312 



SCIENCE 



[Vol. LVI, No. 1446 



tions to be lent to any public school in greater 

 New York. There are two motor ears and a 

 motor cycle to deliver slides and collections. 

 Each messenger visits from twenty to forty 

 schools a day. The American Museum is about 

 to erect a S'pecial School Service building of five 

 stories where from three to Ave thousand chil- 

 dren daily may be taken care of properly. The 

 blind are also provided for. 



Of course, all this can not be done by the 

 ordinary officers of the museum, and that is a 

 fact which must be recognized in this country. 

 The American Museum has its own department 

 of education, with Mr. George H. Sherwood 

 at the head. In the same way the Brooklyn 

 Botanical Garden has its curator of elementary 

 education, who contributes to the same issue of 

 Natural History an interesting article on "Gar- 

 dening and the City Child." But the work 

 which starts in the museums and public gar- 

 dens of New York and Brooklyn is taken up by 

 other outside bodies, as the School Nature 

 League of New York City, the president of 

 which, Mrs. John I. Northrop, here tells us 

 how in one of the elementary schools in the 

 middle of the slums a wonderful nature- 

 room has been installed. It is visited by from 

 eight hundred to one thousand children every 

 week. Here is a place for all those miscella- 

 neous curiosities so frequently rejected by the 

 staid museums. They can be placed in the 

 hands of the children and many a fascinating 

 lesson drawn from them. The love of nature 

 thus begun is carried out into the open by 

 means of summer camps, and so becomes linked 

 up with the Boy Scout camps with their trav- 

 eling museums. 



"Well, why is it that the Americans have got 

 so far ahead of us on these lines? They have 

 no doubt a new field to cultivate, and they do 

 not have to contend against the terrible weight 

 of inertia inevitable to some of our royal and 

 ancient establishments. But to a large extent 

 it is because Americans are not ashamed of 

 having an ideal and of talking about it. They 

 do not mind saj'ing what they are going to do, 

 and they make the utmost of everything that 

 they have done. This is not the Englishman's 

 way, but it is a way that interests the public 



both rich and poor. It brings money from 

 the fonner and enthusiasm from the Latter. If 

 we want to achieve the same results we must 

 not be above following somewhat similar meth- 

 ods. Here, during the summer holidays, are 

 the children crowding our museums at South 

 Kensington day after day. Can not something 

 more be done for them, even if we shed a little 

 dignity in the process? — Nature. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



The Coccida: of Ceylon. By E. Ernest Geeen. 



London: Dulau and Co., 1896-1922. Pp. sli 



plus 472; 209 plates. 



Part I of "The Coccida3 of Ceylon" ap- 

 peared in 1896, Part II in 1899', Part III in 

 1904, Part IV in 1909, and with the appear- 

 ance of Part V there is completed a work that 

 is worthy of a place among the classics of 

 entomology. 



The CoccidcE or scale insects are a group of 

 almost unsurpassed economic importance. 

 There is probably no horticulturist who is not 

 familiar with at least a few of the species and 

 whose pocketbook is not the lighter as a result 

 of their activities. The cost of repressing them 

 is a constant tax upon the horticultural indus- 

 tries everywhere, a part, in effect, of the over- 

 head expense of producing horticultural 

 products. And the ease with which they are 

 transmitted from one part of the world to an- 

 other has resulted in the iDraetically cosmopoli- 

 tan distribution of many of the most harmful 

 species together with the frequent introduction 

 into new regions of others. 



So it is that the scale insects stand in need 

 of the most careful systematic study. But the 

 minute size of many of the species, the diffi- 

 culty of obtaining adequate microscopic prep- 

 arations, and the obscureness of the structures 

 available for classification have always stood 

 in the way of such study. Unfortunately these 

 difficulties have been only too completely re- 

 fleeted in the quality of the systematic work 

 that has been done upon the family. The sys- 

 tematic work upon this group is in general of 

 by no means very satisfactory character and is 

 in large part sadly deficient. Yet to this gen- 

 eralization "The Coccidfe of Ceylon" is a most 



