From Catfish to Caiman
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF FISHES. By Maurice Constantin-Weyer. (Richard Bell, 15s.) THESE two books approach the animal kingdom from very different angles, M. Constantin-Weyer exploring the oceans with a cool scientific detachment befitting their denizens, and Mr. Attenborough exploring Guiana from a cosier, one might almost say woollier, slant. The Private Life of Fishes, for all that it is intended for the ordinary reader, is undoubtedly a specialist's item, and it is idle to pretend, except when the author makes valiant efforts to entertain, that it will be appreciated by any but anglers or aquarium lovers. It is true that in every chapter there are delightful passages and that much startling information can be acquired painlessly, but M. Constantin-Weyer's technical knowledge is such that he errs, as do so many erudite people, in supposing that we are brighter than we are. To the dry-bob reader such news as fish do everything but swim with their fins, that the lamprey honeymoon is lethal, and that the male catfish incubates its wife's eggs in its mouth, is fascinating, but Descartes' laws of refraction and the arterial system of a fish's heart are definitely not. To the piscatorially inclined this mixture of scientific data, charming analogies, Latin, diagrams and philosophical comments will doubtless be of absorbing interest. But to those who do not much care that the Elasmobranchs are pre-vertebrates or that four pairs of Branchim act as filters for plankton in the Clupeids, Mr. Attenborough's Zoo Quest will be more digestible.
A television producer, Mr. Attenborough and three companions went on a BBC-London Zoo expedition to bring back alive such animals, birds and reptiles that inhabit the savannahs and forests of British Guiana. He writes in a very friendly non-literary style, and having limited practical experience in the zoological field is just as astonished, frightened, pleased and disgusted as we should be if we encountered such creatures as sloths, anacondas, humming birds, caimans, manatees and vampire bats, to name but a few. A modest man, he tells his story simply, and although his adventures are, as adventures go these days, a bit on the quiet side, they are enlivened by his tine sense of the ridiculous. This is not a book for the zoologist. It is the manatee's absurd face rather than its vertebra which commands Mr. Attenborough's attention. Lots of photographs, one map, light pleasant reading.
VIRGINIA GRAHAM
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