Reviews and Book Notices. 75 



of the exoperidium of a reddish flesh colour, and this layer is 

 some four or five millimetres in thickness when the plant is 

 quite fresh, but when it becomes weakened this layer often 

 breaks away in flakes and dries up almost completely, with the 

 result that very little of it can be detected in worn out speci- 

 mens. . . . Most books describe the mouth of the endoperidium 

 as toothed, whereas, in fact, it is only occasionally torn, and 

 too much importance has been attached to this character.' In 

 the Bolton example, the mouth is distinctly denticulate. Rea 

 gives the spore measurements as ^[ji diam., and the capillitium 

 threads 6-7//, and in the case of the specimen under discussion, 

 the measurements are practically identical ; spores 4-4. 4/*, 

 and capillitium threads 6-8^, with occasional thicker threads 

 of 9^ diam. 



G. rufescens Pers. is new to Mid. W. Div. (V.C. 64), and its 

 discovery has served a useful purpose in clearing up a doubtful 

 point in the County records. 



Swan Songs, by Dudley Harbron. A. Brown & Sons, 25 pp., 

 2/6 net. The author, who is presumably a young man, seems rather fond 

 of wanting to ' expire.' He concludes one sonnet by ' And let me then 

 expire,' in another he says ' Give me your soiil entire, and if it please 

 God, let us then expire.' Hence, presumably, 'Swan Songs.' He seems 

 to be a devout disciple of Ibsen, or he has early been crossed in love. 

 When he is twice his present age, his poems — for they are poetry — will 

 be much more cheerful. By then he will find that life is ' worth while.' 

 If we are here in 1940, we shall look forward to reading his ' Joy Songs.' 



Highways and Byways in Northumbria, by P. Anderson 

 Graham. JMacmillan & Co., 3S0 pp., 7/6 net. This is a particularly 

 charming and healthy book, written by one who knows the county he 

 describes, and illustrated by Hugh Thomson, an artist of exceptional 

 ability. His numerous sketches, reproduced as if they were pencil 

 drawings in the book, are very fine indeed. The author acknowledges 

 his indebtedness to the Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' 

 Club and Archaeologia Aeliana — with both of which publications he is 

 evidently familiar. We do not remember enjoying a book so much 

 since we read the same publishers' ' Forty Years in a Moorland Parish,' 

 by the late Canon Atkinson. 



Les Insectes : Introduction a I'etude de I'Entomologie biol- 

 ogique, par Constant Houbert, 2^ edition revue et corrigee. Un 

 vol. in-i8 jesus, de 380 pages, avec 207 gravures dans le texte. Broche, 

 8 fr. ; cartonne toile, 10 fr. Gaston Doin : 8 place de I'Odeon, Paris 

 (6e). Le livre de M. Houlbert contient un resume complet de I'En- 

 tomologie jusqu' a nos jours, donnant une definition precise du type 

 ' Insecte,' et exposant d'une fa9on concise et claire 1 'ensemble de nos 

 connaissances sur I'anatomie, la physiologic et la biologie des insectes. 

 Nous voudrions signaler surtout les chapitres interessants concernant la 

 -nervation des ailes, la parthenogenese, et la classification et la biologie 

 des larves. La 3c partie de I'ouvrage renferme plusieurs chapitres 

 interessants, e.g., Les Insectes dans les temps Geologiques, Moyens de 

 defense chez les Insectes, Distribution geographique des Insectes. M. 

 Houlbert termine par des considerations generales sur le parasitisme. 

 Le livre est bien illustre, contenant 207 figures dans le texte. 



1921 Feb. 1 



