268 
The Irish Naturalist 
December, 
I did not succeed in finding any more of V. Orobus at Tait's 
Hill, and searched several other patches of rocky ground in 
the neighbourhood without success, but there are some more 
mountain pastures in the district which I hope to explore 
next year, in order to define the distribution of this plant 
more accurately. 
lyarne. 
REVIEWS. 
THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF INSECTS. 
Entomologry, with .special reference to its Biological and Bconomic 
Aspects. By Justus Watson Foi^som, Sc.D., Pp. viii. + 435. 
With 5 plates and 300 text figures. London: Rebman Ltd., 1906. 
Price 14^-. net. 
The author of this beautifully produced book, who is lecturer on 
entomology in the University of Illinois, has favoured both students and 
teachers by its composition and publication. Our knowledge of insects 
grows so rapidly that a fresh presentation of the whole subject of ento- 
mology is always welcome, and Dr. Folsom, who is well known to 
zoologists for his researches into the morphology and embryology of the 
CoUembola, has proved himself excellently fitted for the task. 
At the commencement of the book, the author gives us a summary 
classification, indicating by the way his views on phylogeny and relation- 
ships. He upholds the monophyletic nature of the Arthropoda and the 
kinship between the Insecta and Crustacea, which has been recently ad- 
vocated by Hansen, Lankester, and Carpenter, rejecting the dismember- 
ment of the Arthropoda into a number of separate phyla as proposed b}' 
Packard and other zoologists. The only feature of this introductory 
chapter to which serious exception can be taken is the position of the 
Coleoptera in the diagnostic list of orders, between the Diptera and Lepi- 
doptera, and in the diagram of phylogeny between the Thysanura and 
Orthoptera. Surely a kinship with the Neuroptera is far more probable 
than either of these alternatives. 
No space in the book has been devoted to any systematic survey of the 
orders of insects. Consequently the author has ample space at his dis- 
posal for dealing fully with morphology, embryology and metamorphosis, 
aquatic adaptations, colour, the origin of adaptations and species, the 
life relationship of insects among themselves, with other animals, and 
with plants, their behaviour, their distribution in space and time, and 
their economic importance. In the excellent chapter on anatomy and 
physiology, occupying 120 pages, the account of the nervous system and 
