December 17, 1908] 



NA TUBE 



i8- 



locomotion, which is informative, stimulating, and 

 beautiful. It is interesting to hear of the elbow- 

 joint of the bat-fish, of the agile Malayan lizard that 

 runs securely over the tops of grass shoots, and of 

 the movement of the vanes on the grebe's foot, but 

 it is even more profitable to be led from a few simple 

 experiments with a pennvworth of mussels to some 

 clear ideas in regard to cilia, and then to a recog- 

 nition that all movement partakes of this mysterious 

 innate character, self-caused and self-sustained. With 

 admirable vividness and a frank enthusiasm, the 

 author pourtrays the finish and unweariedness of 

 iiiimal movement, which increases in perfection as we 

 .iscend the scale of being and reaches its highest 

 manifestation in the migration of birds. 



But movement implies expenditure of energy, and 

 that leads the author to discuss the varied quest for 

 food — the vegetarian habit and the protection of plants 

 .igainst wholly destructive visitors, the probable origin 

 <if the carnivorous habit among marine animals, the 

 -tress of terrestrial life, and the three paths bv which 

 land animals have become carnivorous. But 



"Life is a fire, now slow, now fierce, and therefore 

 needs air as well as fuel. Changefulness is of the 

 very essence of being, and all our rest is but hidden 

 activity. . . . The fire was lighted long ago. The 

 twinkling flames hidden in thought, patent in con- 

 duct, have come from the vestal lights of other genera- 

 tions. Every moment of restful or restless activity 

 they maintain the transformation of our bodies. . . . 

 Food is but the laid fuel ; oxvgen, that which fans 

 it." 



This is the beginning of a fine chapter on the 

 breath of life — that is to say, on the comparative 

 physiolog\- of respiration, in which Dr. Gamble shows 

 ihat evolution corresponds in great part with the 

 successful quest for oxygen. 



" Man himself carries in his ears an unmistakable 

 sign of his gill-breathing, watery past, and of the 

 depths he has left behind him." 



Breakdown by oxygenation, re-construction by 

 i ceding, are the two emulating processes in animal 

 organisms; there is "the downward pull of oxida- 

 tion and the upward thrust of nutrition," and more 

 <'ind more we see how the trembling balance of life 

 becomes steadied by firm central nervous control. 

 Thus we are led to the seventh chapter, on the 

 nervous and sensory system, which is very illumin- 

 ating. " Every living thing is an old hand," and 

 Ihe nervous systeiii is the seat of organic memory. 



" Not only day and night, winter and summer, 

 seedtime and harvest, set agoing the inward pendu- 

 lum of animal life, but the life and death of their 

 associates, the swing of the tides, all the great secular 

 movements, beat with alternating force upon the re- 

 ceptive nervous tissue." 



In another very interesting part of the chapter the 

 habits of a shrimp and prawn are taken as an ex- 

 ample of the w'ay in which the conduct of these 

 animals is built up out of responses to light, pressure, 

 and taste. It is also shown that the stiffening of 

 relatively simple responses into habit and tradition is 

 NO. 2042, vol.. 79] 



a necessary prelude to advance in higher responses. 

 Colour plays so large a part in the business of life 

 that it is in accordance with the perspective of this 

 volume that it should have a chapter to itself. It 

 is a subject with which the author's experience has 

 made him peculiarly well qualified to deal, and we 

 cannot but express our admiration for the way in 

 which he works out the thesis that 



" the pigments of animals are older than the effect 

 they produce, and that the old nutritive, purifying, 

 and respirator)' uses of colour are the basis for the 

 more recently evolved protective, warning, or mimetic 

 values of colouration." 



The summing-up of the book is in the second last 

 chapter, on the welfare of the race, of which the last 

 chapter — on the life-histories of insects — is in greater 

 part a series of illustrations. 



" The endowments of the individual, which have 

 at first sight such an appearance of being purely 

 personal acquisitions and advantages, are in reality 

 of racial value," 



and in the love of mates the higher animals 



" gather all their gifts to pour them into the lap 

 of the future." "The life of animals and of work- 

 ing men agrees in this, that, consciously or uncon- 

 sciously, it is a strife to give their children the best 

 chance. Their response to this spirit takes varied 

 forms, but ultimately it is an answer to the same 

 stimulus, and though it seems to arise within us, 

 it is the spirit of a hive whose boundaries are not 

 limited by the seen or tangible." 



This book, the interesting contents of which we 

 have hinted at, will delight all who read it, both 

 those who know much and those who know little. 

 It will charm with its style and with the wonders 

 which it discloses. The illustrations, it should be 

 noted, are fresh and interesting, being in great part 

 photographs of specimens in the Manchester Museum. 

 It will help students to organise their knowledge 

 in the light of the general ideas which it expounds, 

 and it will suggest observation and reflection. Some- 

 times, perhaps, the author is the least thing too ex- 

 uberant, as when he says : — 



" On our rocky coasts, from April to July, the 



puffin, the guillemot, and other spring migrants of 



the sea have made the rocks musical 7t'ith their 

 chorus." 



.Sometimes, perhaps, the author's epigrammatic style 

 makes a difficulty instead of removing one, for there 

 is a little of the conundrum in a sentence like this : — 

 " Soil is the remains of the vesture that waves in the 

 wind and water, held in a meshwork of moulds," and 

 many will be puzzled, not enlightened, by being told 

 that " in man and creature colour is sacramental." 

 But we have confidence in tendering to Dr. Gamble 

 the thanks of thousands of students of animal life, 

 who will find, or have found, in this book one of 

 the most charming introductions to natural history, a 

 book full of insight and suggestion, with a delightful 

 note personnel, a contribution not only to science, but 

 to literature. J. A. T. 



