The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller, Heinemann/Doubleday,
£20/$27.50, ISBN 0434007412
ABOVE my desk is a postcard from a friend showing two caddis larvae in cases
they themselves constructed from fragments of real gold, tiny pearls and
precious stones. This bio-jewellery is easy enough to create. You simply extract
a caddis larva from its usual gritty home, provide it with some expensive
building materials, and sit back and wait. The caddis larva’s home, or case, is
a classic example of what Richard Dawkins calls an “extended phenotype”—a
product of an individual’s genes that exists outside its body.
In The Mating…
