September 23, 1922] 



NA TURE 



403 



way. It is too soon to expect clear-cut conclusions in 

 regard to these questions. But many will agree with 

 the author in regard to the following three points. 



(1) There is in instinctive behaviour a psychical aware- 

 ness as well as a physiological concatenation. " One 

 can hardly see in insects simple reflex machines, for 

 they know how to bend to circumstances, to acquire 

 new habits, to learn and to retain, to show discernment. 

 They are, one can say, somnambulists whose minds 

 awaken and give proof of intellect when there is need 

 for it. This takes us a long distance from the mechan- 

 ism of which Bethe has made himself a protagonist." 



(2) Whether a capacity for novel instinctive behaviour 

 originated from a sudden mutation or as the outcome 

 of a more or less slow modification of habit, there must 

 always be a period of individual apprenticeship, when 

 the new card is played, or when the new adjustment is 

 tested for what it is worth. (3) The climax of instinc- 

 tive behaviour among arthropods is correlated with 

 their characteristic organisation — a non-living armature 

 of chitin with the musculature inside, not outside, and 

 a considerable number of specialised appendages, which 

 must be used in one way and in no other. " The 

 appendages of Arthropods are nearly unchangeable in 

 the individual and are narrowly adapted to certain 

 purposes ; they are the tools for instinctive work, thus 

 differing from the less specialised but more supple 

 limbs that serve as implements to the vertebrates, at 

 least to the higher vertebrates." The contrast between 

 a bee's specialised proboscis and .a man's generalised 

 hand is diagrammatic. So from the beginning, as 

 Bergson also suggested, insects " were bound to use 

 these organic tools, and they made the best use of 

 them. Their main psychical task was to grave upon 

 their memory and to repeat instinctively the acts to 

 which these organs were fitted." 



The fundamental part of Bouvier's masterly book is 

 devoted to the analysis of the inclined plane of insect 

 behaviour. He goes on to special problems such as 

 the relation of insects to flowers, the faculty of orienta- 

 tion, the social life of insects, and the division of labour 

 in nest-making Hymenoptera. Apart from a few slips, 

 the translation, which cannot have been easy, is an 

 effective piece of work. 



Chemistry of the Plant Cell. 



Chemie der PflanzenzeUe. By Prof. Dr. Victor Grafe. 

 Pp. viii + 421. (Berlin : Gebriider Borntraeger, 

 1922.) 105 marks. 



THE title of this book raises immediately the inter- 

 esting question as to whether the chemistry of 

 the plant cell can yet be made the subject of a text- 

 NO. 2760, VOL. I 10] 



book. A perusal of this book leaves no doubt that 

 such a work has still to be written. There are many 

 interesting pages, but the book is in no sense an intro- 

 duction to the special chemical metabolism proceeding 

 within the plant cell. 



The author treats his subject mainly from the point 

 of view of physical chemistry, and the reader must, if 

 the book is to be read with profit, be very thoroughly 

 grounded in organic chemistry and bio-chemistry. 

 Thus an interesting section on the cell wall, and a 

 final subsection dealing with the chemistry of photo- 

 synthesis, are not accompanied by any discussion 

 of the chemistry of the carbohydrates. Again, in a 

 section of some 150 pages under the general title of 

 protoplasm, ten pages only are assigned to the chemistry 

 of lipoids (fats, phosphatides, sterols, etc.), proteins 

 and nucleo - proteins ; the same section closes with 

 a subsection of some thirty pages, devoted to the 

 pigments of the plant, which deal mainly with the 

 recent researches of Willstatter upon the leaf pigments 

 and the anthocyanins. 



Lack of proportion is manifest throughout the book, 

 and is accompanied by a lack of arrangement which 

 leads to much tedious repetition. The main topics, 

 diffusion, osmosis, plasma permeability, colloids, and 

 adsorption, with which the book opens, recur again and 

 again throughout its pages. Thus a later subsection 

 headed plasma structure, in the section upon proto- 

 plasm, consists mainly of a rediscussion of the 

 phenomena of plasmolysis and permeability. Un- 

 doubtedly these topics are of primary importance in 

 a work upon plant physiology, but it is doubtful 

 whether their significance in this field will be better 

 apprehended as a result of the study of this book. 

 The discussion of the physical chemistry of these 

 complex phenomena is far too brief and inadequate 

 to form a sound critical basis for their subsequent 

 application to the still more complex problems of the 

 living cell. 



To cite specific cases : the first examples of adsorption 

 phenomena dealt with, freely assume the specific ad- 

 sorption of one ion from the solution of an electrolyte 

 with consequent change in the reaction of the solution. 

 The work of Baumann and Gully, and of Wieler, is 

 cited in this connexion, and only upon a later recur- 

 rence of the topic is Sven Oden referred to in a footnote. 

 Reference to Sven Oden's papers will show how un- 

 sound is the experimental basis for this assumption of 

 specific ionic adsorption, while recent discussions by 

 Bancroft (" Applied Colloid Chemistry," 1921) and E. 

 A. Fisher (" Physico-Chemical Problems relating to the 

 Soil," Faraday Society, 1922) show how inadequate 

 are discussions of adsorption phenomena, based, as 

 this one is, upon the application of Gibb's theorem 



