| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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Reviews Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature, by Harry W. Greene. Photographs by Michael and Patricia Fogden. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997, 365 pp., $45 cloth. I was, like all professional herpetologists I know, deeply affected by certain books I read as a youngster. Two that come to mind are Raymond Lee Ditmars' Snakes of the World and Thrills of a Naturalist's Quest. Viewed in retrospect, neither would qualify as "great literature," but each was there for me at a critical moment and because they were, today there is one less gray-suited professional in an office building in San Francisco. Herpetology is perhaps not the first genre one would search as a source of inspiring prose, but we have had at least two truly gifted writers in the past. For seven decades now, the foreword to Emmett Reid Dunn's The Salamanders of the Family Plethodontidae has sung directly to the souls of field biologists everywhere--it is wonderful stuff; and the final paragraphs of Archie Carr's introduction to his Handbook of Turtles were written with such humorous wisdom that I have felt compelled to revisit them often and share them with non-herpetologists. In both of these cases, however, the main text consists of the sparse, lean scientific writing so typical of our discipline. With the publication of his new book, Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature, University of California at Berkeley professor Harry Greene joins the small company of professional herpetologists who have written brilliantly. But unlike his predecessors, he has not confined his imaginative style to the front matter. Snakes is a remarkable piece of writing from beginning to end. Inklings that the reader is in for a new experience come early; in the Author's Preface, Greene lists, among the individuals who have inspired him, Maya Lin, Peter Matthiessen, and E. O. Wilson, the fictional characters Sgt. Jim Chee from the Tony Hillerman novels, and Andy Sipowicz, the "NYPD Blue" cop! Greene's style is charming, making Snakes a wonderfully engaging read. In describing his first encounter with a bushmaster, the largest venomous snake in the New World, he writes that "there was a powerful sensation of measured readiness, like Clint Eastwood's squint in High Plains Drifter: Don't come closer." Or in noting the nature of cobras, he says "Whether large or small, most elapids are wriggly, uncontrolled, wild and excitable. These snakes usually seem nervous, rather like ophidian terrorists, as if they were ready and willing to engage us one step further than would a viper." Greene has organized the book in a manner very different from others of the genre, which makes it difficult to typify. The author is one of the world's experts on snake biology, and the book contains the latest in snake systematics, evolution, and natural history; yet it is not a textbook. Greene has avoided organizing the book into the same predictable units that herpetologists tend to study, such as morphology, behavior, systematics, and so on. Rather, he has divided the work into three major parts. The first, entitled "Lifestyles," discusses the general biology of the group and contains chapters on classification, locomotion, diet, defense, reproduction, etc. The second, "Diversity," is a survey of the major snake groups, and here a certain linearity is to be found, dictated of course by the evolutionary relationships of these lineages. The third part, "Synthesis," is an overview of snake evolution and biogeography, and it also contains a chapter on conservation. Most of the individual chapters within each major part are preceded by a narrative essay, usually including Greene's field experiences and always germane to the topic it introduces. Some of the author's best writing is to be found in these essays, and here the reader meets other herpetologists, hikes up steep hills, turns over rocks, and is invariably drawn into the excitement of the hunt. Upon reading them, those who actually do field work will smile, chuckle, and nod knowingly. Interspersed at various places in the text are 13 "Special Topics." Each one is a compact, stand-alone treatment, usually of a particular problem relevant to the material in the adjacent chapter. These range from a discussion of mimicry in milksnakes, among the most sought-after snakes in the pet trade, to the immediate problem of the invasion of Guam by the brown treesnake. The Special Topics, which interrupt the main text, are sometimes distracting, but the material they cover is both important and relevant. In the epilogue, "Why Snakes?", Greene completes the narrative begun in the various chapter introductions. This is a poignant, personal section, revealing the author's philosophy and giving brief glimpses of his pertinent life experiences. Sooner or later, all field biologists, amateur or professional, seek to understand why they do what they do and attempt to communicate the answers to others, be they parents, contemporaries, or superiors. Many of us give up trying and continue to wade in our swamps, knowing only that we love this above all else and perhaps consider ourselves monumentally selfish. Harry Greene has sought and found his answers, and although they stem from his own experiences as a boy, student, and professor, they apply to all who love biology and nature. He reveals a particularly important truth: Our noblest thoughts and most perceptive insights seem to come to us not in the lab but in the tranquility of wild places. Many will purchase this book solely for the photographs by the husband-and-wife team of Michael and Patricia Fogden; none will be disappointed! These images are the most consistently magnificent I have ever seen in a single volume. The many close-ups are absolutely stunning, such as the plains black-headed snake feeding on a centipede, or the yellow blunt-headed snake, head-on--an image that continues to haunt me. But it is the incredible photographs of snakes in their respective habitats that have evoked the most discussion in my lab: the image of the Woma python in the Australian outback with Ayers Rock in the background, the Namibian sandsnake on desert hardpan, and the eyelash viper on a palm leaf in Costa Rica are nearly perfect in lighting, composition, and mood. The illustrations support and augment the author's prose, and each stands on a single page, uninterrupted by folds. Another way in which Snakes is set apart from its predecessors is that the entire work is written in an evolutionary, phylogenetic vein. Somehow, Greene has interwoven relationship throughout the text. The book is bold in other ways as well. Greene has taken a stand on common names and stuck to it; for instance, the use of terciopelo for the snake more commonly known to Norte Americanos as fer-de-lance. While Snakes: The Evolution of Mystery in Nature is unquestionably a brilliant, scholarly summary of the state of our knowledge of snake biology, it remains readily accessible to the amateur and layman. Greene is a distinguished educator, gifted with a writing style that is always clear and at times lyrical. Above all, this book is a great read and a wonderful thing to own, regardless of one's background. It will speak eloquently to the next generation of field biologists, just as Dunn and Carr's books did to mine.
I've Been Gone Far Too Long: Field Trip Fiascoes and Expedition Disasters, edited by Monique Borgerhoff Mulder and Wendy Logsdon. RDR Books, Oakland, California, 1996, 296 pp., $14.95 paper. Those who pine for savanna sunsets and African waterholes might be surprised to learn that some bushed field biologists and anthropologists crave a night between cement walls without intruding animal sounds. This collection of in-the-field faux pas and misadventures, related by the researchers themselves, portrays the difficulties, diplomacy, and occasional danger of doing science in wild and remote places. While seeking a certain lorikeet on the island of Flores, James Serpell awakens to find a cockroach chewing his big toe; as it races away he hurls his sandal, which "descended in a final, graceful arc on the roach with a loud and profoundly satisfying crunch." Kelly Stewart ponders how to carry out Dian Fossey's instructions to brandish a handgun before a group of suspected gorilla poachers. On the slopes of Mount Kenya, Truman Young struggles to match wits with hyraxes hellbent on annexing his tent. The quality of writing varies, but the contributors approach their accounts with humor and humility. As evidence of the latter, author royalties will be donated to the Wildlife Conservation Society and Cultural Survival.
In dense forests south of the Zaire River lives a long-legged, black-faced ape that was one of the last large mammals to become known by science. It remains little studied compared to chimpanzees, gorillas, or orangutans, but what amazing details of its behavior and society that have already surfaced show the bonobo to be, according to this first popular but comprehensive book about them, "a family member that affords us an entirely new look at ourselves." Combining the talents and expertise of primatologist de Waal and photographer Lanting, Bonobo provides a rare and revealing portrait of this unusual ape. For bonobos, sex is an integral part of life and an apparent substitute for aggression in a female-dominated, egalitarian world. More shy and sensitive than chimpanzees, bonobos shed any inhibitions and mate in an imaginative array of positions and combinations of partners. Some of Lanting's provocative images of bonobo intimacy have appeared previously in European magazines, but most U.S. magazines covered their eyes. The text explores many aspects of bonobos' lives, as well as whether the forgotten ape makes a more likely model for our early ancestors. De Waal includes brief interviews with Lanting and several scientists, including pioneering field researchers Takayoshi Kano and Suehisa Kuroda, and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, who studies the bonobo's aptitude for language and symbolic communication. |
summer 1997
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