December 6, 1007] 



SCIENCE 



r9i 



Stebbing was appointed forest entomologist 

 to the government of India ; and the other 

 in 1903, when Mr. H. Maxwell Lefroy was 

 appointed entomologist to the government 

 of India, or, as appears from his later re- 

 ports, "Imperial Entomologist," leaving 

 his position in the British West Indies to 

 be succeeded, as is shown elsewhere, by Mr. 

 H. A. Ballon. By Mr. Stebbing have been 

 published a series of circulars on agricul- 

 tural economic entomology issued by the 

 trustees of the Indian Museum. Under 

 Mr. Maxwell Lefroy has been started an 

 ■entomological series of the memoirs of the 

 Department of Agriculture in India, be- 

 ginning with April, 1906. Five numbers 

 Tiave appeared, the last one bearing the 

 ■date June, 1907. Mr. Stebbing has also 

 published certain forest bulletins dealing 

 with tree-boring beetles. In addition to 

 Ihese appointments, Mr. E. Ernest Green, 

 well known for his able studies on the 

 •CoccidsB, has been made government ento- 

 mologist for Ceylon with headquarters at 

 the Royal Botanic Garden at Peradenyia, 

 Ceylon, an admirable step and an appoint- 

 ment which Mr. Green can not fail to fill 

 5n the most satisfactory manner. 



CONCLUSION 



Looking over the whole field, it becomes 

 -obvious that very great advances have 

 Ijeen made in economic entomology in the 

 last thirteen years; greater advances, in 

 fact, than during the entire previous his- 

 tory of the study. It becomes obvious, 

 also, that the greatest advances have been 

 made in the United States of America. In 

 spite of this fact, however, it is plain that 

 the United States is behind most of the 

 other countries of the world in one most 

 important particular. 



Six years ago, visiting Hamburg, I found 

 a most perfect system of inspection of all 

 "foreign fruits, trees and fruit products in 

 ■operation. Nothing containing or carry- 



ing an insect was allowed to enter Germany 

 through that port. To-day this holds true 

 of most other countries.' Even in the 

 colony of Natal, as has been pointed out, 

 there is a qualified agent stationed per- 

 manently at Durban, and his work pro- 

 tects Natal and the inland colonies from 

 invasion by new insect pests and new plant 

 diseases from abroad. 



In the United States we have no such 

 protection, except the one port of San 

 Francisco, where under the state law, that 

 has been upheld in the courts, California 

 is protected. A crying need in this 

 country is the passage of a general quar- 

 antine act by which the other great sea- 

 ports of the United States should be pro- 

 tected. 



L. 0. Howard 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 



■A 



A Text-hooh of Organic Chemistry. By A. F. 

 HoLLEMAN, PkD., F.E.A. (Amst.), Pro- 

 fessor Ordinarius in the University of Am- 

 sterdam. Translated from the third Dutch 

 edition by A. Jamieson" Walker, Ph.D., 

 B.A., head of the Department of Chemistry, 

 Technical College, Derby, England, assisted 

 by Owen Mott, Ph.D., with the cooperation 

 of the author. Second English edition, re- 

 written. New York, John Wiley and Sons. 

 190Y. Pp. 589. $2.50. 



Walker's first translation of Holleman's 

 " Organic Chemistry " was published in 1903. 

 It met with so favorable a reception that a re- 

 print was made, while Walker was translating 

 the present edition. 



This book differs from other larger text- 

 books of organic chemistry in the restriction 

 of the field by the omission of a great number 

 of isolated compounds, and by the prominence 

 given to theory. In the words of the author 

 " this book is essentially a text-book and makes 

 no attempt to be a ' Beilstein ' in a very com- 

 pressed form." 



Thanks to the limitation of the field, the 

 student's attention is fixed on the more im- 

 portant classes of organic compounds, and on 



