316 Book reviews/Applied Animal Behmiour Science 45 (1995) 315-319

A highlight of the book is the amusing stories about individual ‘talking’ birds. These include the world’s best known bird, Alex, an African Grey Parrot, and his mentor/trainer Irene Pepperberg, now at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Pepperberg developed a model/rival method in which two trainers participate in the training process. One trainer serves as teacher, while the second serves (like the parrot) as a student, thus providing a model for the bird’s responses and a rival in attracting the first trainer’s attention. A training session between the principal trainer, the second trainer and Alex is included. The best ‘talker’ among parrots is the African Grey Parrot. In total there are about 40 ‘talking’ species.

This book is recommended to ‘talking’ bird lovers everywhere as well as the novice with a healthy interest in birds. Further, Ilyichev and Silayeva’s book will help to understand the cognitive powers of these unusual birds, as a basis for application in animal welfare studies.

JACK L. ALBRIGHT Purdue University

West Lafayette, Indiana USA

SSDIO168-1591(95)00623-O

Perspectives on animal behavior

Perspectives on Animal Behavior, by J. Goodenough, B. McGuire and R. Wallace. John Wiley, New York, 1993,762 pp. + indices, Price E48.95 (cloth), &21 SO (paperback), ISBN: O-471-59965-4.

It would appear that the market is satiated with basic textbooks on animal behaviour, but new ones are published at a seemingly increasing rate. It has struck me that these books are often surprisingly alike, structured in similar ways and relying on basically the same exam- ples. Therefore, the first question I ask when opening yet another one is: What makes this book different from all the others? In the case of Perspectives on Animal Behavior by Goodenough et al., the answer is: Not very much. The various aspects of the subject are addressed in a traditional manner. An introduction outlines Tinbergen’s four questions, followed by a historical section including an account of classical ethological concepts and approaches. In the following 17 chapters, behaviour is dealt with from traditional perspec- tives, under headings such as: Genes and behavior, Learning, Development of behavior, Foraging, Parental care, and so on.

The authors seemingly have attempted to provide a comprehensive textbook. In the preface, they claim to have included all the major approaches to the field. However, it appears that this is an insurmountable task for a group of three authors. This book clearly misses certain central areas. For example, motivation theory is not treated at all-in fact, I could not find the word ‘motivation’ mentioned in the book, and it is not in the subject index either.

Book reviews/Applied Animal Behaviour Science 45 (1995) 315-319 317

Readers of this journal may also share my disappointment that applied ethology seems to be completely unknown to the authors. For example, pigs are mentioned only briefly as an example of an ungulate which lies down when nursing the young (to my knowledge, the only one, even if the authors appear unaware of that), and the text is based on one single reference from 1968. Other domestic animals are mentioned briefly, if at all. Even if this book is clearly focused on basic ethology, significant contributions regarding, for example, maternal and social behaviour have been made by studying species such as pigs, sheep and poultry, and it is a weakness that the authors have overlooked this. Furthermore, the few cases where domestic animals are mentioned contain several errors.

The authors’ policy of illustrations puzzled me. There is a predominance of photographs showing pictures of animals, not necessarily with any behavioural relevance, whereas data and models are more scarce. This gives an impression of a ‘natural history’ approach which frequently contrasts sharply with the theoretical text. For example, I do not see the logic of trying to explain the marginal value theorem of optimal foraging without a single graph to help the reader, and then illustrating this section with a picture of crow eating. This is a general trend in the book: complicated models, which may be easily demonstrated with a graph or a flow-scheme, are described verbally. I think this hampers understanding.

Although the book is incomplete as a basic textbook, I am impressed by the comprehen- sive treatment of the topics that are included. The reference list covers well over 1000 titles and is very up-to-date. The examples used in the text are often described in depth. The reader is given not only the main conclusions of the experiments, but frequently an extensive account of the background, methods and results of single studies. This is one reason for the impressive length of the book. Another is that the authors assume that the reader has very little basic biological knowledge and have therefore included comprehensive chapters on basic genetics and physiology. In contrast, the general section on evolution is less compre- hensive and will not provide enough basic knowledge for students of psychology, for example.

A textbook is written for students, but as a teacher, I find it hard to imagine what type of course this book would suit. Maybe a physiologically based ethology course designed for psychology students would be suitable, and maybe such courses exist. However, the com- prehensive nature of the book makes it a good source of examples to include in lectures. This is certainly the way I am going to use it.

PERJEINSEN Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Department of Animal Hygiene, Section of Ethology POB 345, S-532 24 Skara

Sweden

SSD10168-1591(95)00626-5

Pnewalski’s horse

Przewalski’s horse - The History and Biology of an endangered species, Lee Boyd and Katherine A. Houpt (Editors), State University of New York Press, Albany, 1994, 313