6o 



BOOK NOTICES. 



The Structure and Life-history of the Cockroach {Periplaneta 

 orientalis) : An Introduction to the study of Insects. By L. C. 



Miall, Professor of Biology in the Yorkshire College, Leeds ; 

 and Alfred Denny, Lecturer on Biology in the Firth College, 

 Sheffield. London : Reeve & Co., 8vo, cloth, pp. 224, price 7/6. 



The authors of such a book as this, treating of a special depart- 

 ment of zoology and mainly of one zoological form, and seeking to 

 furnish an introduction to the study of insects, have no ordinary 

 difficulties to face. To the popular writer on natural history, or the 

 specialist labouring at a monograph, the way is comparatively clear; 

 but in such a work as the present the needs of very different classes 

 of readers have to be met. The general reader, knowing little or 

 nothing of zoology, but anxious to learn something about insects, will 

 be attracted by the title of such a book as this ; while the scientific 

 student will be disappointed if, upon opening its pages, he finds that 

 the authors have omitted minute details, and have avoided those 

 theoretical questions to which morphological studies infallibly lead. 

 To fulfil requirements so diverse as these is no easy task, and 

 the authors of the present volume have succeeded admirably. 

 Professor Huxley had already shown, in his exquisite little work 

 on the Crayfish, that it was possible to write a book interesting and 

 profitable to general as well as scientific readers, and this was no 

 small advantage to the present authors, who, indeed, refer in their 

 preface to that deservedly popular treatise. Following similar lines, 

 the present book will, we are sure, secure a place of its own, and 

 while it will find its way rapidly into biological laboratories, it will be 

 perused with hardly less interest by non-professional readers. 



Familiar as the Cockroach is^ — too famifiar, most housemaids 

 would agree — few readers will take up this book without learning 

 very much that is new to them. There is ample evidence of patient 

 and accurate work, with an occasional correction of errors current in 

 text-books ; but in addition to this, the authors have laid under 

 contribution much of the scattered literature, referring directly or 

 indirectly to the family Blattina and their Orthopterous allies. Over 

 a hundred figures are given, some of which have appeared before, 

 but a large proportion of which are new and of high excellence. 

 We think, however, that a few additional diagrammatic figures would 

 have been useful, even more so, sometimes, than the drawing of an 

 actual preparation. Thus the sections of the alimentary canal are of 

 great value, as illustrative of the points in the text ; but only the very- 

 careful reader will appreciate the force of the statement on p. 115, that 



Naturalist, 



