160 



stage on the second plate — apparently made in order to reduce the number of 

 plates — is rather confusing and inconvenient. 



All in all this normal table will undoubtedly find a worthy place among the 

 world-known Keibel's normal tables on vertebrate development. 



P. D. NIEUWKOOP. 



„EARLY EMBRYOLOGY OF THE CHICK" 



Fourth Edition, 1951 



by Bradley M. Patten The Blakiston Company 



244 pages with 102 figures 



As the author emphatically mentions in the preface this book, designed for 

 the beginning student, will only give the basic mechanisms of embryology in 

 a brief and simple form. It forms a purely descriptive study of the development 

 of a single form, the chick, over the period of the first four days in which 

 processes of organization take place. The book is consequently given in the 

 form a continuous story of development, thus introducing the dynamic aspect 

 of development in the more static description of the various stages. 



The free use of illustrations and the logical organization of the text makes 

 this book easily readible for the beginning student introducing him in the 

 many-sided aspects of the external and internal development of the chick. 

 After the description of the initial processes of gamete formation, fertiliza- 

 tion and cleavage, the primitive streak formation and regression and its 

 equivalent in lower Vertebrates has been thoroughly treated. In the later 

 stages the formation of heart and vascular system and their functional aspects 

 have had special attention, while the state of development of the other organ 

 systems has not been neglected. 



The illustrations, which actually form a very important source of informa- 

 tion, are very carefully made and excellently reproduced. The few colour 

 plates of the vascular system at successive stages are aesthetically highly jus- 

 tified and very attractive. All illustrations on the development of the chick 

 are only schematised in minor details. They are in general very accurate and 

 clear, and drawn from original sections or whole specimens. It is a pity that 

 the figures on amphibian development used as illustration for the description 

 of processes of cleavage, blastula formation and gastrulation of a holoblastic 

 egg, are much more schematised and not always completely accurate. The 

 changes in and extentions of the text and figures make this fourth edition much 

 more up to date, and form an actual improvement. 



The rather extensive and surveyable bibliography at the end of this book 

 would probably have better served its purpose of stimulating a reading of 

 the original literature when references would have been made in the text. 



This book will undoubtedly contribute to a clearer understanding of the basic 

 mechanisms of embryology of the chick and can be therefore widely recom- 

 mended. 



P. D. NIEUWKOOP. 



„A LABORATORY MANUAL OF VERTEBRATE EMBRYOLOGY" 



Revised Edition, 1950 

 by R. Rugh Burgess Publishing Company 



Minneapolis 

 234 pages with many figures 



This laboratory manual forms a very good guide for courses in embryology. 



