 
Colleges of Cambridge. Fifteenth edition, re- 
vised to June 30, 1916. Pp. 16+ 704. 
bridge: At the University Press, 1916.) Price 
35. net. 
TuHouGH the statements contained in this handbook 
are not, official, the information provided has been 
compiled from authentic sources and may be re- 
NO. 2452, VOL. 98] 
The book, in fact, ° 
(Cam- ° 
garded as accurate, Parents sending sons to 
Cambridge will find the guide invaluable, especially 
the sections dealing with expenses and scholar- 
ships. 
In view of the recent comparative inactivity of 
the University there are no additions to this issue 
of the handbook. Some temporary. emergency 
regulations, occasioned by the war, affecting 
undergraduates are summarised conveniently, and 
altogether the general usefulness of the volume 
has been well maintained. 
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 
[The Editor does not hold himself responsible Yak 
opinions expressed by his correspondents. Neither 
can he undertake to return, or to correspond with 
the writers of, rejected manuscripts intended for 
this or any other part of Nature. No notice is 
taken of anonymous communications.] 
Scarcity of Wasps. 
Tue scarcity of wasps in Cheshire during the passing 
autumn, noted in Nature of October 12 by Mr. H. V- 
Davis, has been equally remarkable in this district 
(Wigtownshire). | Observation extending over very 
many seasons has convinced me that the abundance 
of queen wasps in spring is no indication of the num- 
ber of swarms in late summer and autumn. That 
appears to be regulated by the character of the weather 
in June and July, which this year was unusually cold 
and wet. In the autumn of 1915 there was an extra- 
ordinary number of the nests of social wasps, both of 
the species that build underground and those that 
found arboreal colonies. In consequence I do not 
remember ever to have seen so many queen waspS — 
about as there were in May of this year. Presumably 
each of these started building cells and laying eggs, 
but even if these hatched out, the cold was fatal to 
the larvee (for wasps are essentially lovers of sunshine) ; 
no workers were reared to assist in forming the colony, — 
which consequently came to naught. Last year I 
would have undertaken to find fifty wasps’ nests within 
a radius of half a mile of this house; this year I did 
not know of one. HERBERT MAXWELL. 
Monreith. 
Tue past summer has been so remarkable as regards 
these insects that a few'notes from an old observer. 
may be acceptable. The principal fact to be noticed 
is the extraordinary disproportion between the 
immense number of queens in spring (I cannot re- 
member so many in upwards of fifty years’ observa- 
tions) and the scarcity of workers in the summer. 
It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that there were 
more queens to be seen in the spring than workers 
when these were most numerous, in September. To 
go back to the beginning, an entry in my diary on 
October 18, 1915, states that on digging out a nest 
poisoned with cyanide two days previously, in which 
all the active workers had been killed, ‘“‘a lot of quite 
lively ones, mostly queens," was found. . 
There can be little doubt that the cause of the 
scarcity of nests and workers was the cold and wet 
weather of mid-April. This supposition is supported 
by the fact that of the only four nests found and 
taken near this house, two were in fresh (and therefore 
warm) manure-heaps, one in the roof of the gardeners’ 
bothy, and one in a sheltered hedge bottom. I have 
no recollection of having ever seen a nest in a dunghill 
before. 
The discrepancy between the number of queens in 
