A PICTURE BOOK OF EVOLUTION.
A Picture Book of Evolution. By Dennis Hird, M.A. Part IT. (Watts and Co. 2s. 6d. net.)—Among popular expositions of the results of scientific research, Mr. Dennis Hird's books deserve recommendation. The second part of his "Picture Book" con- tains an extremely interesting collection of figures, some reprinted from well-known works of biology, which ought to make the mean- ing of organic evolution intelligible to those whose knowledge is slight. The text is clear and elementary. Notes of exclamation are, however, rather needlessly used ; and it is a misfortune that text and illustrations have not been better combined. It is a pity, for instance, that when the reader is being instructed about reptiles or fish, the pictures on the page should treat of marsupials or monkeys. A chapter on comparative anatomy illustrates the similarity between the bodily framework of man and the lower animals. Embryology and rudimentary organs are dealt with to show the ancestry of man ; and the end of the book contains a summary of the pedigree of man from an amoeboid ancestor, tentatively put forward by Haeckel. The last chapter gives portraits and biographies (which are too short to possess much value) of the workers at evolution, from the Greeks down to Gegenbaur and Wiedersheim.
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