BOOK REVIEWS

Containing this month: 
Collins Complete British Insects by Joan Hardingham
Mosses and Liverworts by Richard Fisk

COLLINS COMPLETE BRITISH INSECTS by Michael Chinery.
Published by Harper Collins, 2005. £16.99. 384 pages, photos, soft cover.
ISBN: 0007179669

Michael Chinery has the deserved reputation of being the UK’s leading writer on insects. He is also our local expert living in Suffolk. Collins Field Guide to Insects and Collins Pocket Guide to Insects are widely acknowledged as the best general introductions available. He has produced a new photographic field guide to about 1,500 common and unusual species of insects of Britain. It provides details of distribution for each insect, details of its biology, and some photographs of larvae. I was glad to see our old friend and ex-chairman Stan Dumican mentioned in the credits!

In reviewing this book I decided to look at it from two angles, first as if I was an interested amateur wishing to get to grips with insects and secondly whether it was a worthy successor to my much thumbed Collins A Field Guide to Insects of Britain and Northern Europe which for thirty odd years has been one of the most popular field guides to insects of Britain.

In Chinery’s new book the introduction to each order is at the beginning of the section and the descriptions are alongside each insect and mention is made of species with which it may be confused. This is a much more convenient arrangement than the old field guide, which when you have pinned down a species makes you go to another page to read about it. The photographs are very helpful, particularly when it comes to the moths and butterflies, of which there is an enormous selection of adults and caterpillars. The adults are obviously in their normal resting position, rather than pinned but diagnostic features and sexual dimorphism cannot be shown so clearly. Other big plusses are the distribution maps and only British insects feature, reducing identification fatigue. The sections covering insect defences, galls and habitats are interesting extras and could be expanded in future editions.

Given that no natural history is now taught in schools I do think that any book aimed at the amateur should really start with a broader introduction to basic insect biology and offer a taxonomic classification as a peg to hang things on; a systematic list and keys are always a useful and fun to do but are missing from the new book which doesn’t place the insects in the general order of things. The diagram ‘this is an insect’ with its 5 named parts misses the opportunity to draw the newcomer into the fascinating variety of body structures that insects offer and their diagnostic significance, such as wing venation, which might encourage a closer look and further study. The introduction to insect life histories is rather generalised and details of the many and varied lifecycles of the insect world could be covered in more depth as in Margaret Brooks A Complete Guide to British Moths which does this well. Climate change is a current topic and as many insects are very temperature sensitive, some speculation may have been interesting or trends to look out for to illustrate this. There is nothing on collecting and studying insects.

A few omissions I noticed: the shore flies Ephydridae (120) British species; winter gnats Trichoceridae (10 spp); fruit or vinegar flies Drosophilidae (31 spp); and Fungus gnats Mycetophilida (500spp). These would all be noticed fairly early on by someone seriously looking at insects.

I would recommend this book for the photographic content, the layout and the distribution maps but I think I would still return to my old field guide for final identification purposes or an introduction to a new group. The colour illustrations on the end pages to locate the relevant plates are very useful and I find the coloured drawings clearer as they illustrate salient features with the necessary artistic licence.

Joan Hardingham

MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS by Ron Porley and Nick Hodgetts.
Published by Harper Collins, 2005. New Naturalist series no. 97. £40.00 Hardbound, £25.00 paperback.

Mosses and Liverworts were subjects on the original list, when the New Naturalist series was first started 60 years ago. Some subjects have appeared more than once, so it is a relief to finally get our hands on this volume, and it does not disappoint.

The usual NN format is followed with chapters on the biology, history, ecology, practical uses, distribution and various habitats.

The study of mosses and liverworts in Britain has been largely an amateur pursuit and it is particularly interesting to see photographs, with a short biography, of some of the early bryologists who established the study of these fascinating plants in this country.

Although ‘English’ names for all our bryophytes exist, no attempt has been made to inflict them of the reader of this book. In most cases the ‘scientific’ name is more descriptive and seems more appropriate. The detailed chapters on habitats are littered with names of various species that may mean little to the non-bryologist, but a large number of them are illustrated with excellent photographs, so it is easy to get an idea of what is being written about and I would not want to be too critical of this. In fact there are some 150 or so coloured photographs in the almost 500 pages of this book and there is an adequate glossary so there is no need to be put off if you at present know little about the subject. In fact the book could well be described as everything you ever wanted to know about mosses and liverworts.

The book ends with advice on how to study bryophytes and it ends with the comment that ‘The real joy of bryophytes is getting out into the field…appreciating the beauty of this neglected group of plants…and they do tend to grow in nice places’.

Richard Fisk