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Volume 42, Number 3
245
Species, Life Cycle, Flight, Habitat, and Range were inserted in bold type in the text. The text is not cross-indexed except for a Plate number with each species description. The Guide, Atlas, and Plates sections should have included page numbers for the corresponding sections which would have helped tie the chapters together. The color plates are of good quality, and my only change would have been to adjust background colors of Plates II and IV to increase contrast. Illustrated specimens should have been numbered, with those numbers repeated in the Plate legend. This would have helped Plate II, as the extreme example, where 56 specimens are pictured, and searching the legend for the binomial name is tedious. A simple checklist at the end would have been useful to some collectors, or perhaps a box to check by each distribution map.
The faults with the book are few, and my criticisms also apply to a number of other popular books and field guides. This book is a valuable source of information. Whether or not you are ever fortunate enough to collect in North Dakota, this handsome book is a must for the naturalist.
R. D. Peterson II, Biosciences Research Laboratory, ARS-USDA, P.O. Box 5674, Fargo, North Dakota 58105.
Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 42(3), 1988, 245
The Moths of Borneo: Superfamily Bombycoidea: Families Lasiocampidae, Eupterotidae, Bombycidae, Brahmaeidae, Saturniidae, Sphingidae, by Jeremy D. Holloway. 1987. Southdene Sdn. Bhd., P.O. Box 10139, Kuala Lumpur 50704, Malaysia. 199 pages, 20 color plates. Paperback. About $35.00.
This book deviates from other faunistic treatments by including more detail on phy-logeny and ecology, particularly hostplants. The color plates were produced by Bernard D'Abrera, so are predictably of high quality. All known species in these families from Borneo are treated in the text and depicted in color, thus including a considerable portion of the Indo-Australian moth fauna. The text draws from observations and works published in Asia by resident entomologists, and manifests Holloway's own extensive field experience in the region; the result is far beyond what could be produced from study of museum specimens alone. Where new or controversial taxonomic decisions are enacted, the author faithfully provides justification or explanation.
Inclusion of Sphingidae within Bombycoidea is unexpected. Upon reading the discussion of characters to justify this, I was a little disappointed, but apparently seven synapomophies do link sphingids to other bombycoids. Such a large superfamily, now comprising 13 or 14 families worldwide, makes it difficult to designate nomenclaturally the closer relationships within the group; one wishes for a category between superfamily and family levels (or between suborder and superfamily levels) to remedy the situation. Holloway's discussion of the phylogeny of those families makes the book useful to Lepidoptera taxonomists around the world, even to those who profess no interest in moths of southeastern Asia. The book is well done. I found no typographical errors. I believe those who acquire it will wish to purchase other volumes in the series, most of which are as yet unpublished.
Richard S. Peigler, 323 Van Gordon Street, #19-523, Lakewood, Colorado 80228.