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Analysis of metabolic scaling in currently living endothermic animal species allowed us to show how the relationship between body mass and the basal metabolic rate (BMR) has evolved in the history of endothermic vertebrates. We compared six taxonomic groups according to their energetic characteristics and the time of evolutionary divergence. We transformed the slope of the regression lines to the common value and analyzed three criteria for comparing BMR of different taxa regardless of body size. Correlation between average field metabolic rate (FMR) of the group and its average BMR was shown. We evaluated the efficiency of self-maintenance in ordinary life (defined BMR/FMR) in six main groups of endotherms. Our study has shown that metabolic scaling in the main groups of endothermic animals correlates with their evolutionary age: the younger the group, the higher the metabolic rate, but the rate increases more slowly with increasing body weight. We found negative linear relationship for scaling exponents and the allometric coefficient in five groups of endotherms: in units of mL O2/h per g, in relative units of allometric coefficients, and also in level or scaling elevation. Mammals that diverged from the main vertebrate stem earlier have a higher “b” exponent than later divergent birds. A new approach using three criteria for comparing BMR of different taxa regardless of body mass will be useful for many biological size-scaling relationships that follow the power function.

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The dial indicator, one of industry's precision tools, has heen tested over a period of two and a half years to ascertain its suitability as a dendrometer. This study cannot claim to be the first of its kind, nor t o yield eshaustive information, and on this basis the instrument should therefore neither be condemned nor accepted in full. The experience gained may be crystallized in a warning The dial indicator is unnecessarily precise far measurement of response of growth to thinning: too many sample trees are required t o reduce the influence of biological variation so as to match instrumental precision. The diai indicator is technically inferior to the dendrograph as a recorder of daily fluctuations in stem dinmeter.The experimental results were found t o contribute significantly t o n better understanding of the Douglas fir in its relation t o environment and silvicultural management; but in evaluating the experiment8 ss such i t should be borne in mind that their original design has been restricted by their basic purpose, namely t o test the dial indicntor.