Another new undergraduate biology text, the title of which includes the word ‘Development,’ has in recent years arrived on my desk every few months. Depending on one’s point of view, it either is or is not surprising that each has a distinctive character, a different concept of what the field of development encompasses, a particular flavour. Of course they all share certain features as well, e.g. photomicrographs of various well-known embryos, and a plethora of beautiful and informative diagrams, the sort with which the college biology texts of my undergraduate era were never endowed Their similarities make it nearly impossible in evaluating any one of these books to avoid comparison. Nor is it possible to discuss their dissimilarities of ‘flavour’ in a wholly objective fashion, reactions to flavours being essentially a personal matter.