This volume deals mainly with the biology of the American cockroach, Periplaneta americana (1.). Contributors were urged to emphasize recent findings, including unpublished data when possible, a goal that would not have been feasible if it were not for the two previously published books on the basic biology of cockroaches, The Biology o/the Cockroach (1968) by D. M. Guthrie and A. R. Tindall and The Cockroach, Volume 1 (1968) by P. B. Cornwell. Those topics not included in The American Cockroach, such as external morphology, are well covered in the two preceding books. In addition, these books provided a broad background upon which contributors to The American Cockroach have been able to build with recent trends, new and established concepts and integration. Although this book deals primarily with the American cockroach, many chapters offer a comparative approach in sections where the more recent and exciting research has been accomplished on other species. Most contributors place the cockroach in perspective with regard to its appropriateness or inappropriateness for various types of biological investigations. Many questions are realistically left unanswered when no acceptable or obvious solution is apparent; an invitation to new researchers to consider the cockroach as an experimental subject.

Insects as a group occupy a middle ground in the biosphere between bacteria and viruses at one extreme, amphibians and mammals at the other. The size and general nature of insects present special problems to the student of entomology. For example, many commercially available instruments are geared to measure in grams, while the forces commonly encountered in studying insects are in the milligram range. Therefore, techniques developed in the study of insects or in those fields concerned with the control of insect pests are often unique. Methods for measuring things are common to all sciences. Advances sometimes depend more on how something was done than on what was measured; indeed a given field often progresses from one technique to another as new methods are discovered, developed, and modified. Just as often, some of these techniques find their way into the classroom when the problems involved have been sufficiently ironed out to permit students to master the manipulations in a few laboratory periods. Many specialized techniques are confined to one specific research labo ratory. Although methods may be considered commonplace where they are used, in another context even the simplest procedures may save con siderable time. It is the purpose of this series (1) to report new develop ments in methodology, (2) to reveal sources of groups who have dealt with and solved particular entomological problems, and (3) to describe ex periments which might be applicable for use in biology laboratory courses.

This book dealing with stance and motion was planned in June 1986 at a meeting held in Moscow and Leningrad between a group of Soviet and French scientists interested in motor control. This meeting took place in the framework of an exchange program between the USSR Academy of Seiences and the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. It was very successful event and was greatly appreciated by all those who attended it. Several participants put forward the proposal that the possibility of publishing a book was worth exploring. What were the reasons for publishing a book on stance and motion ? The interest aroused in the participants by each others contributions was not a sufficiently decisive argument. It was feit, however, that a large proportion of the orginal material presented at the meeting, especially in the field of posture and locomotion but also on other aspects covered by the book could be presented in a summarized form which should appeal to a larger audience because the facts and hypotheses they contained especially those from the Soviet participants, were not very familiar among international circles, and that many scientists would appreciate having a single volume containing a survey ofthe current state of research in this field. This was also the opinion of Plenum Press, who agreed to publish the book. Each participant at the meeting submitted a paper which was examined by two referees before being accepted.

This book is a collection of papers given by invited speakers at a Symposium on 'Feedback and Motor Control', held at the University of Glasgow from July 10th to 13th 1984, which was attended by over 200 scientists from 20 countries. The Symposium was the Fourth International Symposium organised by the Scottish Electrophysiological Society (SES), and on this occasion the SES joined forces with the Society for Experimental Biology (SEB), so that the Symposium was held dur ing the annual Summer Meeting of the SEB. A policy of the SES since its formation in 1970 has been to promote dialogue between scientists working on invertebrate and vertebrate nervous systems by hol