From the dust jacket:
A book on natural history written by an eminent biologist is bound to be an adventure in exploring new worlds or in seeing an old world with new eyes. Indeed, the facts of natural history comprise in themselves such an absorbing subject of study that it is not surprising that so many books dealing with this branch of science are content to go no further than to disclose the facts and to open up to the reader's eyes the marvels of the living world.
For under the austere scientific terminology of such words as symbiosis or parasitism or ecology lie the working principles, the tactics of life itself, from the tiniest protozoa to the largest plants and animals. Even the process of classification is no barren scientific procedure but a way of coming to terms with the whole variety and complexity of living organisms, bringing into focus the whole history of life on this planet and in fact leading to one of the great revolutions in human thought–the theory of natural selection.
But this book is more than an adventure in exploring new worlds and is written with a purpose far different from impressing the reader with the discoveries of science. It is the special attitude of science as revealed in natural history that the author succeeds in conveying. And once this attitude is understood, the facts of natural history are seen in their proper dramatic light–not as simple wonders interesting only in themselves but in relation to the persistent efforts of the human mind to order and understand them. Here, indeed, is a rare backstage view of science itself.
Dr. Bates has written this book with a real missionary zeal. The verve and humor and lively animation which he brings to the task of conveying the attitude of science quickens every topic he dwells upon, bringing it out of the storehouse of dead knowledge into the completely vital arena of scientific theory. No one who reads this book can fail to share in the excitement of intellectual understanding that has made devotees of scientists and of science itself a vital mission.
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