WHO WILL ANSWER THE OWL?

Animal body language is the subject of Bartlett's scattershot report on subhuman communication, which asks a lot of off-the-wall questions (Have our inventions been too costly? What partnership have we with the animals?); gives a lot of cut and dried answers (animals feel; humans reason) which belie the lip service paid--at digressive length--to the spirit of inquiry; cites the expected studies (by yon Frisch, Goodall, David Premack, etc.) without relating them to any point or developing concept; and throws no light at all on what is put forth as a central issue--how animal signals evolved into human speech. Moreover, filling half the pages, plus wide borders on the other half, with sketchbookish ink drawings--some of which bear distracting captions that might better have been integrated with the text--only emphasizes the absence of structure. Bartlett no doubt set out to challenge readers to creative thought, but her signals are too scattered to be distinguished from the noise.