BOOKS AND CURRENT LITERATURE 



Animal Ecology. — Adams' little book/ which aims to introduce 

 students to the subject of animal ecology, should do much toward 

 bringing into zoology that newer sort of field study which has so rapidly 

 and so thoroughly replaced much of the mere collecting, naming and 

 admiring once considered as botany. The author's statement that 

 "ecology is a science with its facts out of all proportion to their organi- 

 zation or integration," is about as true in botany as in zoology, and 

 his emphasis on point of view and upon the scientific method, together 

 with his numerous literature references, will give the book a place in 

 both biological fields. Its contribution is mainly a conscious attempt 

 to organize the large numbers of more or less isolated facts with which 

 ecologists are bound to deal. Relatively few writers on plants and 

 animals in the field have approached their work with the apparent 

 desire to solve a problem, and it has become evident in the past decade 

 that the first fine frenzy of ecological interest usually or frequently 

 results in the accumulation and publication of field observations (ex- 

 pressed in words and photographs) without much attention to valid 

 generalizations. Adams' remark that "scientific work progresses more 

 rapidly when consciously pursued than otherwise," partakes so much 

 of the nature of a truism that it is almost startling to realize how ecol- 

 ogy has come into being and grown to large estate with little more 

 purpose than that of classification for purposes of presentation only. 

 This quotation would form an inspiring motto for a student of any 

 branch of science and might retard the wastefully elaborate study of 

 phenomena which merely seem "interesting" in themselves. 



The first chapter deals with the "aim, content and point of view." 

 Here the author considers three kinds of ecology: that of the individual, 

 which is virtually physiology, in its broader sense; that of aggregates, 

 which has to do with communities of the same species, genus, etc.: 

 and that of associations, which considers groups delimited by external 

 conditions and including many forms of organisms. The relations 

 between these three kinds of ecological endeavor are interestingly dis- 



' Adams, Charles C. Guide to the Study of Animal Ecology. 183 pp. 

 New York, The Macmillan Company, 1913 ($1.25). 



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