October 26, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



413 



my power to promote national efficiency. I 

 spent a large part of the week before I was dis- 

 missed drawing up for the War Department 

 plans for the scientific selection of aviators. 

 My oldest son, with my approval and assist- 

 ance, was one of the first to enlist in the army 

 and go to France, where he is in charge of 

 sanitation in the Harvard hospital recently 

 bombed by German aviators. — J. McKeen 

 Cattell in the New York Tribune. 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 Algw. Volume I. Mysophycese, Peridiniese, 

 Bacillarieas, Chlorophyceas, together with a 

 Brief Summary of the Occurrence and Dis- 

 tribution of Freshwater Algse. By G. S. 

 West, M.A., D.Sc, A.E.C.S., F.L.S., Mason 

 Professor of Botany in the University of 

 Birmingham. Cambridge, The University 

 Press, 1916. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New 

 York. $7.50. 



The first volmne of the series, to be issued 

 as the Cambridge Botanical Handbooks under 

 the editorship of Professor A. C. Seward and 

 A. G. Tansley, of the school of botany of Cam- 

 bridge University, is Professor G. S. West's 

 volume on the " Algse." A life-long interest 

 in, and an ever-increasing acquaintanceship 

 with the extraordinarily diversified and numer- 

 ous organisms embraced within the scope of 

 this work have qualified this leading British 

 algologist to undertake this task. For many 

 years father (the late William West) and son 

 have collaborated in the publication of a long 

 series of memoirs and monographs dealing 

 with the microscopic flora, not only of British 

 waters, but of those of many other lands also. 

 The critical knowledge thus acquired of the 

 very large number of genera and species of 

 algae, mainly microscopic, has made possible 

 this scholarly and well-proportioned treatise. 



Dealing as it does with the Protophytos, the 

 work is of especial interest, not only to botan- 

 ists, but also to zoologists, especially protozo- 

 ologists, who have long felt the need of a 

 work more comprehensive in scope and suc- 

 cinct in treatment than Oltmann's " Algen," 

 Chodat's " Algues Vertes de la Suisse," or the 

 authors' " Treatise on the British Freshwater 



Algse," and more critical, the Lemmermann's 

 useful handbooks of the Brandenburg Algas. 



Professor West's work adequately supplies 

 this need. Since the work includes the Dino- 

 flagellata (Peridinieee) and the Volvocidee 

 (Volvocineag) flagellates familiar to all zool- 

 ogists and prominent in our text-books, the re- 

 viewer takes this means to call the attention 

 of all zoologists and of biologists generally to 

 the mine of information contained in this 

 work. He shares with the author the opinion 

 that the Flagellata are a primitive group and 

 therefore of exceptional significance to all who 

 seek the beginnings of either the plant or the 

 animal world, and especially to students of 

 sex, reproduction, variation, and the processes 

 of evolution. It is noteworthy that the classi- 

 fication of green algffi adopted by the author 

 and the criteria of their chief subdivisions are 

 based upon flagellate affinities. 



It is perhaps natural that Profesor West's 

 investigations of the Phytoplankton should 

 have convinced him that most flagellates are 

 holophytic and that ninety per cent, of the 

 Dinoflagellata " are true vegetable organisms 

 with a holophytic nutrition," but students of 

 parasitic flagellates will demur from the first 

 conclusion. In the reviewer's experience there 

 is abundant evidence that the Gymnodinioidae, 

 or the most primitive section of the Dinoflagel- 

 lata, the most abundant flagellates of the sea, 

 are predominantly holozoic, and some are even 

 cannibalistic, while many of the deep water 

 species are undoubtedly saprophytic. 



The author's conclusions regarding poly- 

 morphism among the algiB, especially the 

 Chlorophyce®, will interest all students of vari- 

 ation and evolution. Professor West has been 

 a champion of the view of specific stability 

 among the uuicells, as over against the view 

 of a wide polymorphism advocated by Chodat, 

 Playfair and others. The results of the pure 

 culture method in the hands of Klebs, Beijer- 

 inck, and others, have in the main supported 

 the conclusion that specific stability is quite 

 as constant among the algse as it is among 

 higher plants. It is doubtless true that much 

 of the so-called evidence for polymorphism 

 has rested upon niisjudgment as to the rela- 



