598 Scientific Intelligence. 



5. The Life and Love of the Insect ; by J. Henri Eabre ; 

 translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Pp. x, 262, 

 with 12 plates. London, 1911 (Adam and Charles Black). — 

 English readers who are unfamiliar with the French language 

 and who have a taste for natural history stories will appreciate 

 the translation of this volume of essays selected from the volu- 

 minous writings of this " Insect's Homer," as the author has been 

 called. In the keenness of the observations described and the 

 vividness of the language used the ten or more volumes of Sou- 

 venirs Entomologiques are unequaled by any scientific production 

 of recent years. The stories of the life and love of the insect are 

 made to possess an interest to the sjnnpathetic reader fully equal 

 to that of an imaginative novel, and yet each statement rests 

 upon the actual observation of the writer. 



This little volume consists of eighteen essays, of which ten 

 describe the natural history of various species of elsewhere 

 prosaic dung-beetles, the remaining chapters dealing with wasps, 

 bees, weevils, and scorpions. The translation has been well 

 done. w. r. c. 



6. The Evolution of Animal Intelligence ; by S. J. Holmes. 

 Pp. v, 296, with 18 figures. New York, 1911 "(Henry Holt & 

 Company). — The subject of animal behavior and intelligence has 

 been one of the latest of the biological studies to receive sufficient 

 attention to be classed as a science. The writer of the present 

 book has done good service in presenting the subject in the stage 

 of development which the study has now reached. One quickly 

 notes the experimental attitude of the observer free from preju- 

 dice in place of the older anthropomorphic explanation of an 

 animal's behavior. 



In his treatment ot the subject the writer first discusses 

 simple reflexes and tropisms and the behavior of the protozoa. 

 Then follow chapters on instincts and modifications of behavior, 

 pleasure, pain, and the beginning of intelligence, leading finally 

 to the mental life of monkeys. It may be of interest to note that 

 the author assumes that the step from simple instincts to the 

 formation of associations by experience, that is, intelligence, has 

 been taken many times in the course of evolution. He considers 

 the Crustacea and mollusks as the lowest phyla of animals in 

 which intelligence can be satisfactorily demonstrated, w. r. c. 



Obituary. 



Professor P. 1ST. Lebedew, the Russian physicist, died in March 

 last. 



Professor Auguste Topler of Dresden, the inventor of the 

 Topler mercury pump, died in March at the age of seventy-six 

 years. 



Professor Edward Divers, from 1873 to 1899 Professor of 

 Chemistry in the Imperial University, Japan, died on March 8 in 

 his seventy-fifth year. 



Mr. George Borup, a member of the Peary North Pole Expe- 

 dition and himself planning, with Donald B. MacMillan, an 

 expedition to Crocker Land the coming summer, lost his life by 

 drowning on April 28. 



