Privileged Hands

This gets off to a slow start: the beginning section is weighted down with labored accounts of each teacher, class and playmate of the author's childhood. However, readers should persevere: this is an absolutely delightful memoir, tracing the intellectual development and career of a distinguished and consummately likable evolutionary biologist. Vermeij was born in Holland; his parents emigrated to America in 1955, when he was nine, in part because they wanted the best possible education for their son, who was bright, gifted--and blind. Propelled by his sharp intellect, will and bountiful curiosity, Vermeij turned his childhood fascination with shells into a rewarding career. A critic of affirmative action, he maintains that he never wanted to be held to different standards than his classmates or colleagues, and has often battled prejudice about the abilities of the blind. He here recounts a rich life, filled with teaching, researching, writing books and papers and editing scientific journals. But it is clearly fieldwork that impassions him the most. He is in his element wading through tidal pools in his sneakers, accompanied by his wife or daughter or a research assistant, identifying by touch the species that inhabit the intertidal zone. Vermeij, who teaches at UC-Davis, offers an interesting exploration of the ""cold war"" between crabs and snails, a classic example of parallel evolution: the claws of the former become more massive and powerful as the shells of their prey thicken to repel predators. He makes evolution accessible, reminding us that we are caught up in its sweep no less than the fossilized brachiopods in his collection. Vermeij occasionally indulges in atrocious puns, but on the whole his prose is clean and direct, even lyrical at times, as when he writes of shell-seeking expeditions on tropical shores. His autobiography will offer untold encouragement to those facing the challenge of a physical disability. (Oct.)