HEATHLANDS. By Nigel Webb. New Naturalist No. 72.

(1986) 1986 reprint. 8vo (152 x 223mm). Pp223. Colour photograph plates, b/w photographs and line illustrations, charts, maps. Green buckram, spine titled in gilt.

"'There are really two Britains - two different countries, their boundary a line that strikes diagonally across England from Yorkshire to Devon'. The moorlands belong to the 'region of mountains and old rocks', and the heathlands 'the newer, fertile land of the plains'. It is with the lowland heaths of Britain that Dr. Nigel Webb's book is concerned". This is a very readable book which discusses very fully the history and ecology of this essentially artificial environment which arose after cutting down the deciduous forest, and then overgrazing the land with livestock. Ironically, this man-made disaster area is now home to many valuable, rare species of plant and animal. With the similarly created uplands of Wales, Scotland and northern England, moor- and heathland is now generally regarded as the epitome of natural, untouched, wild countryside. Chapters include: 'A waste and barren land'; The basic requirements; A primeval landscape?; The influence of man; British lowland heaths; Heathland plant communities; The dynamics of heathland vegetation - patterns of change and succession; The heathers; Other heathland plants; Heathland invertebrates; Heathland vertebrates; What the future holds. Appendices give references for further reading and a list of heathland nature reserves.