November 3, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



563 



eludes seven species, N. mexicana (Florida, 

 Texas, Mexico), N. tetragona (eastern Europe, 

 Asia, North America to Australia), N. fennica 

 (Finland), N. Candida (northern Europe and 

 Asia), N. alba (Europe and North Africa), 

 N. odorata (eastern United States), and N. 

 tuherosa (central United States) ; the sub- 

 genus Lotos, four species, N. lotus (Egypt), 

 N. zenheri (Africa), N. puhescens (East 

 Indies), and N. ruhra (East Indies) ; the sub- 

 genus Hydrocallis, ten species, N. amazonum 

 (tropical America), N. rudgeana (tropical 

 America), N. hlanda (Guatemala), N. lasio- 

 phylla (Brazil), N. gardneriana (Brazil), N. 

 jamesoniana (v^estern South America and 

 Porto Rico), N. stenaspidota (Brazil), N. 

 tenerinerva (Brazil), N. oxypetala (Equador) 

 and N. gtbertii (Paraguay). It is noteworthy 

 in this day when almost every monographer 

 finds a lot of new species in his material, as 

 a matter of course, that Doctor Conard de- 

 scribes but one new species, viz., N. ovalifolia, 

 and a few new varieties. A second new spe- 

 cies, N. zenlceri, by Professor Gilg, of Berlin, 

 is here printed for the first time, although the 

 name has been used for some time in Euro- 

 pean herbaria. 



The closing chapter, mostly devoted to cul- 

 tural directions, can scarcely be read without 

 making one want to undertake the growth of 

 some of these interesting plants. Beginning 

 with such suggestions as ' the care of them is 

 very simple; the pond or tank may be only 

 a large bucket or a half barrel,' Doctor Conard 

 proceeds to more and more elaborate sugges- 

 tions, some of which can not fail to tempt 

 his readers to make a beginning in their culti- 

 vation. 



The author is to be congratulated upon 

 having made such a notable contribution to 

 botanical science. Charles E. Bessey. 



The Univeesity of Nebraska. 



American Insects. By Vernon L. Kellogg, 

 Professor of Entomology and Lecturer on 

 Bionomics in the Leland Stanford Jr. Uni- 

 versity. New York, Henry Holt & Co. 

 1905. Pp.674. 

 In recent years a good many text-books or 



general works on the insects of America have 



been published. Several of these have been 

 limited to special fields, such as ' The Butter- 

 fly Book ' and ' The Moth Book,' by Dr. Hol- 

 land, and ' The Insect Book,' by Dr. Howard, 

 the latter a companion book to Dr. Holland's 

 volumes, covering the other orders of insects 

 'excepting the Coleoptera. Several text-books 

 have, however, included the whole subject, 

 among which may be mentioned Comstock's 

 ' Manual for the Study of Insects,' Packard's 

 ' Text -book of Entomology,' and volumes re- 

 lating to insects more particularly in eco- 

 nomic relations, such as Smith's ' Economic 

 Entomology,' and Sanderson's ' Insects Affect- 

 ing Staple Crops.' The best foreign work in 

 English covering the general subject is Dr. 

 Sharp's two volumes on insects in the Cam- 

 bridge Natural History series, which remains 

 the best work of its kind so far produced. 

 Dr. Sharp's work, however, applies to the in- 

 sects of the world. The volume prepared by 

 Professor Kellogg, as indicated in the title, is 

 limited practically to American insects, and is 

 somewhat broader in scope than any of the 

 American text-books so far published. The 

 insect field in all its relations is so vast that 

 it becomes a very difiicult problem to include 

 it even in a general way in a single volume, 

 but Professor Kellogg has accomplished this 

 very satisfactorily, on the whole. 



As indicated in his preface : 



This book is written in the endeavor to foster 

 an interest in insect biology on the part of stu- 

 dents of natural history, of nature observers and 

 of general readers; it provides in a single volume 

 a general systematic account of all the principal 

 groups of insects as they occur in America, to- 

 gether with special accounts of the structure, 

 jDhysiology, development and metamorphoses, and 

 of certain particularly iiiteresting and important 

 ecological relations of insects with the world 

 around them. Systematic entomology, economic 

 entomology, and what many be called the bionomics 

 of insects are the special subjects of the matter 

 and illustration of the book. 



The structure and physiology of insects is 

 gone into in considerable detail in the open- 

 ing chapter. Metamorphosis and systematic 

 classification of insects are rather briefly con- 

 sidered. The different orders and fiamilies of 

 insects are then taken up seriatim, from the 



