REVIEWS TREATISE ON INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 521 



organization we come to species, where, from the absence of centralizing 

 influences, the several organs — which are possessed of a vitality, less energetic 

 perhaps, but more enduring than in the higher — become emancipated, as it 

 were, from the control of the general system, and appear as zooids, that is, in 

 the guise of independent beings, rather than as integral parts of the same 

 animal — suggesting a comparison to a loose confederation of Indian tribes, or 

 to the feudal system of the middle ages, rather than to a well-ordered polity of 

 our own day. 



And though the proper organs of reproduction, from their partial independence 

 even in the higher animals, seem, as we might expect, to manifest most clearly 

 this emancipation from the controlling influence of somatic life, yet it is seen 

 very distinctly in others also, as, for instance, in the peculiarly modified 

 tentacle of the Argonauta, which, when filled with spermatic fluid, is detached 

 from the body, and finds its way spontaneously to the female for the purpose of 

 impregnation.* 



We must now bring this notice of a valuable addition to physiological 

 literature to a conclusion, which we do with an expression of our 

 expectation that it will be appreciated and widely circulated among 

 the curious in biological science. W. H. 



A Treatise on some of the Insects injurious to Vegetation. By 



Thaddeua William Harris, M.D. A new edition, enlarged and 



improved, with additions from the Author's MSS. and original 



notes. Illustrated by engravings drawn from Nature, under the 



supervision of Professor Agassiz. Edited by Charles L. Flint, 



Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. 



Boston: Crosby & Nichols; New Tork : Oliver S. Eelt. 1862. 



It would be superfluous to praise a work of such established 



Imputation as the late Br. Harris's report, written for the State of 



Massachusetts, on Insects injurious to Vegetation ; but as it has 



been for some time out of print, and has been inquired for in vain 



by many, it may not be useless to inform our readers that it now 



appears in an improved edition, with every advantage that the best 



paper and printing, and an admirably executed series of illustrative 



• The worm-like appearance led at first to its being described as a parasite ol this organ 

 under the term of Hectocotylus ; and even after its sexual relations were determined by 

 Kolliker, it was still considered as an integral, though rudimentary animal, an,t in this 

 point of view was employed by Darwin (in the first volume of his monograph of the 

 Cirrhipedes) in illustration of the nature and relations of the minute parasitic males 

 occurring in certain genera of that group. The discovery of its true nature as a mere 

 tentacle of a Cuttlefish is due to Verany and H. MuUer. 



