Animal Picture Books

Abstract

(1)“BEAUTY in Animals” is introduced by Friedrich Schnack and consists of sixty-four photographs, mostly by Hedda Walther. The series of pictures of mammals and birds, “is the means to assist us to find the way to a higher view, and to sharpen our understanding for it”. Many of the pictures are of parts of animals and in most of the rest the animal fills up the greater part of the picture. We have never found a series of stuffed animals to excite the emotions and we are sure that these pictures will seldom do so. Why not let the publishers try again and show the animals alive in characteristic attitudes, or better, in their natural environment as Mr. Swinton has done in his “Monsters”, mostly giants of earlier days (2). Here there are accurate reproductions of models representing the animals in natural motion, set in appropriate environments so as to form pictures. They look to us like superposed photographs, in other words, ancient beasts with modern plants. We do not object to this, for the gain is great, but we think a little more attention to composition and printing would make many of the pictures less confused. The text might be made still more popular, and why give specific names to most reptiles and to no mammals ?

(1) Seen by the Camera: Beauty in Animals.

Pp. xvi + 64 plates. (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., n.d.) 2s. 6d. net.

(2) Monsters of Primeval Days.

With Foreword and Descriptive Notes By Dr. W. E. Swinton. Pp. 38 + 24 plates. (London: Figurehead, 1931.) 2s. net; paper, 1s. net.

(3) Nature by Night.

By Arthur R. Thompson. Pp. xiii + 144 + 44 plates. (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, Ltd., 1931.) 12s. 6d. net.

(4) The Life Story of Beasts.

By Eric Fitch Daglish. Pp. x + 223 + 21 plates. (London and Toronto: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1931.) 6s. net.

(5) Fishes.

By E. G. Boulenger. Pp. 174 + 8 plates. (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1931.) 7s. 6d. net.