ularizers such as evolutionist Richard 

 Dawkins and sociobiologist E. O. Wilson 

 have shown us the same landscape. Never- 

 theless, I very much enjoyed Bonner's ap- 

 preciation of a clever experiment — that of 

 biologist Gustav Kramer, who, in experi- 

 ments with starlings and migration, used 

 mirrors and hght bulbs in an indoor enclo- 

 sure to alter the apparent position and 

 movement of the sun. 



The book is leavened throughout with 

 Bonner's own personal history and charm- 

 ing asides. He recalls how his early inter- 

 est in birds was cleverly deflected by his 

 father, who was afraid ornithologists could 

 not make a living. And during a sabbatical 

 leave in France, he notices how the French 

 mix their protozoan culture medium rather 

 informally. Instead of the American (or 

 German) technique of meticulously mea- 

 suring ingredients according to a standard 

 recipe, the French mix together a handful 

 of this, a dash of that, a pinch of something 

 else until the mixture seems right. He im- 

 mediately reaUzes that the French labora- 

 tory tradition comes straight from the 

 French kitchen, and who would presume 

 to dampen the spontaneity of a French 

 chef? 



To be compared with Haldane isn't re- 

 ally fair to Bonner — or anyone else for 

 that matter — as Haldane was possibly the 

 best popular biological writer we've had. 

 As veteran baseball manager Sparky An- 

 derson once said of the Cincinnati Reds' 

 nonpareil baseball catcher Johnny Bench, 

 "Don't compare nobody to Johnny Bench, 

 you'll just embarrass that guy." However 

 much one might want to avoid the com- 

 parison, Bonner's prose is nonetheless like 

 Haldane's — wonderfully clear and direct. 

 Like Haldane's, Bonner's popular writing 

 is more than a repetition of his scientific 

 work, glitzed and gussied up for a general 

 audience. He develops original ideas and 

 from his unusual vantage considers topics 



outside the domain of pure science. 



Bonner also has a gift for recognizing 

 apt and unexpected examples. When he 

 dismisses evolutionist Jean-Baptiste La- 

 marck's idea of how we might pass on 

 traits acquired during our lifetime, he 

 chooses not to use the well-known tail- 

 cutting experiments that German evolu- 

 tionist August Weismann performed on 

 twenty generations of mice. Instead he 

 uses Weismann's more obscure argument 

 that if Lamarck were correct, Jews should 

 no longer require circumcision. Using an- 

 other original image, Bonner points out 

 how size affects every aspect of an organ- 

 ism's biology — if watermelons grew on 

 trees, their weight would require a stalk as 

 thick as the melon itself. 



Unlike Haldane, however, Bonner laces 

 his ideas and arguments with self-depre- 

 cating and humorous personal anecdotes. 

 My favorite one concerns Haldane him- 

 self, whom a diffident young Bonner en- 

 countered in the lavatory after lecturing at 

 University College in London. "Bonner, 

 we don't make jokes in lectures in this 

 country," boomed the always intimidating 

 Haldane. 



If we measure books by the degree to 

 which they alter our perceptions, then this 

 one is certainly a winner. We will never be 

 able to look at a rotting log in quite the 

 same way again or dig through the soil in 

 the garden. In one of Saul Bellow's novels, 

 a character offers an opinion that aptly de- 

 scribes Bonner's perspective — "Nothing 

 is too rum to be true." Indeed! 



Former lion trainer Steven Austad is now 

 an associate professor in the Department 

 of Biological Sciences at the University of 

 Idaho. He studies evolutionary biology 

 and the biology of aging, and combines 

 laboratory research on opossums with 

 fieldwork on the arboreal nmrsupials of 

 Papua New Guinea. 



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