The sagging shelves of local bookstores suggest that
publication of
nature books is increasing exponentially. I consider that a good sign.
Here are several that I found outstanding. I believe
that each would
not only add to the pleasure of your summer holidays but would also
provide lighter reading than the current Clancy and Grisham heavyweights.
I once asked a biologist friend
about the subject of
his doctoral
thesis. He made me promise not to tell his colleagues before he admitted
to me that his research was on small mammals. Although his concern about
his departmental status was tongue-in-cheek, his message was still clear.
Despite some recent inroads, current biological research is still heavily
oriented toward the miniscule. Anything larger than the point of a pin
(not even the head) raises eyebrows. Cells are too big nowadays.
There are, however, wonderful exceptions. Among the
best is the ant
specialist Edward O. Wilson, whose popular books are all worth reading.
And this year we have Knut Schmidt-Nielsen's The Camel's Nose: Memoirs
of a Curious Scientist (Island Press), an autobiography by a retired
Duke University animal physiologist whose study subjects included not
only camels but jackrabbits, kangaroo rats, desert foxes, snails, frogs,
turtles and cormorants as well.
Schmidt-Nielsen provides a wonderful model for a
serious youngster
considering a career in science. Here he tells how he identified
interesting problems and then solved them, although some took years,
extensive travel and many remarkable experiments to
untangle. Among his results: he discovered how desert animals that never
drink are able to survive and how marine birds eliminate the salt from
the sea water they imbibe. In the process he discharged many myths: for
example, the long accepted claims that
camels store water in their humps and don't sweat. His are engaging
stories very well told.
Two specialized audiences --
birders and those
interested in insects
(should I say ""buggers''?) -- and many general readers will enjoy
Gilbert Waldbauer's The Birder's Bug Book (Harvard University
Press). Waldbauer is by occupation an entomologist -- he's a University
of Illinois emeritus professor -- but by avocation a birdwatcher. He
brings this background to bear on the war between insects and birds --
with us humans thrown in as well. For almost a quarter billion years
insects and birds have interacted, our association with those other
orders lasting only a thousandth of that time. Over those eons a kind of
stalemate has developed in these battles: birds eat bugs but some bugs
fight back through camouflage and mimicry while others eat birds. I
learned a great deal from this well-conceived and informative book.
It is always a pleasure to call
attention to fine
books by local
authors. Red Jacket: Iroquois Diplomat and Orator (Syracuse
University Press) by University at Buffalo Archive Director Christopher
Densmore is one. Deeply researched but well told, this is a balanced
treatment of a controversial figure in this country's early history. Born
a Seneca in the 1750s, Red Jacket lived through the difficult
confrontations of his people with the newly formed United States. Now
buried in Forest Lawn, he is
perhaps most famous for his response to a Christian missionary: Try
Christianity on our white neighbors, he suggested, ""If we find it does
them good, makes them honest and less disposed to cheat Indians; we will
then consider of what you have said.'' Here is regional history at its
best.
In the future I will devote full
columns to
discussions of two other
books but I recommend them here. The first is George W. Hudler's
Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds (Princeton University Press)
and the second Stephen Drury's Stepping Stones: Evolving the Earth and
Its Life (Oxford University Press). But note that bound copies of the
latter will not be available until midsummer. -- Gerry Rising