122 



8CIEJSCE. 



[Vol. IX., No 209 



some kind of a guard, which is generally a thick 

 ring. " The releases vary in their efficiency and 

 strength. The two strongest and perhaps equally 

 powerful ones are the Mediterranean and Mongo- 

 lian ; and it is interesting to note the fact that the 

 two great divisions of the human family who can 

 claim a history, and who have been dominant in 

 the affairs of mankind, are the Mediterranean na- 

 tions ^nd the Mongolians. For three or four thou- 

 sand years, at least, each stock has had its peculiar 

 arrow-release, and this has persisted through all 

 the mutations of time to the present day. Lan- 

 guage, manners, customs, religions, have in the 

 course of centuries widely separated these two 

 great divisions into nations. Side by side they 

 have lived ; devasting wars and wars of conquest 

 have marked their contact ; and yet the apparent- 

 ly trivial and simple act of releasing the arrow 

 from the bow has remained unchanged. At the 

 present moment the European and Asiatic archer, 

 shooting now only for sport, practise each the re- 

 lease which characterized their remote ancestors." 



We wish it were in our power to follow our 

 author through his detailed investigations of the 

 peculiarities in the use of the bow he has dis- 

 covered in his truly marvellous study of the an- 

 cient monuments ; but that is impossible. In a 

 classified list he has given, under the heads of 

 'recent' and ^ancient,' all the tribes and nations 

 who have practised the five different kinds of re- 

 lease described, and he concludes by begging for 

 further information : — 



"Travellers and explorers ought also not only 

 to observe the simple fact that such and such peo- 

 ple use bows and arrows, but they should accu- 

 rately record, 1°, the attitude of the shaft-hand ; 

 2°, whether the bow is held vertically or hori- 

 zontally ; 3°, whether the arrow is to the right or 

 to the left of the bow vertical ; and, 4°, whether ex- 

 tra arrows are held in the bow-hand or shaft-hand. 

 The method of bracing the bow is of importance 

 also. . . . Particularly does he desire to learn the 

 release as practised by the Veddahs of Ceylon, the 

 Hill tribes of India, the tribes of Africa, South 

 America, and especially the Fuegans. Indeed, 

 any information regarding the methods of arrow- 

 release in any part of the world will be accept- 

 able." 



In answer to his inquiry, we venture the sug- 

 gestion whether it is not possible that the so-called 

 ' pierced tablets,' which are described and figured 

 by Professor Rau (Archeological collection of the 

 Smithsonian institution, p. 33) and other writers, 

 and which have given rise to so much discussion 

 among American antiquaries, may not have been 

 guards worn to protect the wrist against the recoil 

 of the bow string. H. W. H. 



THE BUTTERFLIES OF NORTH AMERICA. 



One welcomes an old friend more cordially than 

 a new ; so that when Mr. Edwards, after some 

 hesitation, starts a third series of his renowned 

 and incomparable illustrations of our native but- 

 terflies, begun twenty years ago, we are ready to 

 render the full meed of praise for his unwearied 

 energy, the success of his breeding experiments, 

 and the more than liberal, almost profuse illustra- 

 tion with which they are published. When we 

 know, in addition, that he has parted with a con- 

 siderable portion of his unique collection to obtain 

 means wherewith to launch this new series, we 

 can only hope he will find a public properly ap- 

 preciative of such zeal and sacrifice. 



This first number is a reminiscence of the past. 

 Two of the three plates represent hitherto un- 

 figured species of that wonderfully prolific boreal 

 genus A rgynnis, one from Assiniboia, and the 

 other from Utah and Arizona, with brief merely 

 descriptive text — which remind us especially of 

 his first series, where nearly seventy figures of 

 this genus were given. The remaining plate gives 

 not only the butterfly with its variations, but also 

 all the earlier stages of our Californian species of 

 Megonostoma (or, as Mr. Edwards prefers to class 

 it, Colias), with many enlarged flgui es of minor 

 details, accompanied by a tolerably full account 

 of the insect — which recalls the more definitely 

 biological character of the second series. To ob- 

 tain the earlier stages, eggs were sent from Cali- 

 fornia to West Virginia, and the caterpillars raised 

 on an Amorpha, previously sent, in Mr. Edwards's 

 garden. 



The text is not so full or interesting as the later 

 parts of the last series ; but to say that the same 

 care as before has been taken with the illustra- 

 tions, whether in faithfulness of delineation to the 

 last detail, or in truthfulness of coloring with an 

 absence of all gaudiness, is quite enough. Noth- 

 ing has ever surpassed them ; they are a perfect 

 model for such work. The same artists have been 

 connected with the work almost from the first ; 

 and though the chief artist, Mrs. Peart, can no 

 longer undertake the lithography with her own 

 hand, they receive her careful supervision. 



We can only congratulate naturalists on Mr, 

 Edwards's determination to continue publishing 

 on the same scale as before, and beg to remind 

 them, that, but for this liberality, we should 

 hardly have advanced in knowledge of the life- 

 histories of our butterflies beyond what we knew 

 when Boisduval and LeConte published their little 

 octavo — a half-century ago. 



The butterflies of North America. By W, H. Edwakds, 

 Tbird series. Parti. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 4". 



