Welsh Journals

the budding geologist needs to know. The 156 colour photographs show a wide range of geological features and for each there is a detailed and relevant text. Many of the photographs were taken in Wales gash breccia in carboniferous limestone at Lydstep, glacial striations at Moelfre, solifluction terrace at Marros Sands, repeated turbidites in Aberystwyth grits. Dr. Bates is Senior Lecturer in Geology at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth, and he has carried out most of the work on the older and harder rocks. The Private Life of the Rabbit: R. M. Lockley: Corgi Books: 75p. When Richard Adams had finished telling his children the story that was to become the best-selling Watership Down and had, at their insistence, agreed to write it as a novel, he realised that, before he could do so, he would need to know a good deal more about the lives and habits of real rabbits. He went to a shop and found Mr. Lockley's book. Fortune was kind, he says in the Introduction to this paperback edition, in which he acknowledges his debt to Ronald Lockley. He hopes that Watership Down will play some part in leading a wider public to read "this exceptional work of observation and natural history. the book of an excellent naturalist, of a keen, shrewd, but feeling mind and above all of a true that is to say, a sensitive, painstaking and clear-sighted lover of this beautiful earth". Farm Animals: L. Alderson: Frederick Warne: 90p. This addition to the Observer's Pocket series, was written to help visitors to enjoy the countryside and to have a better understanding of farming and rural pursuits. Mr. Alderson, a practical farmer and consultant to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, is particularly qualified to write such a book. He gives a brief history of domestication and describes 38 breeds of sheep, 33 of cattle, 9 of horses, 10 of pigs and 5 of goats, and there is a chapter on poultry. In addition to 109 black and white photographs there are are 8 colour plates. Countrymen, as well as visitors, will learn a lot from this little book. Animals in Danger: trans. Irene R. Anderson: Frederick Warne: £ 2.50. This is the twelfth title in the Private Lives of Animals series. It examines many of the 1,000 species, birds, mammals, reptiles and fish, threatened with extinction. The vast majority are in danger because of man. The book is profusely illustrated but the text is rather advanced for younger children. Animals of Oceania, trans. Irene R. Anderson, in the same series, deals with the unusual and unique antipodean fauna, many of them marsupials. Prehistoric Animals: trans. Ruth Day: £ 2.25, also in the same series vividly illustrates vanished creatures, from fossils to Pithecanthropus. These books have a special appeal for children and there should be a full set of titles in every junior school library.