REVIEWS. 139 



The section on Mosquitos (pp. 187-270) is very full, though information is 

 necessarily restricted to those forms known or suspected to carry disease, 

 and this section ends with some excellent practical hints on collecting, 

 breeding and feeding mosquitos for experimental purposes ; this last 

 observation applies also to the chapters on other groups, such as the 

 Tabanidee and Muscidse, whilst pages 411-424 contain practical hints on 

 collecting, preserving and dissecting blood-sucking Diptera. 



Fleas have of late attained unenviable notoriety in India as the carriers 

 of plague from rats to man and Chapter V (pages 434-477) of the present 

 book provides an excellent summary of the structure, life histories, habits 

 and classification of fleas as a whole. Most of the original literature on 

 Fleas, it may be noted, is contained in scattered and costly publications 

 which are quite out of reach of the ordinary student. 



Chapter VI (pages 478-526) contains an account of the blood-sucking 

 Bugs, of which the Bed-bug is the commonest and most important in India. 

 Our experience does not confirm the statement made here of Reduviidse, 

 that " as a rule they are diurnal in their habits ;" we have always looked on 

 this family as thoroughly nocturnal. 



Chapter VII (pp. 527-564) supplies a long-felt want by providing in 

 English a general account of the Anoplura, or lice, which are usually 

 slurred over in most text-books. Much the same remarks are applicable 

 to Chapters IX and X, which deal with Mites, Linguatulids and Water- 

 fleas. Chapter XI, on Laboratory Technique, contains practical hints on 

 instruments and methods for dissection, staining, etc., and will be found 

 invaluable to the isolated worker. 



The whole book is well planned and excellently carried out and should 

 fulfil the objects for which it was written, which is defined in the Preface 

 as the supplying of the needs of fellow-workers by compiling a guide to the 

 relations between arthropods and disease rather than a general text-book 

 of entomology. The paper and printing are good, though the excessive 

 weight of a book of some 800 pages necessarily detracts from comfort in 

 handling it. The Plates contain hundreds of original figures, excellently 

 drawn and reproduced and adequately illustrating the text. We can 

 cordially commend this book to all interested in the subject of insect-borne 

 diseases — and who, in a country such as India, can fail to be interested ? 



T. B. F. 



"MY SOMALI BOOK," A RECORD OF TWO SHOOTING TRIPS. 



BY Capt. a. H. E. Mosse, F. Z. S., London, 

 Sampson Low, Marston & Co., Ltd., 1913. Rs. 9-6. 



In an early Volume of the Journal, Major (now Colonel) Swayne's well 

 known book " Seventeen Trips in Somali laud " was noticed and since then 

 many books have appeared on sport and natural history in that country 

 though none to compare with that work. This, however, cannot be said of 

 Capt. Mosse's book, which though only the record of two expeditions is a 

 worthy successor to " Seventeen Trips in Somali land," whose author by 

 the way has written an introduction, and now that that country is practi- 

 cally closed to sportsmen is all the more valuable. 



Capt. Mosse's two trips consisted of one of under four weeks and 

 another of two months, and during the latter it had been his intention to 

 penetrate Abssyinian territory, but owing to a mistake of the Post Oflice 

 the necessary permit did not arrive till too late. In course of the two 



