338
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
cannot distinguish between such trees as the sweet and horse chestnuts. I
am glad that trees are well represented as these plants are often overlooked
on account of their size!
An assessment of common plants is not easy, but some that are discussed
are more local than common and I cannot see the need to duplicate both
text and illustration of primrose (pp. 89, 90 and 129, 130) and the lesser
celandine (pp. 83, 84 and 115, 116). I also think that it is unfortunate that
the apparent leaves of the celandine belong to another plant and the line
illustration of the leaf is not typical.
Exception might be taken by some people to the lack of scientific names,
as common names can be misleading, but this easy to read book should
lead on to the study of more comprehensive works.
The book is attractively designed and some of the colour photographs
are excellent, but a number are dull and inaccurate in colour, e.g. bugle,
ramsons, crab-apple, and the dark background of others does not help.
Altogether, this is a useful little reference book which encourages per-
sonal observations of seasonal growth in the plants of the countryside.
E. Saunders.
Water-birds with Webbed Feet. By Paul Geroudet. English translation by
Phyllis Barclay-Smith. Blandford Press, 1965. 314 pages. 42/-.
This book will be invaluable to all naturalists whose business interests
or hobbies take them near the water. In deliberately flouting systematic
order by lumping together all birds with partial or complete webs between
their toes, M. Geroudet has provided a very useful guide to any bird likely
to be seen near water. The scope of his book, too, is wide, and includes
all water birds of western and central Europe. This is apt in an era when
both politically and socially we are becoming less insular, but it also serves
a practical purpose if one is planning a continental naturalist's holiday.
The implications, however, are much wider than this; it is a recognition of
the fact that the British Isles are zoogeographically part of Europe, and
that zoological knowledge is universal.
It is too easy to become set in parochial attitudes even in ornithology,
which, as the study of such mobile creatures as birds, should ever be alert
to discoveries outside the British Isles. It is pertinent in this context to
note the use made by the author of Witherby's "Handbook", alongside its
German contemporaries and co-equal classics, Niethammer's Handbuch der
deutschen Vogelkunde (1937-42), and the Heinroths Die Vogel Mittel-
europas (1924-38), both of which are so little known here.
Water-birds with Webbed Feet will be a mine of information to even
experienced ornithologists. The illustrations are excellent, the index
adequate, and M. Geroudet has been well served by his English translator.
The publishers are to be congratulated on producing such a useful book,
so well, and at a far from unreasonable price. A. W.