42 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [10:1— Jan., 1914 



a special form of energy but something of its own kind, not com- 

 parable with anything else that we know and that it reveals itself 

 by causing transformation of energy." 



Animal Communities in Temperate America. Victor L. 



Shelford. pp. xiii+362. University of Chicago Press. $3.00. 



Seldom does a book ostensibly so purely scientific in its pur- 

 poses lend itself so admirably to the work of the nature-study 

 teacher. Mr. Shelford ranks as one of the foremost American 

 students of animal ecology. The book presents, as the title indi- 

 cates, a series of studies of animal societies. The nature student 

 goes, for instance, to a pond to collect. His zoology reference 

 books tell him of the animals he secures but he must hunt out the 

 information in a systematic treatise in which the animals he 

 finds are scattered from protozoa to vertebrata. Now here is a 

 discussion of the animals of the pond treated as such. Their 

 relations, life conditions, reactions, habits, etc., are given. There 

 are numerous figures that help at identification and an extended 

 bibliography that makes it possible to get further authorities 

 for determinations. There are taken up also communities of 

 Lake Michigan, stream communities, communities of small lakes, 

 beach communities, swamp associations, forest communities of 

 various sorts and several chapters of general discussions. The 

 book is an admirable presentation of the whole matter of animal 

 associations in this middle west region and is to be strongly 

 recommended as a very great aid in appreciative study of one's 

 local environment. 



Botany for Secondary Schools. L. H. Bailey, pp., xiv+ 465. 



The Macmillan Co. $1.25. 



This is a revised edition of Bailey's Botany, an Elementary 

 Text Book. The chapter titles are the same as in the earlier 

 editions except that chapter x on pruning is new and chapters xi 

 and XII on food absorption and elaboration have been expanded 

 to make three chapters. The new chapter is xiv on Food Elabora- 

 tion and Respiration. Three new chapters are added in Part II. 

 xxxiii on Weeds, xxxiv on Crops and xxxv on the Forest. 



Needless to say the text is a good one. The older text was a 

 good botany and the revisions and additions improve it. 



