Now numbering more than 200 in an unbroken string, they comprise a unique achievement in the annals of literature. And they will continue, vows the author, until the millennium, in January 2001. So Stephen Jay Gould's readers, numbering in the millions around the world, have not only this present pleasure but also much to look forward to. Eight Little Piggies is a special book in several ways. In all of Gould's work, this is the most contemplative and personal, speaking often of the importance of unbroken connections within our own lives and to our ancestral generations, "a theme of supreme importance to evolutionists who study a world in which extinction is the ultimate fate of all and prolonged persistence the only meaningful measure of success." This personal view leads naturally to an area that has become, for Gould, of major importance - environmental deterioration and the massive extinction of species on our present earth. He chooses, typically, unusual and telling examples: the demise of the land snail Partula from Moorea (the Bali Hai of South Pacific) and why the battle that raged over the Mount Graham red squirrel of Arizona was worth fighting. There are, in addition, more than thirty of those pretty pebbles that make Gould's work unique, opening to us the mysteries of fish tails and frog calls, of the coloration of pigeons and the eye tissue of completely bind mole rats.

Along the way, we learn what story lies behind the bent tail of an ichthyosaur and how hearing bones evolved and how, probably, we with our five fingers and toes (subject of the title essay) evolved from ancestors that had six Publishers Weekly In his latest collection of essays originally published in Natural History magazine, paleontologist Gould examines diverse and diverting topics. The title piece refers to toes, and we learn that five is not necessarily the optimum number. Gould re-examines the work of astronomer Edmund Halley and 16th-century Irish Archbishop James Ussher, who pinpointed the moment of creation (Oct. 23, 4004 B.C.); Gould finds an ``invisible hand'' connecting William Paley, Charles Darwin and Adam Smith. His recollection of an incident in his childhood leads to a discussion of selective memory. Other topics are the extinction of land snails on Moorea, development of the tiny bones of the ear, romanticism about the past and Gould's own ecological ``Golden Rule'' for our planet. He writes about the threatened red squirrel of Arizona and the ``evolution'' of old tires into sandals. This collection, easily equal to The Panda's Thumb and Bully for Brontosaurus , will not disappoint Gould's fans. Illustrations. BOMC, QPB and History Book Club selections. (Jan.) Library Journal With expected wit, insight, and erudition, Harvard geopaleontologist Stephen Jay Gould ( Bully for Brontosaurus , LJ 5/15/91) has written 31 engaging essays on the disparate but related issues of time, change, and organic evolution. Gould critically explores a cascade of ideas that shed new light on ecology, human nature, vertebrate anatomy, neo-Darwinism, and mass extinctions; he even includes personal musings. Of special interest are the essays that deal with William Paley's natural theology, Archbishop James Ussher's biblical chronology, Miocene fossil apes, the Darwinian interpretation of life's struggle for existence, and a reexamination of the Cambrian onychophoran Hallucigenia . Gould respects the scientific quest but has disdain for human intolerance. His own model of organic evolution permeates these analyses Rich in thoughts and perspectives,

 Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. 039303416X / 9780393034165
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 Harvard University Press 0674891988 / 9780674891982
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