Abstract
THIS book is intended as an elementary guide to the insect life on the numerous islands, large and small, of the Pacific Ocean-“from the Galapagos and Hawaii to New Zealand, Sumatra and Burma, and in the area from Australia to Formosa, Japan and the Aleutians”. It is a plain, readable account, taking the insects of each order, family by family. Beginning with the true flies, it passes in descending sequence to the Orthoptera and Apterygota. At the end of the book there are brief chapters on the Arachnida and their allies (by W. J. Gertsch), on insects and disease and, finally, instructions on preserving and collecting insects. For the most part the book deals with its subject in very general terms, and says singularly little about individual Pacific insects. Even the well-known elements in the fauna of Hawaii and New Guinea scarcely receive mention. But, as the author remarks, what chance is there to say much about so many insects of which so little is known. The size of the book, indeed, limits the treatment severely. The text-figures and plates are good and, apart from misspellings on pp. 13, 140 and 141, and an erroneous account of Cactoblastis on p. 149, the book will aid the beginner who may visit the vast area under consideration.
Insects of the Pacific World
C. H.
Curran
By. (Pacific World Series.) Pp. xvi + 317 + 8 plates. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1945.) 15s. net.
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I., A. Insects of the Pacific World. Nature 159, 420 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159420c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159420c0