THE FIRST DAYS OF LIFE

A few introductory, comparative generalizations tie together these vignettes of birth and the first, hazardous days of life for a school of cod larvae, hatchling turtles, nests of herring gull and robin chicks, wolf pups, an elephant and dolphin calf, and a "baby" chimpanzee. Each episode is brisk and rather impersonal, but sensitively written, overall — and though none has the holding power of good individual life-study books (like, say, Jack Denton Scott's The Loggerhead), they are more informative than usual about the physical process of birth, Answers about the cod and the chimp instead of the birds and the bees — but for that are when the questions begin to get more substantive.