Foundations of Animal Behavior: Classic Papers With Commentaries

Rating:
Summary: At best an uneven foundation
Review: After the publisher's excellent FOUNDATIONS OF ECOLOGY I was all set for an equally good set of papers and commentaries on Behaviour. Alas 'tis not yet to be! While this collection has some useful stuff it is by no means as far reaching or as selective as the ECOLOGY volume. Although the editors have picked out some key pieces, many of the papers reprinted here have vanished into deserved obscurity, and one emerges at the end with as long a list of "should have been includeds" as one went in with. Animal Behaviour was (and is) far more dynamic and exciting than this Foundation would have us think & I find that this volume stays in a remarkably pristine condition on my shelf rather than in the proper place for a good book -much marked up & in the eager hands of an enthusiastic student!

Rating:
Summary: A Book Only an Ethologist Could Love
Review: The subtitle for this mess should read "a collection of old, dry, and often inaccurate papers that only an ethologist could love." Seriously, though, this was a waste of paper and ink.