Abstract
THIS is a useful and, for its bulk and within the limits the author set himself, a very comprehensive work. A slight formal description of the classificatory characters of the vertebrate groups and sub divisions is followed by more detailed discussion of the organic systems of each class, based for the most part upon selected type. The third and most im portant section of the book contains comparative accounts of the various anatomical systems and of specialised structures. Descriptions are concise and to the point, illustrations are abundant and clear, and the schematic diagrams, for example, of the blood circulation, give an easily grasped picture of progressive changes. Our one complaint, a minor one, is that in the pictures which illustrate the pre liminary classification, no indication of reduction is given, so that a meadow-lark looks as large as its neighbour, a penguin, and a Tarsius larger than a hippopotamus.
An Introduction to the Vertebrates.
By Prof. Leverett Allen Adams. Pp. v + 414. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1933.) 21s. 6d. net.
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R., J. [Short Notices]. Nature 134, 614 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134614c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134614c0