Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

relationship: it protects them from their predators, or conceals them from their prey. It is used to lure and to alarm: it is employed for recognition and to communicate. Consideration is given to the value of colour to animals, and to its use for disguise and adornment by man. Some of the colour photographs are quite remarkable, especially the ones showing camouflage and mimicry, but the captions are sometimes misleading and, at least in one case, reversed. Such carelessness is difficult to understand in so beautifully produced a book. Tree Charts of Britain and Northern Europe: Warne: These four charts illustrate over fifty species of trees-fourteen conifers and the remainder broad-leaved. The latter are shown in summer and winter conditions, with a specimen leaf, fruit, bud and, sometimes, flower. English and Latin names are given. The illustrations, by Ian Garrard, give a fair idea of the shape and character of each tree, with the exception of Osier (Salix viminalis) and one or two others which are usually regarded more as shrubs than trees. The charts are ideal for schools, field study centres and such places. They retail at 50p each, or 70p in individual plastic tubes, plus V.A.T. Wildlife '74- 6: K. F. Robins & M. A. Radford: Interzoo Publications, Ltd., 45p., is the unlikely title of an illustrated reference guide to zoological collections of all sorts in this country, including safari parks, bird gardens and aquaria. Provisional Atlas of the Amphibians and Reptiles of the British Isles: ed. Henry R. Arnold: Biological Records Centre, Monks Wood: 25p. This is the first of a series that will cover the smaller groups of animals and is the result of a recording scheme launched by the B.R.C. in 1966. The first map shows those parts for which no records have been received and an appeal is made for assistance in these areas, which are prominent in Wales. The help of schoolchildren in Ireland is acknowledged: Welsh schoolchildren could well follow their lead. The Living Seashore: Joan M. Clayton: Warne: £ 6.00. The seashore, the author reminds us, 'supports a greater variety of organisms than any other one habitat', and she presents us with a splendid book that will be found useful as the basis for an ecological study of a rocky, sandy or muddy shore by students of all ages. The first part of the book is 'an enviromental ap- proach' to the seven thousand mile long stretch of seashore around Britain, ending in a chapter on conservation. Philip Henry Gosse visited Tenby in 1854 and was delighted by the abundance of sea anemones but, two years later, they had been taken to be placed in the parlour aquaria which Gosse himself had popularised. Today, the author warns, the danger is from unscrupulous skin-divers and from erosion by cars and trampling feet. The second part deals in detail with the fauna of the seashore, from the planktonic larvae to spider crabs and starfish. The book is well-planned, well-written. and well-illustrated with colour and black-and-white plates, diagrams and line drawings.