An illustrated Natural History of British Moths. By E. Newman.
(Tweedie.)—Mr. Newman has made of this a very complete work, exactly, in fact, what might be expected from an enthusiastic and experienced follower of a pursuit of which he remarks in his preface that, "unlike many of our human avocations, it has no alloy." His book contains a full account of the appearance, habits, dm., of each species, this account extending to the caterpillar as well as to the perfect insect, and also giving dates of appearance and localities. When we say that there are nineteen hundred moths known in England, our readers will perceive that the work of description is no small one, and that it does not find a large octavo of nearly five hundred pages too much for its requirements. We could have wished, and doubtless Mr. Newman agrees with us, that the illustrations had been coloured; but colour must have largely increased the cost of the book ; as it is, the engravings are made as effective as circumstances admit by their fidelity to size and other details. Moth-hunting is a common enthusiasm, especially among boys ; though Mr. Newman's work is too large t3 be called a handbook, it will serve as an admirable volume of reference by which the captives of the day may be identified.
It is quite impossible to do justice to the interest and value of such a collection of papers as we have in the .T7 ansactions of the international Congress of Prehistoric Arclacology (1868). (Longmans.) We. may notice as a specimen the communication by Professor Paul Broca on certain human remains found in one of the Dordogne caves. The Pro- fessor infers from their peculiarity that they belonged to a race "which, in some of its characteristics, attained the highest and noblest degrees of human morphology, and in others descended even below the most degraded anthropological types of the present day." We cannot pre- tend to judge of the value of this speculation, but it has a very interesting
look. Another paper which is particularly worthy of attention is that on quartzite implements found in Southern India, by R. Bruce Foote, of the Indian Geological Survey. But surely there could not be anything more lame than the suggested explanation of the fact of what the writer calls an " immensely numerous collection in a small space." Mr. Bruce Foote rightly rejects the idea of a " manufactory " as being inconsistent with a savage condition, but what of his own idea that the spot may have been "a favourite fishing-ground resorted to by the quartzite folk
on their catamarans or log rafts, from which their weapons might easily and frequently be washed during sudden squalls "? The Serpentine was the favourite fishing-ground of a very dense population; we wonder whether there have been discovered any such numerous deposits of hooks, &c.
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