166 
99 parts water for forty-eight hours, advice evidently not based on ex- 
perience and not appreciative of the ease with which tobacco is spoiled 
for the trade. 
Popular Entomology.°—We have just received from the author, Mr. 
William Hamilton Gibson, the well-known magazine artist, a popular 
work on natural history, which for abundance, elegance, and delicacy 
of illustrations and careful presswork has seldom been surpassed in 
publications of its character. 
The work consists of short, chatty chapters, wonderfully varied and 
changing in topic, dealing with the curious or striking in various fields 
of natural history, but particularly with entomological and botanical 
subjects. No general plan or order of subjects is followed. The book 
is divided into four parts, viz, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, 
and the various topics are grouped in each as they would be suggested 
to one sauntering daily out of doors with no other thought than to ex- 
plain any strange or curious object or phenomena connected with ani- 
mate nature. 
The studies are for the most part, as he says, from his own observa- 
tions and experience of early years, and are written in popular style. 
The accuracy of the illustrations, together with the diversity of obser- 
vations of curious and striking facts, original with the author, but for 
the most part common and well known to students, sustain the author’s 
claim to *‘ sharp eyes” indicated in the title. 
This, together with his fertility in explanation of the phenomena 
observed, makes the work especially valuable for the hands of children 
and young people, for whom it was more particularly designed. 
The author is evidently most at home and does his best work in the 
entomological field, and his popularization of the marvels of insect par- 
asitism, as illustrated in the chapter on “The Bewitched Cocoon of 
Polyphemus” and ‘Those Puzzling Cocoon Clusters” (Microgaster), are 
particularly good in matter and illustrations. Of almost equal interest 
are many other chapters, as, for instance, ‘The Brownie-jugs and the 
Brownie” (Humenes fraterna), “A Butterfly Serenade” (the voice of An- 
tiopa), and many others. 
Chapters on the curious in plant life are scattered through the work, 
and also chapter on birds, ete. 
The illustrations, of which there are over 300, are, with one or two 
exceptions, executed by the author, are original and pleasing in design, 
remarkably accurate in delineation of habits and form, and give the 
work much of the value it possesses, the figure of Thalessa ovipositing 
being an apparent adaptation of the studies on this insect recorded in 
Vol. 1 of INSECT LIFE. 
*“Sharp Eyes: A rambler’s iendee of fifty- A Sas among Tae Birds, and 
Flowers. By William Hamilton Gibson. Illustrated by the author. New York: Har- 
per & Bros., Franklin Square. 1892. [ Sic! ] 
