Anim Behav., 1989,37,521-524

Book Reviews

The Natural History and Behavior of North Ameri- can Beewolves. By HOWARD E. EVANS & KEVIN M. O’NEILL. Ithaca, New York: Cornell Univer- sity Press (1988). Pp. viif278. Price $45.00 hardback, $23.50 paperback.

The illustration on the cover of this book shows that beewolves are not some exotic form of pack- hunting canids but are a group of ground-nesting solitary wasps (genus Philanthus (Sphecidae)) that provision their nests with captured bees. Along with animals such as the herring gull and three- spined stickleback, these insects were among the first research subjects of classical ethology. During the 193Os, Niko Tinbergen and his colleagues performed simple field experiments to investigate cues used by female Philanthus triangulum in capturing prey and in locating the nest entrance. The present book reports many hours of detailed observational data and the results of some experi- ments on the reproductive activities of a large number of beewolf species, very much in the tradition of the nineteenth century ‘father of insect behaviour’ (and the first student of beewolves), J. H. Fabre. However, Evans and O’Neill do more than just report observations of a fascinating group of insects. They use their observations to examine that part of modern behavioural ecological theory dealing with factors controlling the structure of mating systems.

The book consists of 10 chapters. After the Introduction and an overview of the biology of the group (Chapter 2) there are six chapters describing the natural history of the various subgroups within the genus. The six chapters combine previously published research by Howard Evans and his colleagues with quite a bit of new data. The final two chapters represent syntheses of the two major aspects of beewolf behaviour, the mate-locating activities of males (Chapter 9) and the nesting activities of females (Chapter 10). Chapter 9 reviews male behaviour in all Sphecidae and is especially interesting because it reveals how male behaviour is influenced by nesting females. Philan- thus females appear to mate only once and do so when they first start to construct the nesting burrow. Males of most species compete for mates through the defence of territories, and a cross- species comparison shows the location of male perching sites to correlate with the location and distribution of nesting females. Especially interest- ing are those species in which females do not nest in aggregations. Rather than the presumably unprofi- table tactic of defending areas near isolated female

nests, males assemble on ‘lekking grounds’, areas to which females go for mating purposes only (apparently attracted to male chemical displays) and which have been shown to be used by succes- sive generations of males over several years. This analysis by Evans and O’Neill is a nice example of how the distribution of fertilizable females affects the mating systems of the males. About the only thing one might wish to be added would be a statistical analysis of the association between male and female behaviour. The sample size of Philan- thus species for which information on both males and females is available must be close to the point where such an analysis is possible.

This book is attractively produced, in part because of the original illustrations of beewolves ‘in action’ by Byron Alexander.

DARRYL T. GWYNNE Department of Zoology, University of Toronto-Erindale Campus, Mississauga, Ontario L5L IC6, Canada.

An Introduction to Animal Cognition. By JOHN M. PEARCE. Hillsdale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum (1988). Pp. viii+328. Price E8.95 paperback.

For a number of years, psychologists who conduct experiments with laboratory animals on such topics as conditioning, maze learning and percep- tual discrimination have been interpreting their results in terms of cognitive processes which are more elaborate than reflexive associations. Although there have been useful collections of chapters to mark the trend, such as Roitblat et al. (1984) and Weiskrantz (1985), a coherent summary of it in an undergraduate textbook would be valuable. Pearce has attempted to provide this by organizing his book around the subsidiary theme of evaluating the relative intelligence of different species. This is a topic fraught with difficulties. Macphail (1982, 1987) has proposed that all non- human vertebrates are equally stupid, but has yet to convince many commentators that this is a constructive position to take. Pearce’s equivoca- tion in his treatment of Macphail’s ‘Null Hypothe- sis’ supports one’s suspicions that a global notion of intelligence is not likely to be helpful in the examination of the information-processing capaci- ties of animal species, but the issue may serve the purpose of engaging the attention of student readers.

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522 Animal Behaviour, 37, 3

The substance of the book begins with Chapter 2 on ‘The Representation of Stimuli’. Internal repre- sentations are said to be the fundamental units of animal cognition. This is an accurate reflection of contemporary wisdom, although introducing the concept by reference to experiments on Paramecia and using ‘representation’ and ‘memory’ inter- changeably may not be the best preparation for the very brief discussion on the neural coding of stored information later in the chapter. A separate chapter on memory ends with the conclusion that ‘there is a striking similarity between the memory processes of different species’ and the chapter on associative learning concludes with references to studies of Pavlovian conditioning in Paramecia and Limas. However, with the examination of experiments on selective attention Pearce begins to entertain the possibility of demonstrable species differences in cognitive capacities. Instrumental conditioning is analysed under the heading of ‘The Translation of Knowledge into Action’, and there are further chapters on ‘Problem Solving and Reasoning’ and ‘Communication and Language’ in which Pre- mack’s speculation that primates form more abstract representations than other mammals is considered and an appropriate variety of complex training experiments with chimpanzees is des- cribed. On the basis of the evidence from chimpan- zees, Pearce suggests that ‘there are reasonable grounds for believing that some animals possess at least the fundamental thought processes necessary for language comprehension and production’ (page 283). It is no surprise, therefore, when, in the final chapter on the distribution of intelligence, Pearce expresses reservations about the ‘Null Hypothesis’ for species differences in cognition.

Although in these final pages Pearce refers to the possibility that the cognitive characteristics of a given species may be influenced by the demands of the ecological niche it occupies, readers of this journal should be warned that he virtually ignores the ethological questions of evolution, develop- ment and function-Lorenz, Maynard Smith and Krebs for instance are noticeably absent, and though there are references to homing there is little on reproduction and social behaviour and nothing on optimal foraging. However, the book is written in a clear and straightforward style, and is well illustrated with figures and line-drawings. It may therefore be recommended as an introductory survey for the material it covers.

STEPHEN WALKER Department of Psychology, Centre,for Life Sciences, Birkbeck College, Ma/et Street, London WCIE 7HX, U.K.

References

Macphail, E. M. 1982. Bruin and Inrelligence in Verte- brutes. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Macphail, E. M. 1987. The comparative psychology of intelligence. Behna. Bruin Sci., 10, 645-695.

Roitblat, H. L., Bever, T. G. &Terrace, H. S. (Eds) 1984. Animal Cognirion. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Asso- ciates.

Weiskrantz, L. 1985. AnimalInrrlligenw. Oxford: Claren- don Press.

Sensory Biology of’ Aquatic Animals. Edited by J. ATEMA, R. R. FAY, A. N. POPPER & W. N. TAVOLGA. New York: Springer-Verlag (1988). Pp. x+972. Price $169.

Like so many huge, multi-author books (40 auth- ors of 34 chapters) Sensory Biology of Aquatic Animals is based on the proceedings of a conference (held in Sarasota, Florida in 1985). The editors’ aim was to produce ‘a conceptual framework for further investigations of the intricate, often unexpected, methods and processes used by ani- mals to utilise the information contained in the aquatic stimulus world.’ (page viii).

The central section (23 chapters) deals with signal extraction in the aquatic environment, going through each major sensory modality in turn; thus there are chapters on chemoreception, vision, mechanoreception, equilibrium and electrorecep- tion. This large chunk of text is preceded by an introductory section (six chapters) that considers the special features of signals (in various modali- ties) in the aquatic environment and (since the editors recognize that ‘ultimately all sensory pro- cessing stands in the service of making behavioral decisions’, page viii) by a group of four chapters (100 pages) on behaviour. The book ends with a one-chapter section on adaptation and sensory systems by Northcutt, who discusses the dangers of uncritical use of the adaptationist programme in comparative neurology.

The book is well produced, easy to read and attractive to look at. As a reference source it is extremely valuable, since it contains not only a wealth of information on the sensory biology of aquatic and amphibious animals but also three detailed indices (by subject, by species and by author) with which to track down this information. Most of the material is about teleost fish and decapod crustaceans, but other groups (arachnids and insects, for example) are also included. As an exploration of the sensory biology of aquatic, as opposed to terrestrial. animals, it has the mixed success typical of even the most carefully edited conference proceedings. Many of the contributions (especially those in the introductory section) pre-