49 



BRITISH DRAGONFLIES. 



British Dragonflies I (Odonata). \ — | By | W. J. Lucas, B.A., 

 F.E.S. | (Author of " British Hawk Moths," "British Butterflies," &e.,),. | 

 — ] Illustrated with Coloured Plates and Black- j and-White Drawing's, 

 j — | London : | L. Upcott Gill, 170, Strand, W.C. j — | 1900. [Demy 8vo. 

 cloth, pp. xvi. + 356 + four of advertisements + 27 coloured plates, price 

 31s. 6d.]. 



This book, which for many months has been awaited with 

 considerable interest, has at length appeared, and fully justifies 

 the expectations which had been formed of it. It is just what 

 has been wanted for a long* time, and can scarcely fail to 

 accelerate the study of this order of insects. Extending- to 356 

 pages, the first 62 are comprised of five chapters, including" the 

 Introduction. Chapter II. treats of the ' Life History' in a clear 

 and interesting style; Chapter III. is devoted to ' Classification/ 

 and Chapters IV. and V. to the ' Nymph ' and ' Imago ' respec- 

 tively. To the student these two chapters will probably be the 

 most useful of this part of the book, and, indeed, too much 

 praise can scarcely be given for the exhaustive and careful way 

 in which especially the details of structure and the analytical 

 tables have been worked out, whilst the numerous accompanying 

 diagrams have been well chosen to clearly explain the text. 

 Chapter VI., "Genera and Species,' gives practically a separate 

 history of each of the British species, and thus naturally forms 

 the chief and by far the greatest portion of the book. Under 

 each species are given the synonymy ; the original description ; 

 full description of both sexes of the imago, and when known 

 also of the egg and nymph ; date of appearance ; habits ; 

 distribution. Under this last heading nearly all the known 

 localities (when properly authenticated) seem to be recorded, 

 including those in our own county of Yorkshire, though a 

 number of fresh ones can, to our own knowledge, already be 

 added to them. Perhaps nothing in the book shows more clearly 

 what there still remains to be done among the Dragonflies than 

 these paragraphs on distribution. The localities given being so 

 few, imply that but an insignificant portion of the area of Britain 

 has ever known the neuropterist's net, a condition of things 

 which it is to be hoped the advent of this book will speedily 

 change. And, under such circumstances, we scarcely yet feel 

 disposed to subscribe to the sentiment expressed in the last 

 sentence of the Introduction, 'Whether others (species) remain 

 to be discovered in the British Isles cannot of course be said, 

 but the likelihood does not seem great, and it must be confessed 

 that in all probability future changes in the total number of 



1900 February 1. P 



