For the Entomologist of the Future Traditional Remedies

648 Nature Vol. 282 6 December 1979 those with little or no previous experience. feeding habits, classification, and an of references in support of so many facts. The land mollusc fauna increases in excellent introduction to finding, By contrast, Insects: An Illustrated richness from north to south in the area collecting and preserving land snails. Survey of the Most Successful Animals on covered by the guide. Iceland has only 25 or Kerney and Cameron will win the gratitude Earth (Hamlyn: London and New York; so species, southern Britain about 100 of all those professionals who routinely £10), by Brian Selman et al., is a species, and parts of France over 130 identify and handle land molluscs, for straightforward account, lavishly species. This kind of faunistic recording is surely many young malacologists will be illustrated with more than 200 colour fascinating, and is based upon data recruited through reading this guide. I photographs, line drawings and diagrams. accumulated by a vast army of amateur and should like to see a copy in every haversack, No doubt it will be the coloured professional devotees. Outside along with the usual maps and ornitho illustrations which will fascinate the ornithology, there are few areas of logical field guides. T.E. Thompson layman. They certainly convey a most vivid practical biology where the amateur can impression of the diversity of insects and, playa more effective part than malacology, by often portraying things much larger the study of molluscs. The authors give us than life, they enable anyone to see insects T.E. Thompson is a professional malacologist all the information we need to enable us to whose most recent appointment was Visiting exactly as the professional entomologist join in the fun. There are chapters on the Professor of Biological Sciences, Florida views them through a stereoscopic shell, soft parts of the body, life-history, Institute of Technology. microscope. The quality of reproduction is generally high and some are superb portraits of handsome subjects with gleaming cuticles, quivering wings, and author's strong points and the occasional alert activity suggested by every bristle! For the howlers provide additional surprises in a The text that accompanies these pictures is entomologist book-already packed with stories intended written by a group of specialists and deals to excite, intrigue, startle, alarm or in turn with the evolution and distribution of the future confound the reader. Entertaining snippets of insects, their structure, physiology and of information abound on every page. Did development, their habitats and modes of THREE recently published popular books you know that machinery able to produce life, their impact on man, and their on insects differ a good deal in their scope 318,504,960 yards of silken thread per day classification. All these are discussed in an and treatment of the subject. Professor had been installed in Derby in l718? Or authoritative, modern way, and without Karl von Frisch, a Nobel Laureate that France imported 57 million medicinal over-simplification. The result is a book honoured for his work on bee behaviour, is leeches in 1823? (By an elastic definition of which depicts very successfully the great well known to a wider audience of the Insecta, Dr Ritchie manages to include variety and biological interest of the naturalists for his popular work, The earthworms, spiders, palolo worms and insects. It can be enjoyed by a 14-year-old Dancing Bees, a book which, to my mmd, Teredo among his creeping conquerors.) who is keen on biology, but it will also serve is very much more interesting than the one And there are illustrations of all manner of as a reference book for all but the more now under review. Twelve Little things from Maori tatooing chisels to what specialised undergraduate courses in Housemates (Pergamon: Oxford and New I presume are geisha girls entranced by the entomology. Not cheap, but a good York; hardback £8, paperback £2.50) is a music of cicadas. But not all readers will be Christmas present, especially for the revised and enlarged version of a book on convinced by claims that the silk industry entomologist of the future. ten groups of insects found in and around led to the Industrial Revolution or that R.G. Davies houses, and indudes accounts of the Phylloxera played an important part in the house-fly, mosquitoes, fleas, lice, bed downfall of Napoleon III. Certainly the bugs, clothes moths, cockroaches, ants and scholar will regret the more uncritical R.G. Davies is Reader in Entomology at aphids. The species are well chosen and passages and the almost complete absence Imperial College, University of London, UK. their biology is described accurately and simply, in a way understandable by the complete layman or by a child. The book is hardly detailed enough to satisfy the Traditional traditional remedies for a variety of con serious amateur naturalist or the budding ditions. This may well be due to the fact entomologist, and the rather forced remedies that there are still peasants in these humour of the text and the Victorian air of countries who know and collect the plants. many illustrations are not likely to win over THE great majority of the world's Would that we had a reasonable reservoir a sophisticated reader. But von Frisch is population is poor and their medicines are of people here who could do the same, but I mildly discursive and despite some of the traditional, being mainly plant or animal in am afraid this is not the case. This raises a naively phrased passages he is able, in his origin. These people either care for very important point. The books reviewed own words, "to show that there is themselves when ill or use traditional here are designed for amateurs, not something wonderful about the most healers. In both cases the sources of their professional botanists and plantsmen. It is detested and despised of creatures". remedies are well known, and children essential that either the plants listed should Dr Carson Ritchie, an archivist and learn from an early age which plants can or not be harmful or the descriptions so historian by training, believes, in his cannot be used, and for wh~t purposes. It detailed and clear that mistakes should not Insects: The Creeping Conquerors and was realised some time ago that the plants occur, within the limits of human Human History (Elsevier/Nelson: New used in these traditional forms of medicine fallibility. This is especially important York; $7.95) that insects have had crucial might well repay scientific investigation when describing members of the effects on human history and sets out to and there are various projects underway Umbelliferae (parsley) family, most of describe some of these. For better or worse, (and no doubt afoot) for doing just that. which look alike to the layman and include the book is largely a collection of historical This is a long way, however, from the both very useful herbs and extremely anecdotes, rather brashly presented and current fad for using herbal remedies poisonous plants. strung together in a loosely chronological instead of modern pharmaceutical Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal sequence, on such subjects as silk products. The fashion seems to be confined and English Physician (Gareth Powell: production, singing insects, insects as to the English-speaking world, no doubt London; £15) is a facsimile of the 1826 human food, and insects in medicine and because the inhabitants of mainland edition but was first published in the art. Entomology is not really one of the Europe have never stopped using seventeenth century, when medicines were © 1979 Nature Publishing Group.

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