THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
MAN IN SEARCH OF HIS ANCESTORS, | by André Senet, translated by Malcolm oy tig Allen and Unwin, English price HIS is an excellent account of evolution in the animal kingdom-"the romance of palaeontology." The first part-130 pages-deals, as the title suggests, with prehistoric man, his near relatives, and their ancestors. The second part-80 pages, opening with a graphic account of the first coelacanth and later of others off the coast of Africa, covers the emergence of the reptiles and the birds and the rise of (continued on next page)
OKS (continued from previous page) the mammals. The third and last part of some 60 pages, after some discussion of the indisputable evidence of evolution, turns to a consideration of the first stages through which life passed between its appearance on the earth and the differentiation of the first vertebrates, and concludes with modern | theoties of the origin of organic matter from inorganic materials under the influence of circularly polarised sunlight. | I cannot too heartily recommend this book for the general reader. To guide a reader successfully in excursions in the fields of palaeontology, comparative anatomy, micro-biology, and bio-chemis-try requires not only skill, but a sense of proportion and of humour. Senet has all these. He never gets one bogged down in technical details-a neat sidestep and we are on firm ground again. His sense of humour is always at hand.
His introductory chapter-"*The Monkey’s Revenge"-is about the colossal hoax of the "Piltdown man," with some fun poked in (and in other places, too) at "Englishmen." There are eight charts, fourteen plates, and over a hundred drawings.
L.J.
W.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 13
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271THE ANIMAL KINGDOM New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 916, 1 March 1957, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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