May 8, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



691 



Catalogue of the Lepidoptera Phalwnce in the 

 British Museum. Vol. XIII. Noctuidse 

 (part). By Sir G. F. Hampson, Bart. Lon- 

 don, 1913. Pp. xiv 4- 609. 

 In this volume the consideration of the 

 Noctuidse is continued, the subfamily Cato- 

 calinse being concluded from Vol. XII., the 

 Mominse and Phytometrinse (better known as 

 Plusiinse), being given in full. There are YO 

 genera and 679 species included, besides some 

 unrecognized ones. Colored plates CCXII. to 

 CCXXXIX. accompany the volume. 



Some of our most familiar names disappear, 

 not by necessity, but by the author's non- 

 recognition of the names in Hiibner's " Ten- 

 tamen " and " Zutrage." Euclidia Hiibn. 

 (Tent.) is replaced by the totally unfamiliar 

 Gonospileia Hiibn. (Verz.) ; Agnomonia 

 Hiibn. by Argyrostrotis Hiibn. (Verz.) ; Plusia 

 Hiibn. (Tent.) by Phytometra Haw., which 

 changes the familiar sub-family Plusiinse to 

 Phytometrinse. However, this is in part set 

 oil by the retention of Phurys Guenee, which 

 should have been replaced by Orochiphora 

 Hiibn. (Zutr.). According to the rules of 

 nomenclature it appears to us that Hampson 

 is clearly wrong in discarding these names. 



On page 188, my species distilla is made a 

 synonym of Safia amella Guen., but it is, in 

 fact, abundantly distinct. 



On page 207, Zale Hiibn. is used instead of 

 Phceocyma Hiibn., by page priority, although 

 the late J. B. Smith used Phceocyma in the 

 monographic treatment of the American spe- 

 cies. We are in favor of Hampson's action, 

 and mention it only because it was held at the 

 National Museum at the time that Smith 

 could use either name he chose. 



On page 331 some corrections of previous 

 volumes appear. Our familiar genus Erebus 

 replaces Nyctipao (Vol. XII., p. 273), a 

 purely Asiatic genus and is lost to us. Like- 

 wise Melipotis Hiibn. replaces Ercheia Walk., 

 an old world genus, and disappears from our 

 lists. 



Under the Mominae, my genus Zazunga^ 



should have been included, with two species 



zetacelis and opinor. It would fall in the 



^Froc. V. S. Nat. Mus., XXXVIII., 251, 1910. 



table with Elydnodes, but the thorax is clothed 

 with hair only. Harrison G. Dyar 



Einfuhrung in die V ererhungswissenscliaft. 



By Eichard Goldschmidt. Second edition. 



Leipzig, Wilhelm Engelmann. 1913. Pp. 



546. Price 14 marks. 



The second edition of this work has been 

 somewhat enlarged and in part rewritten. 

 The first alteration to challenge attention is 

 the thorough rearrangement of certain parts 

 of the book. The chapters on Mutation and 

 on the Inheritance of Acquired Characters are 

 related to one another, and both are deferred 

 to near the end of the book, after the sections 

 on hybridization and sex determination. In 

 the first edition those chapters are in the early 

 part of the book, immediately after the dis- 

 cussion of variation. Graft hybrids and 

 chimeras, instead of following hard upon 

 Mendelian hybrids, are not discussed until 

 after sex determination. Other chapters of 

 the old edition are divided and the parts re- 

 combined. For example, the cellular basis of 

 heredity is taken up in connection with sex 

 determination, instead of independently; 

 while minor sections are freely shifted under 

 new captions. These changes appear to the re- 

 viewer to be in the interest of logical presen- 

 tation. 



The most extensive addition to the book is 

 in the treatment of sex determination, sex 

 inheritance, etc. These chapters are enlarged 

 to the extent of about 35 pages. The strik- 

 ing feature of this enlargement is a proposed 

 new formula for sex inheritance. Each sex 

 is represented as containing factors for both 

 sexes; one sex is homozygous for both these 

 factors, the other is heterozygous for one of 

 them and homozygous for the other. The 

 factors are then weighted, in a manner not 

 unlike that proposed by Spillman,^ so that in 

 one case femaleness, in the other maleness, 

 come to expression. This formulation thus 

 maintains the form of Mendelian inheritance, 

 but contains elements of the quantitativte 

 theory of sex determination. The formula 



1 Spillman, W. J., Amer. Nat., Vol. 44, 1910, pp. 

 214-228. 



