176 THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S RECORD. 
Most of our entomological and natural history magazines seem 
keeping up their constant stream of matter connected with experience 
observation, and experiment, and but little influenced so far by the 
mighty world events which are passing and the gradual absorption of 
all the younger generation into the vortex of the war. Let us hope 
that it is not a sign of dwindling interest in our science and taoat there 
were but few of the latter who were ‘‘ coming along” to fill the place 
of us older naturalists who have “ kept going.” 
In the art section tent at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Spring 
Show at Chelsea in May, some of Mr. Montagu Summer’s butterfly 
pictures were exhibited. These were set up in air-tight frames, and 
consisted of a painted floral design as a background and real butterflies 
placed in the attitude of flight or rest. The flowers, which usually 
came in from one corner of the picture, were beautifully painted and 
showed much atmosphere, so that at a short distance away, the picture 
as a whole, looked very pleasing. In one very harmonious picture 
were some flowering spikes of the common furze and some specimens 
of Colias edusa. In another was a group of sweet-williams with 
Issoria lathonia, but the gem of the collection was the picture with a 
group of garden nasturtium and Pyrameis atalanta, This had a rich- 
ness of colour which some of the other pictures lacked. There was, of 
course, some inconsistency between the floral designs and the lifeless 
butterflies, but from the appreciative remarks I heard from the 
onlookers, the lay mind did not apparently grasp this point. The 
pictures would be infinitely superior if the artist had painted in 
the butterflies in the same graceful and airy manner that he has 
portrayed the flowers. Butterflies from their delicacies and liveliness 
are very difficult to represent naturally on canvas or paper, but if these 
lovers of sunlight had been drawn somewhat in the style of Giaccomelli, 
as shown in his illustrations of Jules Michelet’s L’ Insecte, the pictures 
would have been charming indeed. ‘There were 86 cases in all, and 
many of them had already found purchasers. Prices ranged from a 
guinea upwards.—A.5. 
In spite of the war, considerable activity is manifest in scientific 
circles in Russia. A new review, the Russian Zoological Journal, has 
appeared in Moscow, and a new zoological and an anatomical publica- 
tion is expected to come out shortly in Petrograd. In the latter city 
steps are being taken to form a Russian Zoological Society. If this is 
as successful as the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, and the 
Russian Entomological Society, it will be a worthy addition to the 
learned societies of the world. Like the British, the Russians are 
keen sportsmen and lovers of nature, and the vast resources of the 
great empire give ample scope for an active zoological society.—M.B. 
A. VY. Martynov, the trichopterist, is still at the front, where he 
has been serving since the beginning of the war.—M.B. 
Colonel A. N. Kaznakov, the distinguished Director of the Caucasus 
Museum at Tiflis, has been definitely invalided and excused further 
military service, after being wounded four times ; he has resumed his 
scientific duties at Tiflis—M.B. 
A most interesting piece of reasoning (sic) occurs in a pamphlet 
sent tous. It is quoted without further comment. ‘ Among the mass 
of evidence which tends to establish the falsity of the Darwinian theory, 
that evolution is the result of the survival of the fittest in the struggle 
