THE NATURAL HISTORY OF SHETLAND. By R.J. Berry and J.L. Johnston. New Naturalist No. 64.

1980 1st edition. 8vo (152 x 223mm). Pp380. B/w photograph plates, b/w illustrations, maps, bibliography. Green buckram, spine titled in gilt.

"The Shetland Islands are the nothernmost part of the British Isles, lying midway between Norway and Scotland, near the edge of the Continental Shelf. their isolation and mixture of oceanic and Arctic ecologies have given rise to unique plant associations as well as forms of animal and plant species unknown on the British mainland. [This book] is the first comprehensive account of the islands' plants and animals. ...It should be invaluable for allthose concerned with the impact of North Sea oil and its related industries on Shetland. ...The authors are R.J. Berry ...Professor of Genetics at University College London, and Laughton Johnston, a Shetland schoolmaster..." Chapters have also been contributed by other researchers. Chapters include; island life and the place of Shetland; geological history (D.Flinn); natural history of man in Shetland; vegetation (D.H.N.Spence); the sea; whales and seals; lochs and burns; land animals; terrestrial birds; seabirds; birds of Fair Isle (I.Robertson); Shetland naturalists; oil and the natural environment of Shetland; conservation. An appendix gives further information on, fungi, marine algae (D.E.G.Irvine), bryophytes (M.O.Hill and Jean A.Paton), lichens (D.L.Hawksworth), flowering plants and ferns (W.Scott and R.C.Palmer), Siphonaptera, Lepidoptera, Coleoptera (M.Bacchus), spiders (P.Ashmole), land and freshwater molluscs (Nora Macmillan), birds. Suggestions of places to visit (handy enough as Shetland is enormous).