Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/209

Rh be allowed to live with them on the friendly terms mentioned by the observer.

Mr. A.H. Swinton communicated a paper "On Display and Dances by Insects."

Mr. J.W. Slater communicated a paper "On the Secondary Sexual Characters of Insects."

Part V. of the 'Transactions' for 1877, containing index, title-page, &c, was on the table.— Hon. Sec.

liberal aid which is given to Science by the Government of the United States affords an example which the Government of this country would do well to imitate. By defraying the cost of printing important scientific works, the limited sale for which might deter most publishers from undertaking their publication, the State confers an inestimable boon, not only on students, but on the whole scientific world at large.

The volume before us, which has been brought out under the auspices of the American Government, is one of the most important of the series that has yet appeared. It may be described as a very careful Monograph of the Rodents of North America, and from the well-known zoological ability of the authors it will assuredly form a text-book for all students of American Zoology.

A contemporary thus ably epitomises the contents:—"The classification adopted by the authors divides the order Rodentia into two well-known sub-orders, Simplicidentati, with two, and Duplicidentati, with four, incisor teeth in the upper jaw, the latter including the Leporidæ, or true Hares, and the Lagomyidæ, 'Pikas,' or Calling Hares, both of which families are treated by Dr. Allen. Of the nine families into which the much larger group of the Simplicidentati is divided, the Muridæ, Zapodidæ, Saccomyidæ, Haplodontidæ, and Geomyidæ are described by Dr. Coues; and the Sciuridæ, Castoridæ, Hystricidæ, and Castoroididæ by Dr.