Reviews and Book Notices. 



57 



cause, seeing that the same fact appHes to the neighbouring 

 districts, where the Long-tailed Titmouse stih nests : — ' Can 

 these Long-tailed Tits have been driven from upper Wharf edale 

 by the overwhelming numbers of the other members of the Tit 

 family ? This is the only apparent reason for their disappearance 

 that occurs to m}^ mind, seeing that the others have increased 

 so much.' 



The New Book of Animals. New and Revised Edition, by Horace 

 Q. Qroser. London : Andrew Melrose. 326 pp., 6/- net. 



This is a large book, and printed in good, bold type, and is very cheap 

 at 6/-. It deals chiefly with the Kangaroo, Buffalo, Lion, Tiger, Elephant, 

 Rhinoceros, Gorilla, and other animals of particular interest to boys and 

 girls, for whom it would make an excellent gift-book. The text is not too 

 technical, and the illustrations are both numerous and good. 



The Country Home. Vol. L, 1908. Constable & Co., 380pp., 5/- net. 



This attractive volume contains the first six monthly parts of ' The 

 Country- Home,' already referred to in these pages, and in its present form, 

 is exceedingly useful as a present. It contains numerous well-illustrated 

 articles, those having natural history inclinations, being ' The Wild Cat,' 

 ' The Flowers of Spring,' ' Galls and Gall Flies,' ' Nesting Boxes and Bird 

 Tables,' ' The Stoat,' ' Snails/ etc. 



The Moths of the British Isles. Second Series, by Richard 

 South, F.E.S. (Wayside and Woodland Series). F. Warne & Co., 1908. 

 Price 7/6. 



We hail wdth pleasure the appearance of this volume, which, called 

 ' Second Series,' is, in reality, the second and concluding volume of the 

 ' Moths of the British Isles, or the third volume on the British Macro- 

 Lepidoptera, the first one dealing with the Butterflies alone. As it is 

 got up in the same way, and in precisely the same form as was the previous 

 volume on the ' Moths,' little need be said in addition to what we wrote 

 in the notice on it, which appeared in the ' Naturalist ' of March 1908, 

 p. 112; but the eulogium we passed on that volume can also be given to this. 

 The volume before us treats of the remaining portion of the Noctuae, 

 followed by all the Geometrae, and finishing with the smaller groups of 

 the ' Bumets,' ' Clearwings,' ' Swifts,' etc. Its ninety-six coloured plates 

 contain natural size figures of 873 moths, and in addition there are 

 sixty-three plates in black-and-white, containing 335 figures, chiefly of 

 the eggs, larvae, and pupae. The plates in the two volumes on the ' Moths ' 

 contain the extraordinary number of 1208 figures, besides illustrations in 

 the text pages. The black-and-white figures seem to be excellent through- 

 out, and with a few exceptions, the coloured ones are equally good, 

 though the ' greens ' in the ' Emerald ' moths are mostly too pale, and not 

 sufficiently bright. The author, too, has evidently figured a specimen of a 

 pale, but still brown-marked form of Cidaria sufumata as the ab. porrittii, 

 whereas the types from which Robson described and named the variety 

 were practically black and white only, and quite unlike this figure, though, 

 no doubt, the extreme limit of the form illustrated. There are also one 

 or two ' slips ' in the letterpress, as on page 114, where Skipton Common 

 is given as a locality for Acidalia straminata, instead of Skipwith Common, 

 This is unfortunate, as we scarcely expect to see stvammata at Skipton. 

 Elsewhere in the volume, too, Skipwith is printed as Skipworth ; and 

 there is clearly something wrong in the second paragraph on Catocala 

 fraxini at page 79. But altogether, errors are remarkably few, and the 

 three daintily elegant volumes together now form a cheap but reliable 

 work, by means of which any young beginner ought to make progress in 

 the study of the macro-lepidoptera far more rapidly than could have been 

 done, even but a few years ago. G. T. P, 



1909 February i 



