22 



NATURE 



[March 13, 1919 



student lies in the numerous close parallels to be 

 found between animals and plants in respect of 

 heredity. A discovery in an animal may at any 

 moment throw a flood of light upon puzzling" 

 phenomena in plants, and the converse is equally 

 true. The genetics of plants and animals are so 

 closely interwoven that an attempt to treat of one 

 without the other necessarily leads to a sense of 

 incompleteness. At the same time the unity of 

 some of the fundamental phenomena of life in the 

 vegetable and animal kingdoms — a most valuable 

 lesson for the young student — ^is apt to be lost 

 sight of. Even the authors have had to confess 

 that the animal cannot be entirely excluded, for 

 they had perforce to bring in Morgan's Drosophila 

 and Castle's rats. Nevertheless, they have suc- 

 ceeded in illustrating most of the important 

 phenomena from plants alone, and the work will 

 be of service not only to the young botanist, but 

 perhaps even more so to the zoologist, who is apt 

 to be hazy with regard to the special features that 

 plants exhibit. 



We venture to hope that in the next edition the 

 authors will enter rather more fully into the 

 phenomena of the fertilisation of plants ; for it is 

 here that the zoologist so often encounters a 

 stumbling-block. The chapter on endosperm in- 

 heritance is a distinct advance upon the usual 

 text-book treatment ; but we would suggest, for 

 the sake of the zoologist,' a more detailed account 

 of the manner in which the ^^^ is derived from 

 ithe megaspore, and of the fate of the nuclei of 

 the pollen-grain. Apogamy, too, might be treated 

 more liberally, with reference made to the im- 

 portant researches of Ostenfeld and Rosenberg. 

 Apart from its intrinsic value, the work of these 

 observers has a peculiar interest in connection 

 with Mendel's own work on Hieracium. On the 

 whole, the authors have given a clear and lucid 

 presentation of genetic phenomena in plants, and 

 one that should prove useful to the class of student 

 for whom it was designed. We hope it may fall 

 into the hands of many students and teachers in 

 this country, where the study of plant genetics is 

 far less widespread than it should be. It is high 

 time it became an integral part of the botanical 

 course at every university, and the authors of this 

 little book have certainly demonstrated that this 

 can easily be done without unduly trespassing 

 upon the field of the zoologist. 



For the benefit of the English student, it should 

 be stated that although the authors have naturally 

 drawn upon American material in illustration of 

 the various phenomena, it does not follow that 

 these were necessarily discovered on the other side 

 of the Atlantic. They state, for instance, that 

 "the classic illustration of coupled characters was 

 brought to light by Emerson during breeding ex- 

 periments with corn." If there is a classic 

 example here, it should surely be Bateson and 

 Punnett's sweet peas, where the phenomena 

 were first discovered, and the peculiarities 

 of this type of inheritance first worked out. 

 The authors confess to some inexactness in deal- 

 ing with details, urging the excuse of peda- 

 NO. 2576, VOL. 103] 



gogical necessity. Still there are few statements 

 definitely misleading. But the account of Mendel's 

 peas on p. 37 looks as though the authors had 

 fallen into the familiar trap that has snared so 

 many an elementary student, forgetting that the 

 seed characters used belong to a generation sub- 

 sequent to that of the plant on which they are 

 borne. 



The book is of a handy, small size for a 

 student's pocket, well printed, and illustrated by 

 a number of simple diagrams. 



NATURAL HISTORY IN THE NEW 



WORLD. 



(i) Far Away and Long Ago. A History of My 



Early Life. By W. H. Hudson. Pp. xii + 332. 



(London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1918.) 



Price 155. net. 

 {■2) Jungle Peace. By William Beebe. Pp. 297. 



(New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1918.) 

 (3) The Ledge on Bald Face. By Major C. G. D. 



Roberts. Pp. 255. (London : Ward, Lock, and 



Co., Ltd., 1918.) Price 55. net. 

 (i) T^HERE is much of the old-time naturalist 

 ■*- in "Far Away and Long Ago," by that 

 G.O.M. of natural history, Mr. W. H. Hudson. 

 It is a simple story, the recollections of his early 

 life on the savannahs of the Argentine. We can 

 imagine the estancia, with its poplars and willows, 

 and with its flowery orchard lying isolated on 

 the lonely downs. The whole was protected by 

 a broad moat, and must have been a veritable 

 oasis to woodland birds in what otherwise was 

 to them an inhospitable land. Here Hudson made 

 friends of birds, beasts, and trees, each one to 

 him acquiring its own individuality : the cowbird 

 parasitical like the cuckoo ; the red willow, with 

 its pair of tyrant birds, ever ready to attack the 

 wandering hawk ; green paroquets ; peaches in 

 blossom, loveliest of sights, and a proper band- 

 stand for flocks of singers. The armadillo and 

 the opossum were burrowers, the latter, with its 

 children, giving hospitality to pit vipers, most 

 malignant of snakes. Here and there, on the 

 plains, were viscacha villages, immense badger- 

 like earths of a large rodent now getting extinct. 

 The house was an old one, a relic of the early 

 Spanish settlers, tillers of the ground, later driven 

 to the herdsman or guacho life. As to the fen- 

 man the fens are the most beautiful of all lands, 

 so to Hudson his pampas colours of yellow to 

 rust, the latter produced by giant thistles, are 

 beyond compare, their serenity disturbed only by 

 the occasional pampero (hurricane) from the 

 Southern Ocean. He was clearly a lonely boy, 

 and it is not difficult to see how he made friends 

 with Nature. 



Hudson brings us back to Rosas, whom he 

 describes as the bloodiest, the most original- 

 minded, and the greatest of the dictators of 

 South America. Rosas was in origin a guacho, 

 and he had the cruelty and sardonic humour of the 

 class from which he sprang. He brought peace 

 to the prairies, and in his time came many of 



