1895.] Recent Literature. 649 
and dumpy style in which they issued the earlier volumes of the 
« American Science Series. 
At last there is a convenient work on the anatomy of the cat; a 
work which is devoted to the cat and the cat alone; which does not 
discuss foreordination or total depravity, Grimm’s law or the price of 
stocks; which tells the student plainly how to cut up the useful 
laboratory animal, tells the names of the various parts, and gets through 
when itis through. The little work of Messrs. Tower and Cutter is 
handy in size, clear in directions and intelligible in its figures and 
diagrams. It is the book we long have sought aud mourned because 
we found it not. 
Comstock’s Manual for the Study of Insects.°—For several 
years teachers and students of entomology have been waiting in eager 
anticipation for the completion of the work upon which Professor and 
Mrs. Comstock have so long been engaged. Now that it has appeared 
they have no reason to regret the delay, for the book is by far the best 
manual available to the student. It contains 700 pages, 800 figures on 
the text and six full page plates, one of which is colored. Practically 
all of the illustrations are original with the authors, the great majority of 
them having been especially engraved for this book by Mrs. Comstock. 
These figures for the most part are of unusual excellence, and the 
plates, especially IV, V and VI are of rare artistic value, and in my 
judgment are the finest examples of insect illustrations in black and 
white that have appeared in America. Any entomologist would be 
glad to frame these for his study or laboratory, and it is to be hoped 
that the publishers will see fit to print these plates on large paper for 
this purpose. 
In the preface the authors state that the book has been prepared 
especially with reference to the needs of the student who desires to 
determine “ the names and relation affinities of insects, in some such way 
as plants are classified in the well-known manuals of botany.” It has 
been possible to carry out this idea only with the larger groups, the 
number of species precluding the possibility of making keys to species. 
The keys go far enough, however, to be of great value to the teachers 
and student. 
Nineteen orders of insects are recognized, in the following sequence 
—Thysanura, Ephemerida, Odonata, Plecoptera, Isopoda, Corrodentia, 
2 A laboratory guide for the dissection of the cat by Frederic P. Gorham and . 
Ralph W. Tower. New York, Chas. Scribners Sons, 1895, pp. ix-+87. 
3 A Manual for the Study of Insects by J. H. and A. B. Comstock. Ithaca, N. 
Y. Comstock Publishing Co., 1895. Price $3.75. i 
