NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 439 



of mica, and permitted Mr. Taylor to make some curious obser- 

 vations, of which a summary is given (p. 248). But the entire 

 chapter on Caddis-worms (Chap. V.) is full of interesting details. 

 Hardly less instructive is the chapter on " Insects of the Sea- 

 shore " (pp. 370-381). When examining, after a day's shore- 

 shooting, the contents of the stomachs of various plovers and 

 sandpipers, which seek their living chiefly between high and low 

 water-mark, we have been at times surprised to notice the 

 quantity and variety of insect life which these birds contrive to 

 pick up on the sea margin, though often so comminuted by the 

 action of the gizzard, as to render identification difficult, and 

 often impossible, the most conspicuous fragments being portions 

 of the hard, horny wing-cases of small beetles. We should have 

 supposed that immersion in saltwater would not only have killed 

 these insects, but have rendered them so unpalatable and innu- 

 tritious as to cause them to be rejected by the birds. But this 

 does not appear to be the case. Prof. Miall says : — 



" The saltness of sea-water might be expected to prove disagreeable, if 

 not injurious, to insects, but there is little proof that such is actually the 

 case. Insects, when forcibly submerged, survive about as long in salt 

 water as in fresh. Many are not easily wetted by water. The hairs with 

 which some are covered, and the dense, glossy chitin of others, prevent 

 effectual wetting. The surface film of water will not pass into small 

 openings such as the mouth, or the spiracles, or the spaces between close-set 

 hairs. . . . Packard dredged up live Chironomus larvae in Salem harbour, 

 and not a few dipterous larvae have been found established in brine-vats. 

 Plateau has drawn up a list of nearly eighty species of insects and 

 Arachnidae which, though they cannot swim, and breathe only gaseous air, 

 inhabit the sea-shore and undergo daily, or at least frequent, immersion." 



Some idea of the abundance of insect food which wading- 

 birds find along the shore may be gathered from the remarks 

 which follow. Prof. Miall mentions a number of dipterous and 

 coleopterous species which are found between high and low water- 

 mark, and describes their habits and transformations in a way 

 calculated to awaken the highest curiosity in the reader to make 

 their acquaintance. With such a chapter as this to guide him, 

 no observant naturalist need spend a dull day at the seaside. 

 The concluding chapter in the book deals with what are termed 

 " The Contrivances of Aquatic Insects " — modes of locomotion, 

 methods of capturing food, respiration, and so forth. Attack and 



