200 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



RECENT LITERATURE. 



The Theory of Evolution in the Light of Facts. By Karl Frank, 

 S.J. With a Chapter on Ant Guests and Termite Guests. By 

 Erich Wasmann, S.J. Translated from the German by Charles 

 T. Druery, F.L.S. London : Kegan Paul. 5s. net. 



It is not easy to conjecture with what object this little book on 

 Evolution has been written. Some parts of it might serve as a 

 useful introduction for anyone who was about to read Darwin's 

 ' Origin of Species ' for the first time. The author is almost as keen 

 an advocate as Darwin himself of the theory of modification of 

 species by adaptation and descent, and although he puts down to " a 

 purposeful striving " of the individual certain of those variations or 

 adaptations which Darwin could only explain by the use of the word 

 " cl^ance," he seems to admit that the species which are not purpose- 

 fully adapted to their environment are doomed to extinction. Father 

 Frank, however, is by no means a whole-hearted Darwinian ; nor is 

 he always quite fair to Darwin, for, while objecting strongly to the 

 expression " chance variation," he forgets to mention that Darwin, 

 who had no theological view to maintain, pleaded ignorance of the 

 cause of variation as his excuse for making use of what he called 

 " that wholly incorrect expression." The arguments brought forward 

 in this book in an attempt to show the limitations of Evolution, and 

 that no one class of plants or animals has been derived from another, 

 are based chiefly upon the imperfection of the palaeontological record, 

 and are anything but convincing. Entomologists who are left free to 

 believe that the whole of our existing insects, in all their diversity of 

 form and structure, are but the modified descendants of a single 

 pre-existing order, the ancient Palseodictyoptera, will hardly be 

 restrained from going a step further to seek the ancestor of the insect 

 in some other form of animal life. They are puzzled even now to 

 know to what class they can assign those interesting little creatures, 

 the Protura, which exist, it appears, in abundance, and yet have only 

 been discovered within the last half-dozen years. If these have 

 remained unknown so long, what is there strange in the fact that so 

 few transitional forms have been discovered as fossils in the rocks '? 



Father Frank claims to have " dealt fully" with the " chief postu- 

 late " of the theory of Evolution — the origin and development of the 

 animals from the plants. But his claim is scarcely justified. It is 

 one thing to discuss the difi'erence between the "psyche" of an oak 

 tree and of a donkey, and another to discover the soul of an amoeba, 

 and to show wherein it differs from that of a lowly organized plant ; 

 and Father Frank has not attempted the latter task. 



The chapter which Father Wasmann has contributed is very inte- 

 resting, and the student of Coleoptera will find something of interest 

 also in the table, taken from Handlirsch, which illustrates the pedi- 

 gree of the beetles and their distribution in time. Faults in the 

 translation give rise to contradictory statements in the book, and 

 especially noticeable is the use of the word " family" in several cases 

 where " phylum " or " group " should appear instead. 



C. J. G. 



