Book Reviews 1405

Acoustic and Vibrational Communication in Insects. Edited by KLAUS KALMRING & NORBERT ELSNER Berlin & Hamburg: Verlag Paul Parey (1985). Pp. viii+230. Price DM 98.00/approx $32.00 (paperback).

This volume contains the proceedings of two symposia from the 17th International Congress of Entomology which was held at the University of Hamburg in August 1984.

The majority of such proceedings tend to be unsatisfactory because their contents do not repre- sent a rational selection of topics but rather reflect the interests of delegates who have the time and financial resources to attend the conference. In this instance this has resulted in a very biased collection of papers. Three-quarters of the contributors are from West German laboratories and several names appear on more than one paper (one on no less than five!). This might, of course, be a reflection of where most of the work is being carried out and this is to some extent true. However, the geographical bias extends also to the content and taxonomic spread. Insects from at least 10 different orders communi- cate by sound yet 21 (out of 26) of the papers deal with a limited range of Orthoptera, two with pentatomid bugs and one with a spider. Most of these are research papers but, in addition, there are two short but useful reviews, one by Michelsen dealing with the attenuation and distortion of airborne sounds and the other by Gogala on the biophysics of vibrational communication.

The title of this symposium volume is misleading and the aim stated in the preface that the contents represent a synthesis of disciplines, ecology, etho- logy, biophysics and neurobiology, is not realized. In fact it is only the last of these that is dealt with in any detail. Very few of the papers are concerned with the behavioural aspects of insect communica- tion. The majority deal with the processing of acoustic signals within the nervous system either at a peripheral or a central level. This is an area of intense research activity at present which appears to have eclipsed work on mechanisms of sound production, and this balance is reflected in the

contents of the volume. The recently developed techniques of recording from identified neurons within the CNS and then staining them to reveal their morphology and possible connectivity has led to the description of numbers of interneurons with characteristic properties. The uninitiated will soon find themselves floundering among ON, BNC1, GN, DCMD or G-neurons. The editors have clearly been strict with their allocation of space and all the papers are fairly short. This is no bad thing but the condensed style of some of the contribu- tions will be a further impediment to the non- neurophysiologist.

There are important lessons for the ethologist embedded in the neurophysiology and biophysics, for example the integration of acoustic and vibra- tional signals (see the chapters by Kalmring et al. and Keuper et al.) is unlikely to be elucidated by behavioural methods alone. The important role of vibrational signals in insect communication is becoming appreciated due to work on the receptors involved and also from an understanding of how such signals are transmitted (see the chapter by Cokl). But ethologists will have difficulty in extract- ing what is important to them from the majority of these contributions. They will also get a misleading idea if led to believe that this volume spans more than a limited area of research in insect acoustic behaviour. The lack of any kind of index is also a serious drawback.

Given the bias outlined above, how useful is this collection? For someone primarily interested in behaviour, I think that the area covered is too specialized and narrow but, for the neuroetholo- gist, it contains a commendably up-to-date cover- age of a fast moving and interesting field of research.

Department of Zoology, University of Edinburgh, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, Scotland.

ARTHUR W. EWING

Books Received

These notes are compiled from the authors' or the publishers' own descriptions. Critical reviews may be published in later issues of Animal Behaviour.

Triumph of the Intelligent: the Creation of Homo sapiens sapiens. By SEYMOUR W. ITZKOFF. Ash- field, Massachusetts: Paideia (1985). Pp. 210. Price $16.00.

This book follows on from The Form of Man by the

same author and is intended to be part of a series of four on the evolution of human intelligence. Triumph of the Intelligent is directed at the in- terested general reader. It focuses on the evolution- ary dynamics that led to the production of ever more intelligent humans. The author has attempted