THE process of specialization which it would see 

 been necessitated by the immense growth of sc 

 during the past fifty years has gone far towards e 

 minating the older type of biologist who Was posset 

 not only of a fairly complete knowledge of what botany 

 and zoology had to teach, but also had a large acquaint- 

 ance with geology. Nowadays a man is a botanist or a 

 zoologist or a geologist, and perhaps has no very great 

 acquaintance with the intricacies of the sciences cognate 

 with his own. One welcomes, therefore, books like Pro- 

 fessor Dendy's Outlines of Evolutionary Biology (London J 

 Constable and Co. 1912) which give a general account of 

 the phenomena of life and of the theories associated with 

 them, with examples drawn from both kingdoms of 

 Nature. 



We do not intend to enter into any detailed criticism 

 of the book, and will content ourselves for the most part 

 by saying that the task attempted in this book has been 

 Well carried out; that it presents a fair picture of the 

 state of scientific opinion'on most biological problems and 

 that it should find a place in the library of all our colleges 

 and of all persons working at bio-philosophical problems. 

 No book is worth much which does not reveal something 

 of the personality of its writer and, to our mind, Professor" 

 Dendy reveals himself as too much affected by Weisman- 

 nian views. No doubt " biophores " and " germinal 

 selection " might and would explain a good deal at 

 present unexplained. But then, because an explanation 

 explains, it is not necessarily, therefore, the true explana- 

 tion, and no one will claim that there is anything in the 

 way of ascertained fact which tends to prove the truth or 

 the theories alluded to. 



Further we must take exception to the Statement that 

 the gap between man and ape is so small that " there is 

 little room for connecting links between them." Mr A. R< 

 Wallace, in his latest work says that " there is not, as often 

 assumed, one '* missing link ' to be discovered, but at 

 least a score such links, adequately to fill the gap between 

 man and apes " (The World of Life, 1911), and we fancy 

 that most persons who have devoted attention to mam- 

 malogy would agree with him. We can commend this 

 book to teachers. 



B.C.A.W, 



