insects." Many observations have proved this, but many also are lost through field naturalists being often unable to recognise the species, nay, even the genus, of the insect whose economy or traits they have observed. It is sometimes a modern habit to decry the labours of the describer—in fact, species-monger is not an unknown term—and the taxonomist is often looked upon as a harmless enthusiast of the type of the "Scarabee" of Oliver Wendell Holmes. But how can any philosophical observation be recorded concerning a species which belongs to no nomenclature and is outside a known classification? Such a book as we now notice becomes a positive boon as much to the observant naturalist as to the future specialist. It is the code by which we identify the creatures whose habits we study, or whose bodies we preserve.
The method of this volume is in accord with that of its predecessors; but "keys" are given, to species as well as to genera, and of the last a typical illustration is always afforded. Four coloured plates are appended, and we welcome a volume we would gladly have possessed when sojourning years ago in the region to which it refers. We can speak from sad experience of how the portals of nature remain hidden by the absence of a technical guide, and of how a good taxonomic volume is not a hindrance, but frequently a positive necessity, to one who would record his observations made in the field.
The illustrations are from drawings by Horace Knight, and the chromo-lithography is the work of West, Newman & Co.
This small volume consists mainly of various papers and lectures contributed by the author to different institutions and publications during the last decade, and comprise some of a purely botanical and agricultural interest, and others of a zoological nature. Mr. Wilson has evidently an extensive knowledge of general agricultural and farming pursuits in Aberdeenshire, and has also devoted no little observation to the general fauna and flora of his county. Even under such a non-zoological
