NEW BIOLOGICAL BOOKS 



1x9 



THE WAR ON MODERN SCIENCE. 



A Short History of the Fundamentalist At- 

 tacks on Evolution and Modernism. 

 By Maynard Shipley. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 

 $3.00 5! x 8|; xiv + 415 New York 



Mr. Shipley is president of the Science 

 League of America, a body organized to 

 fight Fundamentalism. This book is in- 

 tended as a history of the progress of the 

 campaign during the past five years, and, 

 one must suppose, as insidious propaganda 

 against the palaeobaptists. How much 

 good it will do in the latter direction seems 

 dubious. Obviously no Fundamentalist 

 is going to alter his views as a result of 

 reading it. Those who are not Funda- 

 mentalists need no converting. The real 

 usefulness of the book in the long run will 

 be as a well put together contemporary 

 record of an ephemeral social disturbance 

 in American life, more idiotic perhaps 

 than most, but on that very account the 

 more certain to be short lived. We wish 

 Mr. Shipley all success in the good fight he 

 is making to hasten the final interment. 



GENETICS 



TH 



HE ORIGIN OF SPECIES BY MEANS 

 OF NATURAL SELECTION or the Pres- 

 ervation of Favored Races in the Struggle for 

 Life. 



By Charles Danvin. The Macmillan Co. 



So cents (cloth) New York 



4! x 7!; xxxv + 557 



A cheap, but good reprint of the sixth 

 edition of the great classic of biology, 

 with an interesting introduction by Pro- 

 fessor Edmund B. Wilson. 



SEGREGATION AND AUTOGAMY IN 

 BACTERIA. A Contribution to Cellular 

 Biology. 



By F. H. Stewart. Adlard and Son, Ltd. 



7s. 6d. 5! x 8^; v + 104 + 4 plates London 



(paper) 



This book is the record of an interesting 

 piece of research, which leads the author 

 to a new theory of the life-cycle and of the 

 origin of variation in bacteria. 



If a bacterium 



"is placed in new surroundings with sufficient food 

 it multiplies quickly by simple fission (colony forma- 

 tion). This vegetative phase is stopped by an 

 intrinsic force, but it can be either lengthened or 

 shortened by external conditions (amount of food 

 available, moisture, crowding) and it can be contin- 

 ued indefinitely by frequent change of surroundings. 



"Shortly before vegetative growth stops the 

 second phase of the life-cycle begins, in which a few 

 out of the great number of bacteria in a colony 

 (either on solid or in liquid nidus) go through segre- 

 gation, autogamic conjugation, and, under certain 

 circumstances, variation. In spore-bearing races 

 the zygote forms the spore. Segregation in bacteria 

 is the same as in the higher forms; in it allelomorphic 

 couples of the organism divide. We know little 

 about the mechanism of autogamy, but it seems not 

 unlikely that before segregation takes place each 

 allelomorphic couple is represented in the 'anterior' 

 and 'posterior' halves of the bacterium (Schaudinn 

 and Dobell's pre-sporing division), and that, after 

 segregation, and if nothing disturbs them, the 'right 

 hand' allelomorphs of one half of the body unite with 

 the 'left hand' allelomorphs of the other. At least 

 this is as good a mental picture as any other. But, 

 if a definite external stimulus is at the moment bearing 

 on a heterozygous bacterium, then in the one pair 

 (anterior and posterior) of allelomorphic couples 

 which is concerned with the stimulus, the dominant 

 allelomorphs are dissipated (as primitive polar 

 bodies?), the recessives come together, and the 

 bacterium varies. 



