Bt Re ae 
Se Grae E 
De hes Carag ete 
1878. ] ` Recent Literature. i 545 
striking habits, indoors and out, of these interesting creatures, it is 
oS best and mọst original book i in- our lan nguag e. Lending a 
cocoons for.housing the eggs. e naturalness of the drawings, 
- especially those of the spiders standing on tip-toe (viz: Figs 40, 
41, 42); of the spiders laying eggs (Figs. 56, 57, 58, 59, 60), have 
certainly never been surpassed. In all these matters our author's 
many years’ observations of spiders and their ways, and his facile 
pencil, as seen not only in the drawings of the entire spiders, but 
also the pope details, aS this little book the air not only 
of the work of an adept in the difficult art of observation, which 
makes the book thoroughly a ei and interesting to the young, 
but it is really, in its way, an admirable, authoritative monograph. 
The figure (8) on page 20, illustrating i in a general manner the 
internal eee of a spider, is a most weil drawing, and 
not surpassed for clearness and intelligibility. We congratulate 
the author on the success of his first literary venture, and the 
publisher on the beautiful and tasteful dress of the book, and trust 
that the remainder of the series will add to the number, now so 
small, of American books for American boys and girls, which 
shall not only instruct but attract them strongly to the study of 
nature in the fields and woods, or at least out of doors. 
ur main cause for fault- finding with Mr. Emerton’s book is 
that there is not more of it. At times heis too brief; fifty pages 
more would have added to its value, and in some places he might 
have entered into longer explanations without wearying his 
readers. On page 12 we should have preferred the word cephalo- 
thorax, or head-thorax, instead of thorax. There is little in the 
book which is not original, most of it will be quite new to 
naturalists, and we anticipate that it will give a fresh stimulus to 
the study of spiders, which have such highly-developed reasoning 
powers, and which, the more we know them, become the more 
E despite their repulsive exterior and often disagreeable 
manne 
THE NATURALISTS’ DIRECTORY FOR 18781—The title given 
below so well characterizes this useful publication that we need 
but call attention to a new feature in the work, n the addition 
of a list of scientific societies, clubs, museums, , in the United 
States and Canada, with the addresses of ae Pree and 
Secretaries. Thou ugh on casual examination we notice one or 
two errors, the work of compilation, difficult enough to perform 
theres ae fer 1878, containing ay names of the Naturalists of 
Amerie north of , arrang oe teesi r by departments; also a list 
of s ientific pren per a wAn ogue of o sara scientific books, arranged by 
dited by asa E. Cassi g - Salem, Naturalists’ Agency, 1878. 
