No. 373] REVIEWS OF RECENT LITERATURE. 59 
of a series of short essays on the life history of a number of our 
more common insects. The matter is handled in a simple and 
straightforward manner, and is well illustrated by figures in the text 
and by several full-page plates. Although largely a compilation, it 
is written by one who has done much original work in this field; 
hence the accuracy of its statements can be depended upon. While 
the entomologist will find in its pages comparatively little that is 
new, the amateur and the teacher who is trying to interest young 
people in what is going on around them will be able to gain much 
help from it. Lio 
Weed’s Stories of Insect Life. — This book is similar in its 
purpose to the preceding, and resembles it in its method of treat- 
ment of the subject; but it is intended to be used by those who 
teach very young pupils. Such teachers will find it a helpful book. 
FEC 
BOTANY. 
North American Lemnaceæ.? — It cannot be doubted that the 
high character of the late Dr. George Engelmann’s contributions to 
botany is largely due to the judicious concentration of his energies. 
No other American botanist of such wide general experience has so 
carefully restricted his published researches to the intensive exami- 
nation of a few very difficult families and genera. Thus it was that 
Dr. Engelmann laid a sure foundation for a satisfactory classification 
of groups like Cactaceæ, Cuscuta, Juncus, Agave, Yucca, Lemnaceæ, 
and Alismaceæ. In consideration of this fact, the present director 
of the Missouri Botanical Garden could not have acted more wisely 
than in devoting so large a part of the present energies of his insti- 
tution to the completion of work so well begun by his illustrious 
predecessor. Thus the recent reports of the Garden contain a series 
of valuable papers upon Yucca, Agave, Alismaceæ, etc., which, 
although based in part upon the collections and previous work of 
Engelmann, lose none of their originality on that account, but only 
1 Stories of Insect Life, by Clarence Moores Weed. Boston, Ginn and Com- 
peA 8vo, 54 pp., with illustrations. 
“A Revision of the American Lemnaceæ Occurring North of Mexico,” by 
cas Henry Thompson. Advance separate from the Ninth Annual Report of 
the Missouri Botanical Garden, issued Nov. 1, 1897. 8vo, 22 pp., 4 pll. 
