100 



simpler animals evolved as offshoots from colorless bacterial 

 lines of plant organization. A review of the chapters on animal 

 evolution is not here attempted. 



The statement that, when spores mature, "they throw off 

 and break down so much chromatin material" (p. 335), is apt 

 to mislead, if indeed it is not incorrect as referring to the reduction 

 division resulting in the haploid number of chromosomes. 

 The phenomenon of alternation of generations is erroneously 

 limited to "classes of plants higher than the algae" (p. 336), 

 Hoyt's work with Dictyota, Harper's with Ascomycetes, and 

 Blackman's with rusts, for example, being overlooked. In the 

 genealogical tree (facing page 356) the now generally recognized 

 group, Cycadofilices, does not appear to be mentioned. The 

 hypothesis that monocotyledons and dicotyledons "all sprang 

 from the great Cordaital stock" (p. 367) is at variance with a 

 mass of evidence and opinion to the effect that the Cordaitales 

 are not in the ancestral line of the angiosperms at all, but only 

 of the gymnosperms. 



Pages 598 to 850 of the book are devoted to psychological, 

 archaeological, anthropological, religious, and sociological ques- 

 tions of which only brief mention can be made in a botanical 

 magazine. It is interesting to note that the author postulates 

 morality for the lower animals (p. 660), "Why," he asks, 

 "should the maternal care of the bird ... be denied the praise 

 of being moral?" That morals " do not originate with man . . . 

 is clearly shown by the many moral acts of bees, beavers, crows, 

 ants, and apes." In Chapter XXVII on "The competitive 

 system amongst the lower animals and with man," the social sym- 

 pathies of the author seem to be indicated by the dark picture 

 which he draws in the following quotation (p. 764) : "The papers, 

 the press, the universities and the churches are nearly all com- 

 fortably subsidized in diverse and skillful ways, in order that 

 they may support ' the system. ' ' ' (The italics are the reviewer's.) 

 This is not the place to discuss such statements, nor perhaps 

 even to refer to them, except that they tend to inspire confi- 

 dence, or otherwise (according to the reader's own convictions), 

 in the author's judicial attitude of mind, and the logicalness of 



