6936 



Notices of New Books. 



Nurseries of Gallfly larvae, 

 Little white and footless maggots, 

 Are not built by skill instinctive 

 Of the quiet pent up inmate, 

 Or its winged and wandering parent. 

 But are merely strange distortions, 

 Caused by buoyant sap diverted 

 From its true and proper channels ; 

 Yet how uniformly fashioned ! 

 How alike in size and figure 

 Those each kind of fly produces ! 

 How unlike to every other ! 

 All the Gallflies are small insects, 

 With antennae very simple. 

 And with bodies flattened sideways. 

 And divided in the middle 

 Into nearly equal portions, 

 Called the abdomen and thorax ; 

 And the female has a borer, 

 Almost all Gallflies are female, 

 With which instrument she pierces 

 Leaves or tiny twiglike branches, 

 Laying eggs within the fissure ; 

 Her clear wings are almost rayless, 

 And her feet are all fivejointed." 



P. 36. 



This will give the readers of the ^ Zoologist' a clear conception of 

 the plan of the work. All the natural families of insects known in 

 Britain are described in this exact manner ; and no word, not even 

 the familiar antennae," is used for the first time without an accom- 

 panying explanation. Thus it is impossible even for those small wits 

 whom we so often find purposely mispronouncing a word, in order to 

 show how difficult and how unintelligible is Science, — it is impossi- 

 ble, we say, even for them to make out their own case. The names, 

 owing perhaps to the musical termination, adapt themselves wonder- 

 fully to the octosyllabic metre of ^Hiawatha,' which has doubtless 

 been adopted on account of the facility with which it may be com- 

 mitted to memory. This facility is unequalled, as every one must 

 have found who has read the original attentively : it seems to linger 

 in the mind that makes no effort to retain it, and to mingle itself with 

 our passing thoughts, whatever be their theme. Such an assistance 

 is invaluable where so much depends on memory ; and we cannot 

 doubt that this alone, independent of its higher merits, will render 

 the * Insect Hunters ' a lasting favourite with all who will con- 



