74 BihliograpMcal Notice. 



BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTICE. 



The Agricultiircd Pests of India, and of Eastern and Southern Asia, 

 Vegetable and Animal, injurious to Man and his Products. By 

 Surgeon-General Edwaed Balfour. Sm. 8vo. London : B. 

 Quaritch, 1887. 



"When" a book is published with a benevolent object in view it 

 becomes a most ungrateful task to find fault with it ; and this 

 unfortunately is what we have to do in the case of the little volume 

 whose title stands at the head of this notice. Some knowledge of 

 natural history, and especially of entomology, wonld seem to be 

 necessary for the production of such a book ; but this qualification 

 apparently is not possessed by the author, or he could not have 

 committed such a series of blunders as he is here giiilty of. Thus, 

 in a list of enemies of the coffee-plant taken from Nietner, he has 

 substituted Coleoptera for Hemiptera and included under the former 

 head three Coccid^e, an Aphis, and a Bug, together with a Fungus 

 (but as regards the last Nietner must bear a part of the blame), and 

 then converted Nietner's Coleoptera into Orthoptera : Avcylonycha 

 is said to belong to the Orthoptera, although it produces the 

 "White Grub" of the coffee-planters; and Heliothis armigera is 

 referred to repeatedly as Orthopterous, and definitely said to be 

 " one of the Gryllidse," although it is immediately afterwards said 

 to have " caterpillars " belonging to it, which " pass into the pupa 

 and perfect form " within the capsules of the poppy, the perfect 

 form being a " moth." 



These are small matters ; but a better idea of the peculiar fitness 

 of the author for his undertaking may be formed from the following 

 account of animal parasites : — " Animal parasites," we are told, 

 " attack man and other animals. Among them may be named 

 Acari, sp., the Argas, Ascarides, Ancylostomum, Bothriocephalus, 

 Cysticerci, Echinococci, Filaria, Fistidaria, flea, flukes, harvest-bug, 

 Helmintha, louse, QSstridea, Oxyurus, Sarcoptus, Spiroptera, Stron- 

 gylus. Taenia, Thecosoma, tick, Tricocephalus. The bites of all are 

 painfid, many of them dangerous." (The italics are ours ; fancy the 

 bite of an Echinococcus or Cysticercus !) And then we are told that 

 " there are at least other six orders of noxious animals which, 

 though so called, are not parasites, but which have a special interest 

 to stock-owners and veterinary practitioners, viz, Nematoda, Tre- 

 matoda, Cestoda, Acanthocephala, Diptera, and Trachearia." 



Mr, Balfour mentions two entomologists of note who assisted him 

 in the preparation of his book, and one of whom, he says, " revised 

 nearly the whole in manuscript and the proofs as they passed through 

 the press ; " we can only say that the latter gentleman must have 

 contented himself with a very perfunctory execution of the task he 

 undertook. 



We should hardly have devoted so much space to the considera- 

 tion of such a work as this but for the fact that the author has un- 

 doubtedly hit upon a serious want, and we cordially agree with Miss 

 Ormerod in the sentiments she expresses in a letter to the author 

 which he prints in his " Prefatory Eeraarks," In fact no one can 



i 



