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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Conte has revised the essay, which appeared 

 in the November Monthly, on the " Correla- 

 tion of the Vital with the Physical and 

 Chemical Forces," which is here reproduced ; 

 and an able lecture by Prof. Bain, on the 

 " Correlation of the Nervous and Mental 

 Forces," gives an instructive view of this 

 branch of the subject. This little volume 

 will therefore afford a fresh and complete 

 exposition of the elements of the subject 

 for the use of general readers. 



On the Origin and Metamorphoses op In- 

 sects. By Sir John Lubbock, M. P., 

 F. R. S. Illustrated. New York : Mac- 

 millan & Co. 18*74. 108 pp., crown 8vo. 

 Price, $1.50. 



Sir John Lubbock i3 well known to the 

 world as an archaeologist and anthropolo- 

 gist, and perhaps less well as an entomolo- 

 gist. Yet he has contributed no less than 

 thirty-five papers to the Royal Society, and 

 to various magazines, on entomology, dur- 

 ing the last twenty years ; and, as he is not 

 yet forty, we perceive that he must have 

 studied the subject at a very early age. His 

 first paper, " On Labidocera," appeared in 

 the Annals and Magazine of Natural His- 

 tory for 1853. 



The little work before us embodies, in a 

 popular form, many of the more interesting 

 results of his observations, condensed from 

 the above-mentioned memoirs. The articles 

 have already appeared in Nature, and the 

 work forms the second volume of the " Na- 

 ture Series " of books, which Messrs. Mac- 

 mill an are now publishing. 



The main subjects discussed are the 

 classification, origin, and the nature of the 

 different metamorphoses of insects ; various 

 views are traced, from the old standard 

 " Entomology " of Kirby and Spence, one 

 of the Bridgewater Treatises, to the more 

 recent memoirs of Miiller, Agassiz, and 

 Packard. The intelligence of insects comes 

 out in a remarkable light. Many of our 

 readers will remember Sir John's tame wasp 

 at a recent meeting of the British Associa- 

 tion. He remarks : " We are accustomed to 

 class the anthropoid apes next to man in 

 the scale of creation, but, if we were to judge 

 animals by their works, the chimpanzee and 

 the gorilla must certainly give place to the 

 bee and the ant." For example (page 2), 

 the larvae of certain insects require animal 



food as soon as they are hatched, and the 

 mother-insect consequently provides them 

 with caterpillars and beetles, by burying 

 them in a cell, side by side with the un- 

 hatched larva. But here a difficulty arises : 

 " If the Cerceris were to kill the beetle be- 

 fore placing it in the cell, it would decay, 

 and the young larva, when hatched, would 

 only find a mass of corruption. On the 

 other hand, if the beetle were buried unin- 

 jured, in its struggles to escape it would be 

 almost certain to destroy the egg." Look, 

 then, at the wonderful, but diabolical, in- 

 stinct of the creature. " The wasp has the 

 instinct of stinging its prey in the centre of 

 the nervous system, thus depriving it of mo- 

 tion, and let us hope of suffering, but not 

 of life ; consequently, when the young larva 

 leaves the egg, it finds ready a sufficient 

 store of wholesome food." A certain spe- 

 cies of ants keeps Aphides in bondage, just 

 as we do cows, for the sake of the honey-dew 

 which they collect ; a certain kind of red 

 ant is indolent, and keeps black ants to do 

 work for it. Once more, there is a kind 

 of beetle which is blind and helpless, usu- 

 ally found in ants' nests ; the ants care for 

 all their wants and nurse them tenderly. 

 These things, and much more, of the lives 

 of insects, are told us in popular language 

 in Sir John's book, which we recommend, 

 not alone to the entomologist, but to the 

 general reader. — Quarterly Journal of Sci- 

 ence. 



Henslow's Botanical Charts. Revised 

 and adapted for Use in the United 

 States. By Eliza A. Youmans. Mount- 

 ed on Rollers. Six in Number. Price, 

 $18.00. 



The botanical diagrams of the late Prof. 

 J. S. Henslow, of Cambridge University, 

 have long had a high reputation in England 

 for their scientific accuracy, their complete- 

 ness of illustration, and their skillful ar- 

 rangement for educational purposes. They 

 consisted of nine large sheets, and were 

 published by the Science and Art Depart- 

 ment of the English Educational Council. 

 After bringing out her method of element- 

 ary botany in the First and Second Books, 

 Miss Youmans felt the need of large colored 

 illustrations of the subject ; and, as Hens- 

 low's series was the most valuable yet pre- 

 pared in any country, and too expensive to 



