July 19, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



81 



The Natural History of Aquatic Insects. By 

 Professor L. C. Miall, F. R. S., with 

 illustrations hy A. R. Hammond, F. L. S. 

 London, Macmillau. 1895. 8°. 

 Professor Miall has given us an excel- 

 lent book. He has passed in review the life 

 histories and particularly the larval life of 

 most of the commoner and many of the 

 rarer forms of aquatic insects of Great Brit- 

 ain, and supplemented his own story of 

 their structure, contrivances and mode of 

 life by liberal extracts from the renowned 

 but too neglected works of Reaumur, Lyon- 

 net, DeGeer and Swamnierdam, reviving a 

 genuine interest in their virgin discoveries, 

 often since repeated. He has brought to 

 bear upon his study the equipment of a 

 naturalist well trained in all the modern 

 appliances for investigation, and has there- 

 by been able to explain better than has 

 been done before the operation of the varied 

 mechanisms by which insects properly and 

 originally terrestrial (as he insists) have 

 become fitted for a more or less prolonged 

 subaqueous life. 



The work is written in a very simple and 

 clear style, which he seems to have caught, 

 as it were, from the older and now classical 

 writers upon these topics. By the aid of the 

 excellent and abundant illustrations, the 

 most abstruse parts (if there may be said 

 to be any such) are made comprehensible to 

 any bright boy's intelligence, and will make 

 him wish to set up an aquarium forthwith. 

 There is the meagrest possible reference 

 to American insects, and the way is there- 

 fore open to one of our own entomologists 

 to follow Mr. Miall's example and give us 

 something of personal stu.dy in the same 

 ample field, supplemented by the scattered 

 accounts that already exist; unless, how- 

 ever, he follows our author's example and 

 familiarizes himself at first hand with a 

 large number of varied forms, he will 

 produce but an indifferent work. Mean- 

 wliile the present volume will admirably 



serve as a guide to any young entomolo- 

 gist, for it deals with forms almost all of 

 which have their close counterpart in the 

 life of our ponds and streams. 



The book is excellently printed ; in read- 

 ing it through we have noticed but a single 

 tj^pographical error, where (p. 347) Heter- 

 optera is printed Heteropoda. 



S. H. S. 



The Butterflies and Moths of Tenerife. Mrs 



Holt White. London, L. Reeve & Co. 



1894. pp. 9 + 107, 4 colored plates. 



Mrs. Holt White, a connection by mar- 

 riage of Gilbert White, of Selborne, spent 

 the winter of 1892-93 in Teneriffe, and has 

 published the result of her observations on 

 the lepidopterous fauna of the island in a 

 popular and unpretending volume. 



The introductory chapter sketching briefly 

 the characters and life histories of the Lepi- 

 doptera, though the least satisfactory part 

 of the book, is not likely to mislead, and 

 may readily be improved in a future edition, 

 which will surely be called for ; the hints 

 and suggestions, and the directions for the 

 killing, setting and relaxing of specimens 

 are generally good, though here the main 

 point to be gained is always experience. 



Twenty-nine butterflies and thirty-four 

 moths are brieflj^ characterized, and there 

 are frequent notes on their comparative 

 abundance, habits, early stages and food- 

 plants. In addition to the above, there is a 

 list of twenty-eight moths, most of them 

 recorded on the authority of Alpheraky in 

 his paper, ' Zur Lepidopteren-Fauna von 

 Teneriffa,' in the fifth volume of Romanoff's 

 magnificent Memoires sur les Lepidopteres; 

 these, principally microlepidoptera, are con- 

 sidered by Mrs. Holt White as of little in- 

 terest to the ordinary collector. 



The four plates give good, recognizable 

 figures of twenty butterflies and eleven 

 moths ; the coloring, though in some cases 

 somewhat rough, is alwaj's eflective. 



