treatment of mouse inner cell mass); Masui et a1., Schorderet-Slatkine et 

 at. (divalent cations in maturation and activation of anuran eggs) ; Whitt 

 et at. (enzyme ontogeny and gene expression in sunfish hybrids) . 



DEVELOPMENTAL GENETICS, EVOLUTION (see also 38,50,70,76,79,97) 



Textbooks 



98. 



J.B.GURDON, 1978. GENE EXPRESSION DURING CELL DIFFERENTIATION. 2nd edit. 

 Carolina Biology Supply Comp., Burlington. Carolina Biology Readers no. 25. 

 32 pp. , 29 figs. 



This is an entirely rewritten and much enlarged version of the first edi- 

 tion (1973). It is very readable and thoroughly modern. Many new figures 

 have been added and old ones improved. 



(This reviewer still takes exception to the statement that there is no 

 known way of making a cell committed to one kind of differentiation change 

 (directly?) into a cell of another kind - cases of "transdif ferentiation" 

 have been documented in insects 1) 



Monographs 



99. 



S.J.GOULD. 1977. ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY 



Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Mass, XVI, 501 pp., 71 figs., 9 tabs., com- 

 bined index to subjects, organisms and authors. $ 18.50, £ 12.95 



Contents: 1. Prospectus; I. Recapitulation: 2. The analogistic tradition 

 from Anaximander to Bonnet; 3, Transcendental origins, 1793-1850; 4. Evo- 

 lutionary triumph, 1859-1900; 5. Pervasive influence; 6. Decline, fall and 

 generalization; II. Heterochrony and paedomorphosis: 7. Heterochrony and 

 the parallel of ontogeny and phylogeny; 8. The ecological and evolutionary 

 significance of heterochrony; 9. Progenesis and neoteny; 10. Retardation 

 and neoteny in human evolution; 11. Epilogue 



This erudite and scholarly work has already been extensively and critical- 

 ly reviewed in the scientific press (see Science 199, Nature 272, Amer. 

 Scientist 66). We will therefore only briefly characterise it here. 



The first part of the book is historical and makes delightful reading not 

 only for biologists but for any cultured person. (Ch.5 has brief excursions 

 into criminal anthropology, racism, child development, primary education 

 and psychoanalysis.) 



The second part is intended as "a reasonably complete analysis of current 

 theory", but it is also full of original, thought-provoking ideas. It begins 

 by discussing four questions: How shall we depict phylogeny?; How can onto- 

 geny be related to phylogeny?; How are parallels between ontogeny and phylo- 

 geny produced?; Which is more important in producing these parallels, the 

 shifting of stages by acceleration and retardation, or by prolongation and 

 truncation? It appears in the chapters that follow that the author places 

 much emphasis on paedomorphosis and the two distinct processes that give 

 rise to it: progenesis and neoteny. Both can yield "rapid and profound evo- 

 lutionary change in a Darwinian fashion without the spectre of macromuta- 

 tion". Inasmuch as paedomorphosis is an instance of heterochrony, and hete- 

 rochrony is tantamount to developmental regulation, the author believes that 

 "an understanding of regulation must lie at the centre of any rapprochement 



between molecular and evolutionary biology [via] the common field of 



development" . 



Two features of Part Two worth highlighting are a critique of G.R.de Beer's 



223 



