78 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
Haggerstone Entomological So- 
ciety. — We are glad to hear that this 
Society is in a flourishing condition. It 
possesses a valuable library of ento- 
mological and botanical works, and has 
lately purchased a cabinet of forty 
drawers, in which to arrange the insects 
belonging to the Society. 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Species not Transmutable, nor the Result 
of Secondary Causes ; being a Critical 
Examination of Mr. Darwins work 
entitled ‘ Origin and Variation of Spe- 
cies.’ By C. R. Bree, Esq., M.D., 
F.L.S. London: Groombridge & Sons, 
5, Paternoster Row. 
This work is intended as a critical reply 
to Mr. Darwin’s celebrated work, the 
title of which is, however, incorrectly 
quoted by Dr. Bree in his title-page. 
On the title-page of our copy of Darwin’s 
volume we read as follows : 4 On the 
Origin of Species by means of Natural 
Selection, or the preservation of favoured 
Races in the struggle for Life’; so that 
we are somewhat perplexed to know why 
Dr. Bree should say that Mr. Darwin’s 
work is entitled 4 Origin and Variation of 
Species.’ Mr. Wollaston, it is true, did 
write a work 4 On the Variation of Spe- 
cies,’ but Mr. Wollaston is a perfectly 
distinct individual from Mr. Darwin, and 
their views on the question at issue are, 
we believe, as nearly as possible diame- 
trically opposite. 
We are purposely explicit on this 
point, as Dr. Bree appears to suspect 
(see page 42) that Mr. Wollaston has 
become a convert to Mr. Darwin’s views, 
and with some people it is very painful 
even to be suspected of heresy. 
Dr. Bree’s aim appears to have been to 
follow Mr. Darwin’s arguments chapter 
by chapter, and to meet assumptions by 
opposing facts. Occasionally Mr. Dar- 
win’s propositions are held up to ridicule : 
we believe that this will give great 
offence to the followers of Mr. Darwin, 
but is it really possible altogether to 
avoid doing so ? 
In some cases Dr. Bree, with the 
keenest irony, adds no comment of his 
own, but contents himself with quoting 
a sentence verbatim from Mr. Darwin. 
All the authorities who have recently 
written on the subject are carefully cited 
in opposition te-Mr. Darwin’s views, and 
Agassiz, Owen and others are quoted 
continually in the pages of this volume. 
The subject of blind cave-beetles is 
one which necessarily has special claims 
on the attention of entomologists, and 
on that point Dr. Bree gives the fol- 
lowing extract from a paper by Mr. 
Murray, published in the ‘Edinburgh 
New Philosophical Journal’: — 
“ The most striking fact, and the one 
which to my mind disposes of the whole 
matter, is the existence of species of the 
same genera of eyeless insects, existing 
in the vast subterranean isolated caves of 
Carinola, allied, and exceedingly closely 
allied, to similar species in the caves of 
Hungary; to similar but different spe- 
cies in the caves of the Pyrenees; to 
similar but different species in the caves 
of Auvergne; and, more than all, to 
similar but different species of the same 
genera in the Mammoth Cave of Ken- 
tucky. Each of those set of caves has a 
different set of species of the same 
genera, and all very closely allied. The 
physical condition of the place being the 
same, the product has been the same; 
but not by immigration, nor any means 
of distribution which we can imagine. 
Can identical species (for remember the 
