Secrets of Animal Life

Abstract

THIS is a collection of forty essays, contributed during recent years by Prof. Thomson to the New Statesman, and now collected in a handy and attractive volume. In his own clear and charming style the author seeks “to interest thoughtful readers in the multitudinous problems of animal life,” and he wisely enforces the lesson that, in many cases, the solutions of these problems are “secrets” still. Such familiar subjects as the habits of rooks and cuckoos or the “Fall of the Year” are mixed with review-summaries of noteworthy recent zoological literature of general interest such as Watson and Lashley's observations on the “homing” of terns, Emery's researches on the habits of Amazon ants, or Petersen's surveys of the Zostera-beds off the coasts of Denmark. The problems of inheritance and evolution are prominent, as might be expected, and from such papers as “With Darwin Forwards” and “The Mendelian Clue,” the “thoughtful reader” may gain a clear introductory view of the fields of biological inquiry, as well as guidance in the way of deeper study. Prof. Thomson never misleads those for whom he writes by implying that after reading him they have no more to learn; his treatment of “The Problem of Cave Blindness,” for example, affords a needed corrective to widespread dogmatism on a subject that has appealed to popular imagination since the early days of evolutionary biology.