Proceedings of Provincial Scientific Societies 207 



restricted localities. The extent of insect injuries in the United States 

 has been carefully estimated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture at 

 the stupendous annual total of one billion dollars. Of these, grain and 

 forest crops are the heaviest sufferers, bearing about one third of the total, 

 though the live stock injury amounts to almost as much. The book is 

 well and numerously illustrated, and the paper, printing and binding, 

 neat and good. There are a very few errors in spelling, etc., which ought 

 to have been avoided in a book for schools. On page 48 we find ' typi- 

 ically ' for ' typically ; ' on page 68 ' rivaled ' for ' rivalled ' ; ' the ' 

 occurs in duplicate on the top line of page 51, etc. Besides these there 

 are a number of common words which are by the Americans ordinarily 

 spelled differently from our method. There ought to be a big demand 

 for the book, not only by Schools, but by farmers and agriculturalists 

 of every kind. — G. T. P. 



The elaborate catalogue of Roman Pottery in the Carlisle Museum, 

 prepared by Thomas May and Linnaeus E. Hope, reprinted from the 

 Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and 

 Archcsological Society, is on sale at the Museum at i/-. 



In The Journal of the Board of Agriculture for April are the following 

 papers : — ' Bracken as a Source of Potash,' by R. A. Berry, G. W. Robinson 

 and E. J. Russell ; ' Rats : How to exterminate them,' by R. Sharpe ; 

 and ' The Control of Pests of Fruit Trees in Gardens and small Orchards.' 



The Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian 

 and Archaeological Society, Vol. XVII., recently issued, contain a paper 

 on the Lancaster Canal (with contoured map) by J. F. Curwen, and a 

 valuable ' Catalogue of the Roman Pottery in the Museum, Tullie House, 

 Carlisle,' by T. May and L. E. Hope. It is illustrated by 19 plates. 



The Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, No. 2S9, recently issued, 

 is gradually bringing the Proceedings of this important Society up to date. 

 It records the Society's work between November, 1916, and June, 1917. 

 Besides Dr. A. Harker's presidential address, there are three very important 

 papers, namely, ' On a Second Skull from the Piltdown Gravel,' by Dr. 

 A. Smith Woodward, with an appendix by Prof. G. Elliot Smith ; 'Lower 

 Carboniferous Spilites from Derbyshire,' by Mr. H. C. Sargent ; and 

 ' Morphology and Development of the Ammonite Septum,' by Prof. H. H. 

 Swinnerton. 



We have received part i of Volume XVII. of the Transactions of the 

 Hertfordshire Natural History Society and Field Club (64 pp., 2/6). The 

 editor, Mr. John Hopkinson, contributes three papers on Meterological 

 and Phenological Observations. Other items are the American Poison- 

 Vine, Rhus toxicodendron at Bushey by L. P. Shadbolt ; Botanical Ob- 

 servations in Hertfordshire during the year 19 16, by E. J. Salisbury ; 

 Pisidium parvulitm in Hertfordshire, by Charles Oldham ; Notes on Birds 

 observed in Hertfordshire during the year 19 16, by William Bickerton ; 

 and The Ecology of Scrub in Hertfordshire : a study in Colonization, by 

 E. J. Salisbury, as well as entomological and ornithological notes. 



The Transactions of the Geological Physics Society, 1915-17 (16 pp., 

 i/-), are rather meagre, possibly on account of the war. They contain a 

 list of the officers and members (37) and the balance sheet shows that the 

 Society has 5id. in hand. There is an account of a General Meeting held 

 in London on May 25th, 191 7 (4 pages) the remainder of the publication 

 being occupied by reprints of articles appearing in Nature on the Origin 

 of Flint. Seeing that the Society's publication is so small we think it is 

 a pity that so much of it should have been occupied by information which 

 can be readily obtained by every member from Nature. As the list of 

 members contain such names as George Abbott, E. K. Robinson, J. V. 

 Elsden, W. F. Gwinnell, C. Carus- Wilson and Lord Clifford of Chudleigh, 

 it can hardly be that the Society was short of contributors. 



1918 June 1. 



