To attempt to demonstrate the truth of the evolutionary doctrine
in biology may seem to modern English readers to be rather an otiose enterprise. In editing Creation by Evolution (Macmillan, 21s.) Miss Frances Mason evidently,
has .in mind the reading where
public in the United States, whe this volume was originally published, and where evolution may still be an open question to some thinkers. She has collected twenty-four essays on various aspects of organic evolution from the most eminent biologists on both sides of the Atlantic, with a foreword by Professor H. F. Osborn and an introduction by Sir Charles Sherrington. They are all erudite and mostly readable. Among the best we may mention those of Sir Arthur Woodward on the geological record, Dr. B. B. Poulton on butterflies, Sir Arthur Shipley on bees, Dr- Seams Watson on birds, Dt. Elliott Smith on
the brain, Professor S. J. Holmes on apes, and Professor, H. H. Newman on the general evidence for evolution. The editorial work leaves something:to be desired. Such a mis- print as " miscroscope ought not to appear twice in one article.
In the caption to Fig. 1 we find the amazing assertion that " a medium-sized amoeba is over a million million times smaller than the smallest mammal." . As it is stated on the next page that an average amoeba is 1/150 in.. in diameter, this means that the tiniest shrew-mouse has a bulk of ninety cubic feet : which is not true. The mistake probably origin- ated in a slip of Mr. Julian Huxley's pen on page 328, which the editor copied, not being accustomed to think in millions.
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