REVIEWS. 
405 
special iDeariiig, into comparative anatomy and physiology. The text is clear 
and vigorous, the illustrations in the great majority of instances faithful to 
nature, in some cases merely fanciful and pictiu’esque, hut in all tho- 
roughly artistic. M. Figuier does not pretend to know much about his 
subject, but by the judicious use of his scissors, and the necessary amount 
of upholstery, he has given us as it were a scrap-book of entomology from 
the principal older writers on ‘‘ the life and manners of insects.” It would 
be impossible to give our readers many instances of M. Figuier’s mode of 
resorting to natural history writings, but we may select one as a type of all. 
In describing the curious Cercopidae, he wishes to explain the origin (which 
cannot even now be regarded as thoroughly established) of the peculiar 
froth which surrounds the pupa, and he thus quotes from that master of 
observation, the Swede de Geer : — 
It begins,” says the Swedish naturalist, by fixing itself on a certain 
part of the stalk, in which it inserts the end of its trunk, and remains there 
for a long time in the same attitude, occupied in sucking and filling itself 
with sap. Having then withdrawn its trunk, it remains there, or else 
places itself on a leaf, where, after difierent reiterated movements of its 
abdomen, which it raises or lowers and turns on all sides, one may see 
coming out of the hinder part of its body, a little ball of liquid, which it 
causes to slip along, bending it under its body. Beginning again the same 
movement, it is not long in producing a second ball of liquid, filled with air 
like the first, which it places side by side with, and close to, the preceding' 
one, and continues the same operation as long as there remains any sap in 
its body. It is very soon covered with a number of small balls, which, 
coming out of its body one after the othef, tend towards the front part, 
aided in this by the movement of the abdomen. It is all these collected 
together which form a white and extremely fine froth, whose viscosity 
keeps its air shut up in the globules, and prevents its froth from easily 
evaporating. If the sap which the nympha has drawn from the plant is 
exhausted before it feels itself sufficiently covered with froth, it begins 
afresh to suck, until it has got a new and sufficient quantity of froth, which 
it takes care to add to its first state.” 
Of course the book cannot be looked upon as anything higher than a 
treatise for young people, since — as in the explanation of a sexual reproduction 
of Aphides — the very best modern researches have been left unnoticed. But 
in this particular it takes a good rank, and is worth more than many such 
works as the Ocean World,” The World before the Deluge,” and so 
forth. Messrs. Chapman and Hall have taken care to have the book edited 
with care, and though we think it a pity that the editor did not, in ad- 
dition to pointing out M. Figuier’s errors, attempt to bring the work up to 
the time, we must on the whole compliment him on the result of his 
labours. The translation follows the French very closely, but without that 
disfiguring reproduction of Gallic idioms which so defaced the English 
reproductions of other of M. Figuier’s writings. Indeed, in one or two 
instances the translator’s conscientiousness has led him to reproduce pas- 
sages which are regarded as humorous on the other side of the Channel, 
but which to English readers of refinement are remarkable merely for their 
coarseness and vulgarity. We will only quote the following, which might 
