2 Ins. 
INSECTA. 
Murray, A. Economic Entomology. Aptera. London (no date) : 
8vo, pp. 433, woodcuts. 
The first of a proposed series of “ South Kensington Museum Science 
Handbooks, Branch Museum, Bethnal Green,” primarily intended as 
guides to the different branches of the collection of Economic Ento- 
mology in course of formation at that branch. The mechanical exigencies 
of the exhibition appear to have caused the author to revert to the use 
of the long abandoned division of Aptera, which, as here exemplified, 
includes Crustacea likely to be mistaken for insects, Myriopoda, Arach- 
nida (in the widest sense), Anoplura (both Mallophaga and Pediculidce), 
and Thysanura, — all these being classed as Insecta. Any pretension to 
Systematic Entomology is repudiated by the author, who, nevertheless, 
has not hesitated to found a family, sub-family, three genera, and thirteen 
species as new. The work, in spite of the above-mentioned faults, is a 
useful compilation of scattered descriptions, with many original observa- 
tions, and contains figures, chiefly from good authorities, of most of the 
species noticed. 
Palm^in, J. a. Zur Morphologic des Tracheensy stems. Helsingfors: 
1877, 8vo, pp. i.-x. 1-149, pis. i. & ii. 
After a general discussion of the morphology of the Tracheata, includ- 
ing the question as to which of the two chief types, the open or stigmatal 
and the closed or gill systems, is the more primitive (inclining to the 
latter), and special observation on the want of direct evidence as to the 
method in which the closed system of the larvae of Ephemeridce, &c., 
becomes a stigmatal system in the perfect insect, the author devotes 
considerable attention to the Neuroptera, with the ultimate opinion that 
uo genetic relation exists between the tracheal-gills and stigmata. The 
respiratory organs in Diptera, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, and Coleoptera 
are then discussed, so far as known, with a result (apparently only logic- 
ally derived from the Diptera) exactly similar. The tracheal-gills, in 
fact, never correspond in position precisely with the future stigmata ; 
and the persistence of the gills in the imago, heretofore considered as an 
individual malformation, or an anomalous and very restricted condition, 
is asserted to be normal in all gill-bearing Perlidoe and jEschnidce, in 
many and probably all similar Neuroptera, and presumably also in the 
small gill-bearing Lepidoptera and Coleoptera. The gills are, however, 
shed in the Ephemeridce, Agrionidce, and Diptera. The stigmata are upon 
metamorphosis opened by means of ten pairs of thin threads, which con- 
nect the closed tracheal system with the side of the body. These threads 
are believed to exist in the larva, but not to be developed, remaining us 
rudimentary tracheal-branches, and certainly representing the missing 
stigmata. 
Perris, E. Rectifications et additions k mes Promenades entomolo- 
giques. Ann. Soc. Ent. Fr. (5) vii. pp. 379-386. 
Supplementary to the paper noticed in Zool. Rec. xiii. Ins. p. 3. 
Plateau, F. Note additionelle au Mdmoire sur les phenomdnes de la 
digestion chez les Insectes. Bull. Ac. Belg. (2) xliv. pp. 710-733. 
From a series of specified observations on Coleoptera, Neuroptera, 
