Popular, Practical, and Scientific Natural History

Abstract

THERE is a certain want of coherence in the chapters, and of arrangement in the subject-matter, which suggest that Mr. Step's book on messmates (1) is composed of a series of originally disconnected articles. If these had been properly welded together, the volume, which is well and interestingly written, and has the advantage of combining botanical as well as zoological instances of organic cooperative association, would, with the addition of one or two important cases that are omitted, have held the field for a long time as a popular up-to-date exposition of the subject it deals with. After reading the first chapter, which describes the association of bacteria with the Leguminaceæ, of Zoochorella with Convoluta, of fungi with algae, and similar cases, the reader will be somewhat disconcerted to be told at the beginning of chapter ii. that “so far we have dealt with those animals who not only meet at meal-times, but occupy the same or adjoining dormitories.” This chapter, indeed, seems to be misplaced in the book; but it is by no means the only instance attesting lack of editorial supervision. Since, moreover, Mr. Step has evidently taken great pains to get his facts together, it was surely a mistake on his part to omit in the main quotation of the books he consulted. A bibliography adds little to the bulk, but much to the value of a book of this kind. A good idea of its scope may be gathered from the chapter headings—“Sponges and their Guests”; “Sea Anemones and Corals and their friends”; “Molluscs as Hosts and Lodgers”; &c. Messmates: A Book of Strange Companionships in Nature. By Edward Step. Pp. Xii + 220 + 48 plates. (London: Hutchinson and Co., n.d.) Price 6s. net. (2) The Infancy of Animals. By W. P. Pycraft. Pp. xiv + 272 + plates. (London: Hutchinson and Co., n.d.) Price 6s. net. (3) Injurious Insects: How to Recognise and Control Them. By Prof. W. O'Kane. Pp. xi + 414. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price 8s. 6d. net. (4) The Moorlands of North-Eastern Yorkshire: Their Natural History and Origin. By Frank Elgee. Pp. xvi + 361 + plates + maps. (London, Hull and York: A. Brown and Sons, Ltd., 1912.) Price 12s. 6d. net.