LITERARY NOTICES. 



Jennings, H. S. Behavior of the Lower Organisms. Columbia University Biological Series, X. 

 New York, The Macmillan Company. 1906. pp. xiv and 366. Price $3.00. 



The custom which the zoological faculty of Columbia University has followed 

 for some years of having an annual series of special lectures on some particular 

 topic in biology, given either by one of its own members or by some distinguished 

 biologist from elsewhere, has indirectly resulted in the production of a very notable 

 series of books. With a single exception these books have been written by men 

 who by birth or adoption are American workers. The series as a whole is unques- 

 tionably representative of the best in American biological work. This being the 

 case, it is altogether fitting that the volume here under consideration should have a 

 place in the series. The author's brilliant investigations on the behavior of lower 

 organisms, begun about ten years ago, have attracted wide attention, both here and 

 abroad, and further can truly be said to have distinctly influenced the trend of 

 American biological work in the period during which they have been appearing. In 

 no small degree is the present activity in the field of animal behavior in this country 

 a result of the stimulus of Dr. Jennings' pioneer work. 



To characterize the present book in a single sentence it may be said to be a care- 

 fully condensed statement from a unified standpoint of the important objective 

 results which have been obtained by students of the behavior of lower organisms, 

 together with a critical analysis and discussion of the significance of these results 

 and their bearing on certain specific and general problems of biology. Roughly 

 two-thirds of the space is given to the descriptive account of behavior, and the other 

 third to discussion. The descriptive portion of the work is not encyclopedic in 

 character. Much which might have been inserted, and which doubtless would 

 have been by a less careful and critical author, has been omitted. The reader is 

 spared the mass of unimportant and trivial detail which is usually supposed to be 

 the necessary accompaniment of the thorough and systematic development of a 

 scientific subject. From this statement, however, it is not to be concluded that the 

 treatment of behavior in the descriptive portion of Jennings' book is in any way 

 sketchy or lacking in thoroughness. Rather, the fact is that it is an unusually 

 nice sense on the author's part of what really is important both in his own work and 

 the work of others, for a thorough general survey of the subject, which has kept the 

 book so free of irrelevant and trivial detail. At the outstart it should be said that 

 the scope of the work is not preciselv indicated by the title. To haVe been exactly 

 indicative of the contents the title should have read, "The Behavior of Certain 

 Lower Organisms." The descriptive portions of the book include full and con- 

 nected accounts of behavior of representatives of only two large groups of organ- 

 isms; namely, (i) unicellular animals and plants (especially the bacteria), and (2) 

 coelenterates. A brief account is given of certain features of the behavior in repre- 

 sentatives of other invertebrate groups, notably the Echinodermata, Platyhel- 

 minthes (Planaria) and the Rotifera. We are told in the preface that: "As origi- 

 nally written, this descriptive portion of the work was more extensive, including. 



