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Bryozoans
BOOK REVIEWS
225
Here then is a book of science that is a work of art. The authors have exercised taste, restraint, editorial discrimination, common sense, and occasional flashes of wry humor to bring us an extremely useful and informative guide to the study of fossils in thin section. Anyone working with carbonate rocks in thin section--whatever his experience and expertise--will find this book an invaluable and esthetic reference. Finally, it should be noted that an instructional set of 50 black and white, 2 x 2, slides, selected from the plates, can be purchased from the publisher. L. F. LAeORTE(Santa Cruz, Calif.)
Bryozoans. J. S. Ryland. Hutchinson University Library, London, 1970, 175 pp., 21 fig., U.S. $4.-- (hard cover); U.S. $1.90 (soft cover). The invertebrate phylum Ectoprocta, or Bryozoa, originated in the Cambrian. Since then thousands of species have evolved and currently about 3,500 are in existence. Like the barnacles and Crustacea, the Bryozoa are a major marine group which has undergone a tremendous radiation during the Tertiary and Recent. They are in the midst of one of their periods of adaptive radiation. In addition, bryozoans are perhaps the most highly evolved of the colonial organisms now living, and they occupy a great diversity of ecologic niches. Study of recent and fossil forms has long been carried out without much consideration, respectively, of the geologic record or how bryozoans make a living. The inclusion of major features of both living and once-living forms in the same book by Ryland is good news. His book aims at the needs of university students studying either marine biology or paleontology. How well Ryland meets the requirements of these students depends first upon the degree of clarity and self-explanation of the illustrations, and second upon the ease with which the text is assimilated. In general, Ryland's many illustrations have been carefully chosen, several are refreshingly new, and in general they do a good job. Hopefully when the next edition is prepared, however, the publisher will encourage even additional figures. This would ease the present task of forcing as much data as possible into limited space: a few very important figures have as many as 20-25 labelled parts. In addition, the size of illustrated morphological parts should routinely be given. Great attention to size is important for biologists examining sketches of thin sections of fossil material, and for paleontologists trying to learn about the morphology of living forms. The text includes a good balance of interesting biological and paleobiological material. My guess is that students of other invertebrate groups will now recognize Bryozoa as animals instead of historical caricatures, in which ordinary structures are mystically given unique names, as is often the case. It is a pleasure simply to
Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol.,Palaeoecol., 11 (1972)213-234
226
BOOK REVIEWS
read about a colony, instead of a zooarium. The continued use of "cystid" (for body wall of the zooid) will not help, however. This book takes its place among those of the recent literature that are devoted to a single major group of animals, such as have appeared for the echinoderms, annelids, conodonts, molluscs, brachiopods, etc. The philosophical approach of these books, and Ryland's in particular, is to communicate information about a group rather than to emphasize the point of view that that group provides in the study of more general biological or paleobiological problems. Many biologists thumbing through Bryozoans ~vill be amazed at the amount of recent ecologic and physiologic information now available. Finally, akin to speaking about a pride of lions or a tangle of nematodes, we can christen the term "squint of Bryozoa", and conclude that Ryland has indeed given us much to examine. T. J. M. SCHOPF
(Chicago, Ill.)
ElOments de PalOontologie. C. Babin. Armand Colin, Paris, 1971, 408 pp., 300 fig., f. 48.--. Palaeontology has been a more or less respectable science for over 200 years, but we have only this year acquired two text-books that treat it as something more than stamp-collecting. We have had the excellent advanced text-book by Raup and Stanley Principles of Paleontology, and now we have this outstanding elementary text-book by Professor Claude Babin of the University of Brest. Much has been blamed on Linnaeus and his sublimely simple attitude to the organic world, and we in palaeontology have still not escaped from his smothering embrace. From the pioneer classifiers of the 18th century we went via the monumental monograph writers of the 19th to the great Zittel text-book. Darwin and Mendel hardly affected us at all if we are to judge our subject merely by its student texts. Even those books that did not attempt to be comprehensive and did try to include some ideas, still followed the same trudge through the invertebrate phyla. In the fifties and sixties we had another burst of even more voluminous monographic solemnity with the Anglo-American, the Russian, the French and the German treatises and a series of telephone directory type text-books. Now at last we have something that attempts to present to the student all aspects of the subject including its most exciting and up-to-date aspects. Palaeontology is something more than just names. It is evolution and ecology and functional morphology and much else besides. This is not to decry the vast works of systematic scholarship. Of course we need them and students should be made aware of the need for them, but this is surely no way to teach our subject. It may be said about this book (and about my attitude) that it makes for superficiality and a neglect of careful observation and precision. I am unrepentant.
Palaeogeogr.,Palaeoclimatol.,Palaeoecol., 11 (1972) 213-234
225
Here then is a book of science that is a work of art. The authors have exercised taste, restraint, editorial discrimination, common sense, and occasional flashes of wry humor to bring us an extremely useful and informative guide to the study of fossils in thin section. Anyone working with carbonate rocks in thin section--whatever his experience and expertise--will find this book an invaluable and esthetic reference. Finally, it should be noted that an instructional set of 50 black and white, 2 x 2, slides, selected from the plates, can be purchased from the publisher. L. F. LAeORTE(Santa Cruz, Calif.)
Bryozoans. J. S. Ryland. Hutchinson University Library, London, 1970, 175 pp., 21 fig., U.S. $4.-- (hard cover); U.S. $1.90 (soft cover). The invertebrate phylum Ectoprocta, or Bryozoa, originated in the Cambrian. Since then thousands of species have evolved and currently about 3,500 are in existence. Like the barnacles and Crustacea, the Bryozoa are a major marine group which has undergone a tremendous radiation during the Tertiary and Recent. They are in the midst of one of their periods of adaptive radiation. In addition, bryozoans are perhaps the most highly evolved of the colonial organisms now living, and they occupy a great diversity of ecologic niches. Study of recent and fossil forms has long been carried out without much consideration, respectively, of the geologic record or how bryozoans make a living. The inclusion of major features of both living and once-living forms in the same book by Ryland is good news. His book aims at the needs of university students studying either marine biology or paleontology. How well Ryland meets the requirements of these students depends first upon the degree of clarity and self-explanation of the illustrations, and second upon the ease with which the text is assimilated. In general, Ryland's many illustrations have been carefully chosen, several are refreshingly new, and in general they do a good job. Hopefully when the next edition is prepared, however, the publisher will encourage even additional figures. This would ease the present task of forcing as much data as possible into limited space: a few very important figures have as many as 20-25 labelled parts. In addition, the size of illustrated morphological parts should routinely be given. Great attention to size is important for biologists examining sketches of thin sections of fossil material, and for paleontologists trying to learn about the morphology of living forms. The text includes a good balance of interesting biological and paleobiological material. My guess is that students of other invertebrate groups will now recognize Bryozoa as animals instead of historical caricatures, in which ordinary structures are mystically given unique names, as is often the case. It is a pleasure simply to
Palaeogeogr., Palaeoclimatol.,Palaeoecol., 11 (1972)213-234
226
BOOK REVIEWS
read about a colony, instead of a zooarium. The continued use of "cystid" (for body wall of the zooid) will not help, however. This book takes its place among those of the recent literature that are devoted to a single major group of animals, such as have appeared for the echinoderms, annelids, conodonts, molluscs, brachiopods, etc. The philosophical approach of these books, and Ryland's in particular, is to communicate information about a group rather than to emphasize the point of view that that group provides in the study of more general biological or paleobiological problems. Many biologists thumbing through Bryozoans ~vill be amazed at the amount of recent ecologic and physiologic information now available. Finally, akin to speaking about a pride of lions or a tangle of nematodes, we can christen the term "squint of Bryozoa", and conclude that Ryland has indeed given us much to examine. T. J. M. SCHOPF
(Chicago, Ill.)
ElOments de PalOontologie. C. Babin. Armand Colin, Paris, 1971, 408 pp., 300 fig., f. 48.--. Palaeontology has been a more or less respectable science for over 200 years, but we have only this year acquired two text-books that treat it as something more than stamp-collecting. We have had the excellent advanced text-book by Raup and Stanley Principles of Paleontology, and now we have this outstanding elementary text-book by Professor Claude Babin of the University of Brest. Much has been blamed on Linnaeus and his sublimely simple attitude to the organic world, and we in palaeontology have still not escaped from his smothering embrace. From the pioneer classifiers of the 18th century we went via the monumental monograph writers of the 19th to the great Zittel text-book. Darwin and Mendel hardly affected us at all if we are to judge our subject merely by its student texts. Even those books that did not attempt to be comprehensive and did try to include some ideas, still followed the same trudge through the invertebrate phyla. In the fifties and sixties we had another burst of even more voluminous monographic solemnity with the Anglo-American, the Russian, the French and the German treatises and a series of telephone directory type text-books. Now at last we have something that attempts to present to the student all aspects of the subject including its most exciting and up-to-date aspects. Palaeontology is something more than just names. It is evolution and ecology and functional morphology and much else besides. This is not to decry the vast works of systematic scholarship. Of course we need them and students should be made aware of the need for them, but this is surely no way to teach our subject. It may be said about this book (and about my attitude) that it makes for superficiality and a neglect of careful observation and precision. I am unrepentant.
Palaeogeogr.,Palaeoclimatol.,Palaeoecol., 11 (1972) 213-234