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Fauna Britannica by Duff Hart-Davis, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 拢30, ISBN 0297825321 Reviewed by Michael Bond

GROWING up on a farm, I thought I knew a fair bit about hares. It turns out I didn鈥檛 have half the story. It was news to me, for example, that the hare is credited with magical powers that enable it to snatch dead children from their coffins or give a harelip to an unborn child.

I thought I knew a fair bit about pigs, too. I was ignorant, however, of the strict rules that traditionally governed when a pig could be killed: never on a Monday, nor during a waning Moon.

Duff Hart-Davis has enlightened me about these matters and many others. Fauna Britannica is far beyond what it claims to be 鈥� a 鈥減ractical guide鈥� to Britain鈥檚 wild and domestic creatures. It is more like a celebration, and the author鈥檚 passion for these animals is written all over it. He gives us the usual encyclopedic statistics and fantastic pictures, but a great deal more besides 鈥� most importantly, the history of the British people鈥檚 relationship with each species. Mythology and tradition become as significant as biology.

The book covers creatures past and present, treating the ancestral mammoth as reverentially as the corn bunting鈥�and the domestic rabbit. You may be surprised to learn that the number of pet rabbits in Britain is growing fast, and that of the 3000 members of the Rabbit Welfare Association almost 90 per cent are adults 鈥� most of them professional women between the ages of 20 and 40. Another gem from a book that is full of them.