Animaux protégés au Congo Belge et dans le territoire sous mandat du Ruanda-Urundi

Abstract

THIS work is the second edition of what is in effect a guide to the protected mammals and birds of Africa, as well as a handbook of Nature preservation in the Belgian Congo. More than two hundred pages of it are taken up, often with considerable waste of space, by the proclamations, laws and local by-laws which govern field sports, Nature conservation and national parks in Belgian territory. The remaining three hundred pages constitute a guide to the protected species of mammals and birds (and one fish), designed to provide the traveller and sportsman with a means of identification ; together with brief notes on distribution, habitat and habits. Much detailed and more technical information, such as particulars of sub-species and local forms, is appended in a valuable series of footnotes. The book displays a curious formality and inelasticity of treatment. Thus, dichotomous keys are provided throughout. Since practically all the species of large herbivores are protected, the keys concerned with these groups are distinctly useful. But, when we come to the birds, only a very small, seemingly haphazardly chosen, proportion of the total avifauna is preserved, so that the keys to this group are of relatively little value.

Animaux protégés au Congo Belge et dans le territoire sous mandat du Ruanda-Urundi

Par S. Frechkop, en collaboration avec G. F. de Witte, J. P. Harroy et E. Hubert. Pp. xxi + 469. (Bruxelles: Institut des Pares nationaux du Congo Belge, 1941.)