September 20, 1906] 



NA TURE 



513 



:ilso f,nven of a number of species eilhor identified as 

 British since the appearance of Verrall's " List," or 

 wliich may uhimately prove to be so, with the result 

 that " characters more or less satisfactory are given 

 for 2526 species," with " localities for 626 of these " 

 which Mr. VVingate has himself collected in Ihe 

 county of Durham during the last ten years. 



Turning to the actual contents of the volume before 

 us, we find that, after a couple of pages on collecting 

 and preserving, eighteen pages are devoted to a 

 synopsis of the external morphology of Diptcra in the 

 form of a description of a " P'ly Chart " (Plate i.) or 

 fliagrain of a hypothetical Dipteron, so arranged as 

 lo display all or most of the characters used in de- 

 scriptions. This is followed by an analytical table 

 of families, which occupies ten pages, and the re- 1 

 m.iinder of the book, with the exception of a few | 

 pai,'es of addenda and indices, consists of tables for 

 ilie determination of genera and species. In addition 

 to the fly chart, which we think would have been 

 clearer had the shading been omitted, characteristic 

 structural details, such as antennae, wings, legs, &c., 

 are represented in the six following plates. 



So much care and thoroughness have evidently been 

 expended upon this work that there is little room for 

 criticism of any kind ; a few minor emendations may, 

 however, be pointed out. On p. 198 attention should 

 have been directed to the vertical stripes of longer 

 liair on the eyes of the common drone-fly {Eristalis 

 Iciiax, L.), which are an easily recognised and dis- 

 tinctive feature of the species. Speiser's name 

 \"arichaeta is used (pp. 212, 228) for the preoccupied 

 Erigone, Rob.-Desv., instead of Ernestia, Rob.-Desv., 

 which Bezzi has recently shown to be the correct 

 designation. It should be noted that E. strenua, 

 Mg., is a synonym of E. rudis. Fin. The life-history 

 of Lipara luccns, Mg., is not " unknown," as stated 

 on p. 361 ; the larva mines in the heads of reeds. 

 The Phoridae (p. 383) are placed in their time-honoured 

 position among the Cyclorrhapha, following the 

 BorboridcB (as in Verrall's "List" of 1901), though,- 

 .■IS shown bv Osten Sacken, the true affinities of these 

 very aberrant Diptera would appear to be with the 

 Orthorrhapha, the more primitive of the two main 

 divisions of the order. The bionomic notes on the 

 strange-looking Hippoboscidse (pp. 394-5) lack some- 

 thing in precision : Hippobosca equina, L. , stated to 

 be " parasitic on quadrupeds, especially horses," is 

 a parasite of horses and cattle; Lipoptena cervi, L., 

 also described as "parasitic on quadrupeds," is found 

 on red and roe deer; Stenopteryx hiriindinis, L., so 

 far as the present writer is aware, is met with on 

 voung house-martins, not on young "swallows"; 

 and Oxypterum pallidum. Leach, is a parasite of the 

 swift, not of the swallow. As already stated, how- 

 over, these are details of minor importance. By the 

 publication of this work Mr. VVingate has earned the 

 gratitude of all who are interested in British entom- 

 ology, and it is to be hoped that, as the result of his 

 labours, he may have the satisfaction of witnessing 

 a considerable accession to the ranks of British 

 dipterists. E. E. A. 



NO. 1925, VOL. 74] 



OUR BOOK SHELF. 



Illo^i;ical Geology. The Weakest Point in the Evolu- 

 tion Theory. By George McCready Price. Pp. 96. 

 (Los .Angeles, California : The Modern Heretic 

 Comp.'iny, igo6.) Price 25 cents. 

 The author of this book proposes to collect the 

 opinions of his readers, and a printed form is appended 

 on which comments may be recorded. There is little 

 doubt that a writer so much in earnest will make 

 some modifications in his next edition as the result of 

 friendly criticism. But geologists who have taken 

 the pains to base their conclusions on hard work and 

 study in the field, and not on the perusal of each 

 other's text-books, will remain imsatisfied with Mr. 

 Price until he also has undertaken a course of geo- 

 logical observation. In his introduction he offers a 

 munificent sum to anyone who will " show [him] how 

 to prove that one kind of fossil is older than another." 

 It is not until we read his book that we perceive the 

 intellectual difiiculty of accepting this sporting pro- 

 position. For Mr. Price believes (p. 20) that 

 geologists assume " that in the long ago there were 

 no such things as zoological provinces and zones"; 

 he believes that (p. 30) the inversion of stratified de- 

 posits is nowhere proved by physical evidence ; that 

 (p. 46) there are " numerous families " of molluscs 

 and brachiopods which disappear suddenly and com- 

 pletely with early Palaeozoic times, and yet are found 

 alive now in our modern world ; and that (p. 68) tlie 

 custom of classifying the Tertiary strata by the 

 relative percentage of living and extinct forms that 

 they contain is "utter nonsense." If Mr. Price 

 w^ould join one of the field-parties from some .American 

 university, he would soon find that his quarrel must 

 be with natural phenomena, and not with an 

 imaginary hierarchy of illogical geologists. 



G. A. J. C. 



The Religion of Nature. By E. Kay Robinson. Pp. 



xii-t-2i5. (London : Hodder and Stoughton, n.d.) 



Price 3s. 6d. 

 Mr. Robinson has written a book that is sure to 

 interest a large number of readers. His object is to 

 show that there is no cruelty in nature, that animals 

 are not self-conscious, and, therefore, that such pain 

 as they feel is not pain of the kind that human beings 

 are familiar with. It is only " the natural bodily 

 protest of a living organism against injury"; and 

 since there is for animals only this painless pain, and 

 since their crilelty is not really cruel, there is in 

 nature nothing antagonistic to the principles of re- 

 vealed religion. 



No one who knows anything about animals can 

 fail to realise that their capacity for suffering is much 

 exaggerated bv extreme humanitarians. .\ highly- 

 bred pigeon will undergo an operation for hernia 

 apparently without feeling it, and directly it is over 

 will begin quietly to eat his Indian corn. .Animals 

 do not suffer in anticipation, they do not brood over 

 the past, and the actual torture, as everyone knows, 

 is often far less than the picture of it that haunts the 

 mind before and after. Let us hope, therefore, that 

 all unreasonable humanitarians will read this book. 

 In the opinion of the present writer, though Mr. 

 Robinson fails to prove his main thesis, yet he makes it 

 clear that the sufTerings of animals as compared with 

 those of men are as moonlight to sunlight. In fact, 

 the human race has almost a monopoly of misery as 

 distinguished from short spells of pain. 



We can only very briefly trace Mr. Robinson's line 

 of argument. .A sensitive plant behaves as if it had 

 feeling, but, being a vegetable, it cannot feel. A sea 



