Kaplan, Gisela & Rogers, Lesley J. Birds, their habits and skills.

Allen & Unwin, dist. by Independent Publishers Group. 252p. illus. notes. bibliog. index. 1-86508-376-3. $15.95. JSA *

Anyone interested in birds should read this book. Anyone not interested in birds should read this book because it will spark an interest in a part of the natural world that is just outside our front door. The book's contents cover all the fundamental aspects of birds: their diversity, their evolution, how they choose mates and reproduce, their senses (seeing, hearing, smelling, taste and touch), how they communicate and learn, their domestication and the various ways in which they interact with humans. But what is wonderful about this book is that on virtually every page there are revelations about birds that are somewhere between revelatory and amazing. For example, birds that store and retrieve their food have developed a particular part of the brain called the hippocampus. Clark's nutcracker is one such bird. It stores about 30,000 seeds a year in about 6,000 locations, and returns to find all of them. Birds have better eyes than humans, including wider, panoramic ranges of vision. They can see more hues and colors than we can, and can use the polarization of light to direct their migratory flights. Birds that forage for food can dilate their eyes when seeking prey. King penguins, for example, dive to great depths where the light is exceedingly dim; their pupils (reduced to pinholes in the blinding glare of a snowlit landscape) can dilate fully underwater. Whereas only about five per cent of mammals mate for short-term periods or for life, almost all bird species (more than 9000) do so. Some species, like the tundra swans, are almost always together. Bird intelligence, so often the subject of human jokes (e.g., "bird-brained") is no joke at all. Birds are intelligent, some exceedingly so.

The authors of this book are both respected researchers in bird neuroscience and behavior. They have written a book that distills a vast amount of scholarship, a book that opens up the world of birds to the general reader in a way that is nothing short of praiseworthy. This book is sure to become a classic. Prof. John Rosser, Boston College, Chestnut Hilt, MA