This is a masterly comprehensive survey of the ""phenomenon 'animal'"" by the author of In Search of Adam. The book is divided into five parts providing a hierarchy of evolution: Mother Ocean, The Leap to the Mainland, Into the Atmosphere, Conquest of the Great Open Spaces, From Instinct to Thought. Beginning with the profusion of form among marine fauna -- squids, predatory starfish, the Sargasso Sea--the tremendous jungle in the Atlantic, the development of vertebrates,- he describes with a clarity which never becomes oversimplification; amphibious life -- reptiles, lizards, frogs; insects -- termites, praying mantis; ""diabolical flowers"", flying foxes, bats; life in the desert, on the Great Plains; sea mammals, sea snakes; animal migration routes; animal giants -- rhinos, elephants, hippopotami, the hermit bear; polar dogs, wolves; ghost animals -- lemurs, loris and tarsiers, the descendants of primitive mammals; finally chimpanzees and anthropoid apes. A fascinating and intriguing record, a must for the naturalist neophyte.