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NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Outlines of Evolutionary Biology. By Arthur Dencly, D.Sc... 

 F.K.S. 8| X 5| in., xiv 4- 454 pages, 188 figures in text. 

 London, 1912 : Constable & Co. Price l'2s. Qd. net. 



The interest taken in the rapidl}'- accumulating results of 

 biological investigation and the bearing of these results upon 

 human problems, more especially questions relating to heredity 

 and the kindred subject of eugenics, renders it necessary that 

 the fundamental facts and principles underlying the study of 

 biology should become more widely known. It is to meet this 

 requirement that Prof. Dendy has prepared the above work, having 

 in view not only the student of biology, but the reader who has 

 had no special training in the subject. In the interests of the 

 latter the author devotes the earlier chapters to the examination 

 of two unicellular types Amoeba and Haematococcus and uses 

 them to illustrate the structure and functions of plants and 

 animals. He also deals in these earlier chapters with the 

 nature of living matter and the chemical and physical properties 

 of protoplasm. With this single exception the type-system is^ 

 avoided altogether, and we can congratulate him in his departure 

 from the stereotyped form in which the subject of biology ha& 

 hitherto been treated. The present writer must confess that 

 the chapters devoted to the evolution of sex, including therein 

 the subject of sexual reproduction in general, have proved of 

 the greatest interest. In dealing with this complex subject 

 Prof. Dendy has shown great skill ; for although technicalities 

 abound, yet the whole is treated in a very lucid manner. It 

 is also a pleasure to notice that many of the facts mentioned and 

 the illustrations given have only recently been brought before 

 the scientific woi'ld and are appearing here in a textbook for the 

 first time. Part III. is devoted to the subjects of Heredity and 

 Variation ; and although the author is guarded in his statements, 

 it appears that he is in sympathy with the view that " acquired "' 

 characters are capable of transmission to the offspring. As every 

 reader knows, this question has given rise to much controversy 

 during the last fifty years. " The fact that no satisfactory 

 mechanism for the transference of such characters from parent 

 to offspring has yet been demonstrated does not justify us in 



