REVIEWS 351 



ZOOLOGY 



Animal Life and Human Progress. Edited by Arthur Dendy, F.R.S. 

 [Pp. vii + 227, with one plate and several diagrams and illustrations.] 

 (London : Constable & Co., Ltd., 1919. Price 10s. bd. net.) 



This book is a collection of nine public lectures delivered at King's College, 

 London, in 1917-18, under the auspices of the Imperial Studies Committee of the 

 University of London. Such contributors as Dendy, Bourne, Tate Regan, 

 J. Arthur Thomson, Punnet, Herdman, Newstead, Leiper, and Wood-Jones, have 

 written articles of first-rate value on a number of different topics, all, however, 

 relating to Man and the Animal Kingdom. Dendy gives some account of his late 

 work on grain and grain-destroying Coleoptera, and discusses in an attractive way 

 the question of Man's Account with the Lower Animals. Prof. G. C Bourne 

 deals with "Some Educational and Moral Aspects of Zoology" in a characteristic 

 and able manner ; he points out how the Germans have misinterpreted the message 

 of Darwin to mean the promiscuous introduction into ethics of brutal conceptions, 

 and of a bellicose application of the doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest. He 

 points out how this had become a cult among ultra-patriotic Germans, and with 

 what result. The next essay is that of Tate Regan, and treats of Museums, Fish- 

 glue, and Research. Prof. J. Arthur Thomson writes on " Man and the Web of 

 Life," the "Web" being the "external systematisation of interrelations," social 

 and otherwise, of man and his neighbour. Prof. Wood-Jones writes a deeply in- 

 teresting article on the "Origin of Man." He vigorously attacks the old school 

 of thought that directly associated man's uprising and origin with that of the apes. 

 He considers Man arose not on a direct line or single common stem from the apes, 

 but that " Man is no new-begot child of the ape, bred of a struggle for existence 

 upon brutish lines, nor should the belief that such is his origin, oft dinned into his 

 ears by scientists, influence his conduct. Were he to regard himself as an ex- 

 tremely ancient type, distinguished chiefly by the qualities of his mind, and to look 

 upon the existing primates as the failures of his line, as his misguided and brutish 

 collaterals, rather than as his ancestors, I think it would be something gained for 

 the ethical outlook of Homo." In the following essays, Dr. Leiper, whose brilliant 

 work on the Bilharzia worm in Egypt has left that country and mankind under a 

 debt to him, Prof. Punnett, Prof. Newstead, and Prof. Herdman discuss matters 

 in which they are specially interested. This book is an excellent collection of 

 essays, and makes interesting reading. 



J. Bronte Gatenby. 



Jungle Peace. By William Beebe, Curator of Birds, New York Zoological 

 Park, and Director of Tropical Research Station. [Pp. 295, with 16 

 illustrations from photographs.] (London : Witherby, 1919. Price 8s. net.) 



To those who have never visited jungles, Mr. Beebe's title must sound strange, for 

 in two words it shatters one's entire conceptions of these haunts of strange and 

 dangerous animals. The mind naturally jumps to those time-honoured accounts 

 which dwell with emphatic persistency on the tortures of bete rouge, tick, ant, and 

 innumerable hordes of other deadly insects ; or on the dangers of tarantula, 

 vampire, and that most poisonous of snakes, the bushmaster ; or, again, on the 

 sudden death awaiting one in silence at the jaws of the jaguar or alligator ; and 

 when one recalls the suicide of Dr. Appun, but sixty years ago — for fear of a 

 less pleasant death at the hands of Indians — in the very district with which 



