solid, well-organised text, yet I was curiously disappointed by it. The book 

 is crammed full of factual material, most of it up to date and well repre- 

 sented, but the conceptual scaffolding is rather scanty. The emphasis is on 

 the control of gene expression as an explanation of cell differentiation, 

 but the author seems to shy away from equally important global control mech- 

 anisms such as morphogenetic fields and positional information. No theories 

 of pattern formation are discussed except in a cursory way in relation to 

 limb development at the very end of the book. "Field" is not even an entry 

 in the subject index. 



The book presents an integration of comtemporary research with the classi- 

 cal literature and includes some material on plant development, notably in 

 chs.2, 7, 8, 9 and 12. Ch.l3 considers four different systems to exemplify 

 organogenesis: epithelio-mesenchymal interactions, the lens system, hemato- 

 poiesis, and the limb. A didactically interesting feature is the discussion 

 of important procedures, processes and systems in seven boxed-in sections 

 separate from the main text. Parts of the manuscript were reviewed by some 

 two dozen North-American developmental biologists. 



All chapters have long reference lists which fully document the text and 

 thus exceed the usual lists of further reading. The book is profusely and 

 beautifully illustrated; a large proportion of the figures are photographs 

 and electron micrographs. 



2. 



L.GALLIEN. 1979. L'OEUF ET LES STADES INITIAUX DE L'ONTOGENESE 



Presses Univ. de France, Paris. Serie Le Biologiste. 324 pp., 119 figs., 



3 tabs., index of animal names 



Contents (abridged): I. Introduction (7 chs.); II. Gametogenese (6); III. 

 Organisation de I'oeuf (8); IV. Segmentation (4); V. Gastrulation , stades 

 initiaux de la morphogenese chez quelques types de diblastiques et de 

 protostomes (4); VI. Gastrulation et stades initiaux de la morphogenese 

 chez les deuterostomes (8) 



The back cover of this book says that the text is intended as an "intro- 

 duction to the experimental investigation of developmental biology". This 

 is only true inasmuch as it prepares the student for other books. There is 

 almost no experimental embryology in it, and only a little chemical or mo- 

 lecular embryology. For the rest the approach is strongly descriptive. The 

 book reads as Part one of a more comprehensive text. 



Another feature of the book, which is perhaps typical of French texts, is 

 that the author carefully restricts himself to what is considered as the 

 "classical" body of knowledge and seems to avoid more controversial and 

 recent issues. Moreover, he makes some generalisations (e.g. on the "germ 

 line" VS. the "soma") which today are difficult to uphold. The book is good 

 on the classical subjects but lacks stimulus for the student of today. 



3. 



A.MONROY and A.A.MOSCONA. 1979. INTRODUCTORY CONCEPTS IN DEVELOPMENTAL 



BIOLOGY 



Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, etc. VIII, 252 pp., 132 figs., 4 tabs., 



combined author and subject index. $ 20.80, £ 9.60 



Contents: 1. The beginnings of embryonic development, 2. Programming of 

 early development during oogenesis, 3. Maturation of the oocyte, 4. Fer- 

 tilization, 5. Cleavage, 6. Regulation of DNA synthesis and gene expres- 

 sion in the embryo, 7. Cell organization in embryonic morphogenesis, 8. 

 Cell aggregation: construction of multicellular systems from cell suspen- 

 sions 



This book is a strange hybrid and it is not clear for which readership it 

 is intended. This is probably due to the fact that it arose from a series 



168 



