Feb. 10, 1870] 
NATURE 
379 
pitals”—a book which has done great good—with this 
startling passage :—“ The very first requirement of a 
hospital is that it should do the sick no harm.” Have 
hospitals, then, done harm to the sick? Weare sorry to say 
that there are few of the older, badly constructed, il- 
ventilated hospitals in any country which have not their 
calamitous records of immense death rates at all times 
and, especially, during epidemic seasons. 
No one can read Mr. Galton’s address without re- 
cognising that, from first to last, it is a protest against 
hospitals. Why are all these precautions and cestly 
appliances necessary, unless it be to enable the sick poor 
to be grouped together in hospitals without destroying 
their lives? 
Are not all these precautions a tacit admission that in 
breaking the family tie, in sickness, we are acting against 
Nature? She has bestowed the “family” with its common 
joys, sorrows and duties, on the human race. If, in order 
to aid the poor in sickness, it is necessary to break up 
the family tie and to expose the sufferers to risks in 
hospitals which they might escape at home, we would 
“suggest whether there be not a prior question—namely, 
whether we cannot improve the dwellings of the people, 
make them better adapted for sickness as well as for 
health and thus look forward to the abolition of hos- 
pitals altogether. 
We are, as yet, far from this consummation and, if we 
must have hospitals, we are bound to make them not only 
harmless, but useful. Mr. Galton has added a valuable 
contribution to the literature of hospitals in showing how 
this may be done. 
ENTOMOLOGY IN AMERICA 
A Guide to the Study of Insects and a Treatise on those 
LInjurious and Beneficial to Crops: for the Use of 
Colleges, Farit-Schools and Agriculturists. By A. 
J. Packard, Jun., M.D. With upwards of 500 En- 
gravings. Parts I.-VIII. (Salem: published by the 
Essex Institute, 1868-69. London: Triibner and 
Co.) 
T must be confessed that our American brethren are 
inclined in the present day to advance in the study 
of natural history, as in everything else. We can call to 
mind a dozen or more thriving institutions for the advance- 
ment of Science, especially natural history, in various 
towns inthe United States, some of the names of which are 
hardly known to us, except by their scientific publications. 
The Governments, both of the whole Confederation and 
of the different States, show a liberality in patronising 
scientific researches and in diffusing the results of those 
carried on under their auspices, which we should be giad 
to see imitated nearer home. A great number of American 
naturalists enter boldly upon investigations which but few 
of their distant relations on this side of the Atlantic, seem 
inclined to take up: their papers are generally of 
interest, and, not unfrequently, of great value. 
In no department of zoology are the zeal and energy of 
the American naturalists more clearly shown than in the 
study of entomology. Doubtless, in the United States, 
as elsewhere, there are a great many amateurs, who rush 
into print with crude notions and write perhaps too 
hastily ; but amongst the American entomologists there are 
several who are doing excellent work in the elucidation of 
this branch of the natural history of their country and 
even attacking groups, such as the /chneuwmonide, in face 
of which German or Scandinavian pertinacity recoils 
baffled, or makes but little way. 
Dr. Packard, the author of the “ Guide to Entomology,” 
of which eight parts (out of ten) are now before us, is well 
knownas awriteron American insects, chiefly Hymenoptera 
and Lepidoptera,—he has also made some original investi- 
gations upon the anatomy and physiology of insects. The 
first portion of his book, occupying nearly two parts, is 
devoted to general entomology and furnishes an ad- 
mirable, though necessarily brief, account of their orga- 
nisation, of their reproduction and development in the 
egg and of their metamorphoses, The most recent 
memoirs connected with these subjects, have been made 
use of by the author and this part of his work is certainly 
the best manual of entomology which the English reader 
can at present obtain. The author concludes the general 
section of his work with directions for collecting and 
preserving insects, followed by a short bibliography and 
then proceeds to discuss the classification of insects. 
In his classification, Dr. Packard departs somewhat 
from the generally received views, especially in regarding 
the class of insects as including, along with the true six- 
footed and generally winged forms, the Spiders and 
Myriapods, which have either eight or many feet. It is 
true that the Myriapods approach the true insects very 
closely ; but the passage indicated by Dr. Packard from 
the Diptera to the Spiders appears to be founded solely 
on superficial resemblances and it by no means warrants 
the union of the Arachzzda with the Insecta, although that 
of the M/yrtapoda may perhaps be accepted. Of course, 
as the boundaries of the class of insects are thus enlarged, 
the true insects of other authors have to occupy a lower 
rank in the system and Dr. Packard treats them as 
forming .a single order of his class insects. He then 
adops the usual seven ordinal divisions as “sub-orders ” 
and indicates their arrangement in two slightly divergent 
series as follows :—The Neuroptera, or lace-winged flies, 
form a common starting point, from which issue, on the 
one hand, the Orthoptera, Hemiptera and Coleoptera ; 
on the other, the Diptera, Lepidoptera, and Hymenoptera, 
the latter series being the highest. The author does 
not state that he regards this as a genealogical tree, or 
as expressing the course of evolution of the groups; in 
any case the relationship of the Hemiptera to the Cole- 
optera does not seem very clear. 
These slight objections to some of our author’s theo- 
retical views of classification do not, however, apply in the 
least to his exposition of the classification itself, which is 
admirably clear and complete. Under each order he 
gives a general account of the structure and habits of its 
members, followed and illustrated by a. more detailed 
description of the characters and mode of life of particular 
species, arranged under their respective families. The 
examples selected by the author consist, for the most 
part, of the commonest species inhabiting the United 
States, a circumstance which will necessarily form a little 
drawback to its usefulness in this country ; although, from 
the fact that great numbers of the North American insects 
have their allies, if not representatives, in Britain, the 
descriptions of habits, at any rate, will be generally 
applicable. 
