584 Recent Literature. [June, 
another danger which flows directly from the same or a similar 
attitude on the part of heads of bureaus. These gentlemen, by 
filling up the academy with their employees can obtain practical 
control of its decisions. This would be immensely convenient to 
them under various circumstances, but it would introduce an ele- 
ment of corruption into the academy from which it has been 
hitherto happily free, and which would deprive it of the respect 
and confidence of the country. So long as the bureaus remain 
under the direction of their present- heads, such contingency is 
remote; but changes for various reasons, political or otherwise, 
are by no means impossible. It is easier to provide against pos- 
sible evils than to reform them when they are upon us, 
—— The papers read at the late meeting of the National 
Academy of Sciences include several of first-class importance in 
systematic analysis. Such is the paper of Mr. Scudder on the 
palzozoic insects, and such that of Dr. Sterry Hunt on the classi- 
fication of the natural silicates. Of the same character was the 
paper of Professor Gill on the orders of fishes; and to the same 
class belongs that of Professor Cope on the phylogeny of the 
placental Mammalia. These memoirs, if published in extenso in 
the next volume of the memoirs of the National Academy, will 
give it a value commensurate with the place the society holds 
among those of the country. Of almost equal but less compre- 
hensive importance were the three papers read by Professor 
Packard on Palzozoic Crustacea, and by Professor Cope on the 
Pretertiary Vertebrata of Brazil. The papers in other depart- 
ments were less important than is sometimes the case at the 
meetings of the academy, 
a 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
against destructiv ts, and the economic compensations of the 
more extensive losses from the depredations of insects; general 
introduction to systematic and practical entomology. 
1 Lehrbuch der Mitteleuropiischen Darig aiene mit einem Anhange: Die 
£ Sey Vwi É achte Auflage von Dr. J. T. C. RATZEBURG Die 
o Taret wat ihre Feinde. In vollständiger Tea herausgegeben von 
ENE JupEIcH und De. H. NitscuHe. 1. Abtheilung, Ratzeburg’s Leben, Einlei- 
tung, Allgemeiner Theil. Wien., E. Hölzel, 1885, 8vo., pp. 264. 
