Abstract
THE plan of illustrating biological ideas in reference to a particular group of animals is admirable-by bringing together in a single volume a great range of facts and of theories it is of service even to the specialist, while to the beginner it affords a revelation of “the length and breadth, the depth and height “of biology. Prof. Thomson here with masterly hand and judicial mind applies to birds such biological concepts as adaptation, struggle, sex, heredity, variation, selection, and behaviour. En passant we learn not a little of modern vertebrate physiology, and, of course, of avian physiology in particular. To the general biologist, probably the chapters on “Courtship and Sex “and “Birds and Evolution,” in which all the most recent work on genetics comes under discussion, will prove of the greatest interest. The book is abundantly and excellently illustrated, and is to biological literature a solid and valuable contribution that every zoologist should possess.
The Biology of Birds.
Prof.
J. Arthur
Thomson
By. Pp. xi+436+9 plates. (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., 1923.) 16s. net.
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The Biology of Birds. Nature 113, 121 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113121c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113121c0