43 



Insect Life. A monthly bulletin, published by the Entomologist and his Assistants in 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture at Washington. Vol. I, Nos. 1 to 4 ; July to 

 October, 1888. 



This new periodical "devoted to the economy and life-habits of insects, especially in 

 their relations to agriculture," is a very welcome one indeed. The four parts of thirty 

 pages each, which have thus far appeared are filled with matter of great interest to both 

 the scientific and economic entomologist. With so able and experienced a staff as that 

 at Washington, presided over by Dr. Riley, and with field agents at widely distant 

 points, this new magazine cannot fail to be most useful, and to do good work in the 

 spread of valuable and timely information. 



The Butterflies of North America. By W. H. Edwards. 



Part IY of the third series has recently been issued. It contains the usual three 

 magnificent plates; the first represents both sexes and several varieties of Colias 

 Chrysomelas, the second, the upper and under surfaces of both sexes of the lovely 

 Argynnis Nausicaa, and the third fully illustrates all the stages of Coenonympha 

 Galactinus form California. The letter-press contains much interesting matter on the 

 life histories, in addition to the descriptions of the species. 



New Work on Japanese Butterflies, by H. Pryer. 



The task of preparing and illustrating a work upon the butterflies of Japan, after the 

 model of Mr. Distant's Rhopalocera Malay ana, has been undertaken by Mr. H. Pryer, of 

 Yokohama, who, with persistent enthusiasm for the past seventeen years, has been engaged 

 in collecting the Lepidoptera of the Empire and studying their habits. The work, entitled 

 Rhopalocera Nihonica, will appear in three parts, 4to. It is printed upon Japanese 

 " untearable paper " made of a curious combination of the fibres of rice straw and silk. 

 The text is in English and Japanese. The plates are drawn upon stone and printed in 

 colours by native lithographers under Mr. Pryer's own supervision, and are truly excel- 

 lent. The first part, bearing the imprint of the Japan Mail office, is before us. The writer, 

 during a recent stay in Yokohama, had the privilege of examining a portion of the MS. 

 of the Second Part and the proofs of the plates which are intended to accompany it. It 

 may be worthy of note that the letter-press of Parts II. and III. will greatly exceed in 

 volume that of Part I. 



The Japanese islands, stretching from Shumshu, the northernmost of the Kuriles, in 

 Lat. 50° 40 1 N. to the Riu-Kiu group in Lat. 24° N., possess every variety of climate 

 from the semi-arctic to the tropical. The islands of the great central group, Yesso, 

 Nippon, Shikoku and Kiushiu, are traversed by lofty mountain ranges and dotted with 

 volcanic peaks, some of which rise from 9,000 to 10,000 ft., and one of them to 12,450 

 ft. above sea-level. Upon the summits of these mountains perennial winter reigns, while 

 at their feet a semi-tropical vegetation blooms and flourishes. In addition to the wide 

 diversity in climates which prevails in the islands and the contiguity of colder and warmer 

 climates due to the mountainous character of the country, there are more subtle influ- 

 ences at work depending for their operation upon the rainfall and the aerial currents. 

 The atmosphere is characterized in spring and early summer by an excessive humidity, 

 surpassing that of the British Islands, while at other periods of the year there is a well 

 marked " dry season." The result of these various facts, taken into connection with the 

 additional fact that at a remote geological period the islands doubtless were connected with 

 the Asiatic and North American mainland, has been the development of a fauna marked 

 by a wonderfully composite character and revealing to an unusual extent the phenomena 

 of varietal change, and, in the case of the insect tribes, seasonal dimorphism. To these 

 phenomena Mr. Pryer has paid especial attention with the result of ascertaining that not 

 a few of the so-called species erected by recent Entomologists, into whose hands Japanese 

 collections have happened to fall, must be relegated to the great and ever-growing mass 



