298 Recent Literature, [ March, | | 
of Natural History occupies a more substantial basis than before — 
as an active scientific institution, advancing as well as diffusing $ 
natural knowledge. The numbers thus far published are sll 
additions to biology and would do credit to any institution. The 
articles are thus far all by Mr. R. P. Whitfield, the able curator of 
palzontology, and refer to the palzozoic fossils of New York, 
Iowa, Indiana and Illinois, besides his “ Description of Limes 
by unfavorable conditions of life.” The partly colored plate 
illustrating this essay, is a beautiful one. The most valuable 
palzontological paper is Mr. Whitfield’s observations on the pur- 
pose of the embryonic sheaths of Endoceras, and their bearing 
on the origin of the siphon in the Orthocerata. 
Emerton’s New Encianp Spipers'.—This brochure contains | 
descriptions of the New England species of the family Theridida, 
and is illustrated with twenty-four excellent photo-lithographi¢ : 
plates. These spiders are small and slender, spinning webs, otten 
of large size, and living in them, hanging by their claws, back 
downward, and catching and eating the insects which become & 
tangled among the threads. In many species the colors afè 
: b 
red coral and other important types. The illustrations ARE 
by the author, whose facile use of the pencil is only equaled by 
shaped and covered over by a growth of polyps of the a 
rian coral Gerardia. The body of the crustacean is COV s 
1From the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, © 
vi. 1882. 8vo, p. 86. H DE 
2? Histoire de la Laura gerardia, type nouveau de Crustacé parasite. Par BT 
caze-D uTHIERS. Institute de France, Memoires de 1’ Academie des ee: 
Extrait du Tome XLII., Paris, 1882, 4to, p. 160, 8 plates. E 
