The African continent has a rich fauna of insects, many of which are unstudied. This monograph treats one such group known as the small carpenter bees. Thirteen biological species in a new genus are described and a key for identification and details of their nests and natural enemies are given.

Cladistic analysis based on internal male female reproductive characters and external characters is used to group exemplar taxa in the carabid tribe Platynini. A classification, key to genera in North America, and a key to species groups of Agonum in North America north of Mexico are presented. The Agonum extensicolle species group comprises seven species: A. cyanope (Bates); A. extimum Liebherr, n.sp.; A. parextimum Liebherr n. sp.; A. texanum (LeConte); A. extensicolle (Say); A. decorum (Say); A. elongatulum (Dejean). Analyses of infraspecific geographic variation show: 1 ) A. texanum is biometrically uniform over the center of its range whereas individuals from outlying populations deviate in several measurements; 2) A. extensicolle is a variable species, with clinal changes in biometry and color ocurring across its range; 3) A. decorum is polymorphic for color and setation, and clinally variable in biometric characters. Across the group, flight apparatus development is inversely correlated with the amount of genetic heterogeneity measured by starch-gel electrophoresis. Electrophoretic, qualitative morphological, and biometric data are used to estimate phylogenetic relationships in the A. extensicolle group. The electrophoretic and morphological data produce compatible estimates of phylogeny. The biometric data are incompatible with the other data and are judged less useful for estimation of affinities. Distributional data are utilized in conjunction with the proposed phylogeny to investigate speciation events in the group. The principal mechanism is allopatric speciation brought about by vicariance across the lowlands of southeastern Arizona; the Cochise filter barrier. A second pattern involves a peripheral isolate of Antillean stock diverging on the Florida peninsula. A third speciation event involves a habitat shift in which a lowland desert form produced a species which now inhabits the pine-oak zone in the Sierra Madre Occidental. The area-taxon relationships are compared with those in other groups. Based on an electrophoretic clock calibrated using data from Drosophila, the timing of the initial speciation event in the group is estimated at 6-12 million years b.p. Other speciation events occurred throughout the Pliocene and Pleistocene, with the most recent divergence of A. decorum and A. elongatulum estimated at less than two million years b.p.

This volume concludes the taxonomy and classification of the family Cerambycidae of America north of Mexico. This part includes the remainder of the subfamily Lamiinae, tribes Acanthocinini, Cyrtinini, Saperdini, Phytoeciini, Tetraspini, and Hemilophini. The 32 genera and 138 species are all fully described with keys included to separate all taxa. Complete synonymical bibliographies are presented along with 54 illustrations.

Recently another book on insect physiology was published. It was restricted to a few focal points as are many of these new insect physiology books, but there was considerable depth in its specialized point of view. We were dis cussing the structure of this book and of insect physiology books, in general, when Prof. Remmert asked me " . . . and what about books on spider physio logy?" Silence. Then I started to explain "oh yes, there is a congress pro ceedings volume on this topic and there is a group with excellent publica tions on another topic . . . ", but I felt that this answer was weak. One can no longer buy the proceedings volume in a bookshop and to read a series of publications on a given topic one must search in a library for a dozen journals. Why is there not a single book on spider physiology comparable with the many books on insect physiology? Are spiders a scientific ivory tower, far from public interest and commercial importance? I do not think so, although spiders are one of the many "forgotten" animal groups which always grew in the shadow of the insects. There are research groups working on spider physiology, there are fascinating phenomena in this animal group and there are plenty of exciting results. Spiders may have been always underresearch ed, but research is progressing. In the last few years, new books have been published, e. g.