of lectures delivered to a very mixed audience. Its hybrid nature will be 

 apparent from a quotation from the preface: .... "it should serve as an up- 

 to-date introduction for beginners and as a guidebook for graduate students 

 and teachers to some of the issues, answers, and challenges in developmental 

 biology". No book can be expected to serve this dual function. The authors 

 concede that their approach is selective (and in fact it largely reflects 

 their own special fields of enquiry) , but this is incompatible with the re- 

 quirements of an introductory text. There are far too many gaps in the 

 coverage. 



This is not to say that what there is is bad. Most of it makes interesting 

 reading for more advanced students and for newcomers to the field. In 

 chapters 2-6 the emphasis lies on molecular-genetic control mechanisms, in 

 the remaining chapters on cellular events. 



The book is attractively turned out and very well illustrated. The litera- 

 ture in the extensive chapter bibliographies rarely goes beyond 1976. 



4. 



S.B.OPPENHEIMER. 1980. INTRODUCTION TO EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT 



Allyn & Bacon, Boston, etc. XII, 404 pp., 214 figs., combined author, animal 



& subject indexes. $ 18.95 



Contents: introduction: The puzzle of differentiation; 1. Gametogenesis , 

 2. Fertilization, 3. Cleavage, 4. Gastrulation, 5. Neurulation and germ 

 layer formation, 6. Early human embryo and primary germ layer derivatives, 

 7. Organogenesis, 8. Embryonic induction, 9. Mechanisms of morphogenesis, 

 10. Differentiation: nucleic acids, 11. Differentiation: proteins, 12. 

 Differentiation: higher orders of structure, 13. Cancer and embryology 



This text for undergraduates has much to recommend it. It is clearly 

 written and logically arranged, with structural facts coming first and 

 mechanisms only later (particularly molecular mechanisms) . The reading 

 lists are good and the key terms printed in the margins and the glossary 

 are useful learning aids. 



Although the treatment is up to date in many areas (e.g. the role of the 

 cell surface) a major criticism is that this does not hold for all areas: 

 cases in point are the formation of the mesoderm in amphibians and amphibian 

 limb regeneration. 



The lay-out of the book is attractive; the illustrations consist of simple 

 but effective line drawings and very good photographs and scanning electron 

 micrographs. In the reading lists there are some annoying misprints in 

 authors' names. 



Monographs 



5. 



G.P.KOROTKOVA. 1979. THE ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF ONTOGENESIS (in Russian) 



Leningrad Univ., Leningrad. 296 pp., 47 figs. English summary. R.3.00 



Introduces a hew hypothesis of biological reproduction based on laws of 

 multiplication by division and of symmetry transformations; discussion of 

 morphogenetic regulation and the relation between asexual and sexual repro- 

 duction; treatment ranges from prokaryotes to higher eukaryotes; 14-page 

 bibliography (9 pp. Russian) . 



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