1888.] 141 



studied with advantage on this side of the Atlantic, and is a multum in parvo of 

 information. About the first third is occupied by lucid details of external and internal 

 anatomy, physiology, &c. The " beginner " may, of course, skip this if he please, but 

 he will learn much by steadily going through it : then follow Classification, Insect 

 Architecture and Economic Entomology. Finally, copious directions for collecting, 

 rearing, preservation, microscopic dissecting and mounting, &c, &c, and a Glossary. 

 The book is profusely illustrated, but we think we recognise most of the figures as 

 already familiar to us. Original illustrations would have greatly enhanced the cost. 



Some will say the subject is sometimes treated in too abstruse a manner for a 

 beginner. There are beginners who never aspire to be more than collectors ; there 

 are others who wish to be students as well as collectors. Dr. Packard probably 

 addresses himself to these latter in particular. 



The systematic arrangement will strike some as peculiar. At the present time 

 each writer on classification of any note has his own special views on this point. Our 

 author has his. On a point so controversial we prefer to leave the reader to judge, 

 warning him not to pin his faith to any system, simply because an author of ability 

 puts it forward as his own. 



The work is so generally good that we refrain from adverse criticism on minor 

 details, or occasionally on what seem to be errors of omission. If there be a fault 

 (in the eyes of a "stranger") it is the prominence given by the author to his own 

 papers in the bibliographical lists. 



" Entomology for Beginners " is a handy text book brought down to date, or, 

 occasionally perhaps, a little in anticipation of date. 



The Origin of Floral Structures through Insect and other agencies. 

 By the Eev. G-eo. Henslow, M.A., F.L.S., F.G-.S., Professor of Botany, Queen's 

 College, and Lecturer to St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, pp. i — xi, and 

 1 — 349, with 88 illustrations. 8vo. London : Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1888. 



This work, which forms the 63rd volume of the publishers' " International 

 Scientific Series," is primarily of interest to Botanists, and is, in a scarcely less degree, 

 interesting to Entomologists. In the preface, after glancing at the theories and 

 speculations of authors on the influences which induce plants to vary in response to 

 them, whereby adaptive morphological (including anatomical) structures are brought 

 into existence, specially citing Greoffroy Saint Hilaire (1795), Lamarck, Patrick 

 Matthew, the author of the " Vestiges of Creation," Herbert Spencer, Darwin, 

 A. R. Wallace, Dr. C. Semper, Dr. A. de Bary and Dr. Vines, the author says : — 

 " I have attempted in the present work to return to 1795, and to revive the ' Monde 

 ambiant ' of Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, as the primal cause of change. My object is to 

 endeavour to refer every part of the structures of flowers to some one or more definite 

 causes arising from the environment taken in its widest sense. To some extent the 

 attempt must be regarded as speculative ; and, therefore, any deductive or a priori 

 reasonings met with must be considered by the reader as being suggestive only." 



The continuity of the argument, and the interdependence of its propositions, 

 preclude giving extracts in elucidation, but we cite a few as examples of the style in 

 which the subject is treated. 



