(1) Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilisation (2) The Biology of the Blood-cells With a Glossary of Haematological Terms

Abstract

(1) THE development of the female cell or egg without fertilisation by the male cell or sperm —parthenogenesis—has been known to occur among the plant lice, or aphides, since the eighteenth century, but the artificial production of a similar phenomenon—artificial parthenogenesis —is essentially an accomplishment of the closing decades of the nineteenth century. This book gives an excellent and fascinating summary of the considerable amount of experimental work which has now been performed on this subject. Artificial parthenogenesis has been principally carried out with the eggs of sea-urchins, but the same kind of results have also been obtained with those of starfish, annelid worms and molluscs, and also with frogs and toads. Although there is usually considerable mortality among the artificially fertilised forms during the earlier periods of development, Delage has reared two parthenogenetic larvae of the sea-urchin during sixteen months to a stage of sexual maturity, and Loeb and Bancroft raised tadpoles, and even a young frog with eggs in the sex-glands, from artificially fertilised frogs' eggs.

(1) Artificial Parthenogenesis and Fertilisation.

By Jacques Loeb. Originally translated from the German by W. O. Redman King. Supplemented and revised by the Author. Pp. x + 306. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: Cambridge University Press, n.d.) Price 10s. net.

(2) The Biology of the Blood—cells. With a Glossary of Haematological Terms.

By Dr. O. C. Gruner. Pp. xii + 392 + plates. (Bristol: John Wright and Sons, Ltd., 1913.) Price 21s. net.