790 Spring books supplement Nature Vol. 278 26 April 1979 vore and carnivore modes of life so the book, this is probably right-far successfully that they held them to the Eye-opener more can be said accurately of the ana­ exclusion of the South American tomy, physiology and ecology of living eutherians. These took up all other things, and there is a rich array of possible modes, and the combined on 1ife 'living fossils' to draw on. Occasionally, fauna did not become largely extinct this approach seems to bring a weak­ until 50 X 10· yr later, when very dif­ A. J. Cain ness of treMment; if one wishes to ferent eutherians came in from the show the extraordinary continuity of north and both marsupials and local Life on Earth. By D. Attenborough. groups, even among the vertebrates eutherians suffered badly. Equally, Pp. 319. (BBCjCollins: London, 1979.) (which after all are a fairly compact there are numerous endemic eutherians £7.95. group), then the beautiful sequence in Australia today, coexisting with the from early crossopterygians to early marsupials and making up a complete reptiles should surely not be omitted. range of fauna. With the ruin of their THIS pleasant book is not, and was not To jump from lungfish and coelacanths habitats by cultivation, both sorts be­ intended to be, anything like a scienti­ to modern amphibians with only a come extinct. fic text. Although based on the highly passing mention of Eryops leaves one Inevitably, some specialist will quar­ successful television series, it is also gasping in a very rarefied atmosphere. rel with almost any sentence of the far from a mere coffee-table selection But a rigid exclusion was obviously book, but what is so useful is indeed of excellent pictures. In character, it necessary, and it is ungracious to pick the breadth of treatment and the insist­ probably approaches most closely Ken­ out omissions. ence on living things as living things, neth Clark's Civilisation. To quote One should be grateful, in fact, for solving particular problems of exist­ from the Introduction, the purpose in how much there is in the book. Hardly ence. Many of the points raised will making the films was "to try and sur­ any 'living fossil' of importance is stimulate naturalists to much further vey the whole animal kingdom and omitted, and most get considerable dis­ thought. It has been known for centu­ consider each great group of animals cussion. (The only one I wished had ries that cormorants and darters get in the light of the part it has played not been left out is that tropical plant their plumage soaked under water, and in the long drama of life" and in order that so closely parallels the fossil land­ have to sit out in the sun, drying to do so on a practicable scale "to plants (psilophytes) of the Rhynie themselves out. A survival of a primi­ try and perceive the single most signi­ Chert.) In each case, the present mode tive character? Possibly, but why ficant thread in the history of a group of life is discussed with expert know­ should it survive? If every other sort and then concentrate on tracing that, ledge and assistance. Every time, each of aquatic bird has evolved waterproof resolutely ignoring other issues ...". group is related to the state of the Earth clothing, why can't they? But if, as To do so, one must know something when it arose, the nature of the fauna suggested, the air trapped in this water­ about the anatomy and physiology of and flora it had to live with, and what proof clothing makes the bird buoyant the basic design in each group-'The it did or does that others did not or and it has to struggle to get down quintessence of, for example, a lizard is could not do. under water, does this mean that al­ only fully understandable in the light Inevitably there are many gaps in though cormorants and other pelecani­ of the particular possibilities and limi­ our knowledge, and the author is rightly forms can 3tay under for only a short tations dictated by its reptilian nature, insistent on them. Why do so many time, they are more adept in catching and that, in turn, only becomes com­ groups of invertebrates acquire fossilis­ fast fish? If so, then the lack of air prehensible in the light of its past." able hard parts at the beginning of the in the plumage may be a secondary David Attenborough has never re­ Cambrian? Was it really a sudden adaptation, specially selected for. After covered from his first experience of the cooling of climate that extinguished the a while, one begins to wonder if any tropics, and he is quite right not to; large land-reptiles (and many small character is merely primitive, merely no one, including professionals, is ones) at the end of the Mesozoic? there because one's ancestor had it. really a biologist until he has experi­ What exactly is the evolutionary rela­ Is it not kept because it still has a use? enced personally the incredible rich­ tionship between molluscs, arthropods The author comments on the reten­ ness, the diversity, the multitudinosity and annelids? As against that, the tion by modern ratites (ostrich, emu, of life where it really burgeons. And author gives an excellent picture of rhea, etc.) of adaptations for flight, when he has, it is an experience he life before the oxygen-shield developed, such as air-sacs in the bones. Possibly knows will be valuable to everyone, and living things could safely get out when their ecology and physiology are not only professionals, if it can be com­ on to land. He points out the enormous better understood we shall see why municated. This book wi\l be for very advantages of being a reptile (you can they didn't convert their legs to horse­ many people, especially young ones, live on one-fifth of the food necessary like ones. Whereas in the nineteenth literally an eye-opener on life; but it to keep an equivalent mammal stoked century so much had to be explained will be much more, because there is a up), as weB as the inevitable disadvan­ away as the retention of ancestral definite theme, or rather several, run­ tages. characters, much now makes sense ning through it. It is the welcome anti· All through, he avoids the fallacy of when we know how exactly an animal thesis to those woolly-mammal-pretty­ believing that a primitive form is neces­ lives. girl books that bored everyone some sarily inefficient; normally it is efficient Coming to the book after the tele­ years ago in the name of conservation. enough for a particular mode of life. vision programmes engenders mixed It is based, therefore, as far as pos­ He is especially interesting in this con­ feelings. One is glad to have the book sible on living forms-indeed, one of nection on the marsupials, where, in as a permanent record, and still more the surprises of the television series is fact, he seems to miss a point. The because it is extremely well written and that while taking full account of time, radiation of marsupials in South enables one to grasp the themes of the and sufficient outstandingly well-pre­ America in the Palaeocene seem to whole series. The text is clear (I noted served or interesting fossils, and of have taken place in the presence of only four misprints-and one trans­ plate tectonics, it goes extremely lightly eutherian mammals. So, far from being posed caption); the price is low. The over our old friends the dinosaurs and extinguished as more primitive and illustrations are superb, and only a other extinct reptiles, and most of the inefficient, they seized the ground in­ very few are spectacular without much extinct mammals. For the purposes of sectivore, arboreal nocturnal insecti- biological content (T noted the Goliath

C Macmillan Journals Ltd 1979 Nature Vol. 278 26 April 1979 Spring boob 8upplement 791 beetle as one). But one is constantly times the number of plates, and a na­ however, with products of later years reminded of others in the series-that tiona:lly assisted edition with ten times at Down House, would have been no wretched lizard cooling its feet in the number? Its value for schools alone mOre than the work of an outstanding almost ritual attitudes, the parachuting would justify the expenditure of naturalist had it not been for the frog, the toad's anti-snake attitude, the government money, and help to as­ publication of The Origin of Species. skimmer skimming, the caves of Nara­ suage the feelings of those who now Darwin then changed the direotion of coorte, Dinosaur National Park. the ,have to teach spelling in the Univer­ human thought and based his demon­ lancelets feeding, and scores of others. sities. 0 stration of the fact of evolution on ~lease may we have soon a de luxe "certain facts in the distribution of edition with twice the number of A . J. Cain is Derby Professor of Zoology organic :beings inhabiting South plates, a millionaire's edition with four at the University of Liverpool, UK. America, and in the geological rela­ tions of the present to the past inhabi­ tants of that continent". From that voyage was a survey of the southern date all that Darwin had done and Darwin's shores of South America. As a thought becomes of profound interest­ naturalist attached to a naval vessel, above all his activities during the Darwin might have gone to the voyag·e of HMS Beagle which ended legacy Antarctic as Joseph Hooker did, to on Novemlber 7, 1836, "having com­ Australia and New Guinea as Huxley pleted the unusually long period of c. M. Yonge was to do, or perhaps not further than five years and one hundred and thirty the eastern Mediterranean, the limit for six days" in commission. Edward FOflbes. But South America, Apart from the Journal of The Beagle Record: Selections from the not long freed from restrictions on Researches, his granddaughter, Lady Original Pictorial Records and Written scientific enquiry only pene·trated by Barlow, edited Charles Darwin's Diary Accounts of the Voyage of HMS Humboldt, was a different proposition. of the voyage of HMS Beagle in 1933 Beagle. Edited by R. D. Keynes. To the prematurely judicious eye of Pp. 409. (Cambridge University Press: and twelve years later unpublished Darwin, only 22 when the voyage letters and notebooks in Charles Darwin Cambridge, 1978.) £30. began, this continent presented so very and the Voyage of the Beagle, with

HARDLY to be realised by that monarch or indeed by any of his subjects, yet­ viewed in the light of what was to come from it-the voyage of HMS Beagle could well be considered the most momentous event during the short reign of William IV. That vessel departed on her circumnavigation of the glohe 18 months after he came to the throne and returned less than a year before his death and the accession of Queen Victoria. The numbers of those aware of the course and signifi- g cance 0'£ this voyage have recently;:l been vastly increased following the ~ broadcast of the imaginatively imp res- ~ sive television series by BBC-TV. .. Putting aside for the moment the ~ eventua·l consequence in The Origin of ': Species, there was early appreciation .§ of the immediate achievements of the ~ voyage. Darwin's original account of ~ what he saw and did was initially ~ somewhat hidden because it formed volume 3 of the Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of HMS 'Adventure' and 'Beagle' between 1826 and 1836 many matters for contemplation­ his letters to Henslow (1831-1860) in published in 1839. This appeared before recent earth movements, a wealth of Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of a wider public six years later as the unusual animals and plants, above all an Idea in 1967. Journal of Researches into the Natural of fossil remains-during the long The present, and most impressive, History and Geology of the Countries process, with constant re-checking, of volume came initially into being­ visited during the Voyage round the FitzRoy's surveys. There was the final Professor Richard Darwin Keynes, a World of HMS 'Beagle' under the bonus of the parting visit to the great grandson, informs us-after a Command of Captain FitzRoy RN, Galapagos Islands before the long chance encounter with Dr Armando which a reviewer in the Quarterly journey home. Braun Menendez at Buenos Aires in Review was to describe as "One of After return the first scientific out­ 1968. His rich collection of books, the most interesting narratives of come was The Structure and Distribu­ charts and pictures dealing with the voyaging that it has faIlen to our lot tion of Coral Reefs, the subsidence exploration of the southern hemi­ to take up, and one wlllich will always theory a result more of his previous sphere was found to include two of the occupy a distinguished place in the observations of earth mov,ements in sketch books of Conrad Martens. history of scientific navigation". South Amer"ica than of those on the Darwin may introduce him; writing to How fortunate it was, one may well few coral forma,tions encountered in his sister Caroline from Monte Video reflect, that the prime concern of the the Pacific and Indian Oceans. All, on November 13, 1833, with initial C Macmillan Journ;;!. LId 1979