14 
Bulletin of the EANHS 28(1) 
BOOK REVIEW 
A Guide to the Seashores of Eastern Africa and the 
Western Indian Ocean Islands, Matthew D. Richmond, 
Editor. Published by SIDA, Department of Research 
Cooperation, SAREC, All proceeds to the SEA Trust. 
Price about Kshs. 1,800 in bookshops, available to 
members at a discount from the East Africa Natural 
History Society office. 
This wonderful new book has given a new dimension to 
any outing at the coast. Now at last we can identify the 
astonishing diversity of life at the shore, from the sea 
strand to beyond the reef 
A Guide to the Seashores of Eastern Africa is many 
books in one: first and foremost it is a field guide to the 
living things of all seashore habitats. I could wax ecstatic 
over the 154 (yes, 1541) pages of colour illustrations by 
Ann Alexander and other gifted artists, ranging from 
mangroves to sea grasses, from sea slugs to sand dollars. 
The pictures of corals, sponges and sea anemones are 
particularly outstanding, showing the animal colony in 
its living colours, the fish most often associated with it, 
and black and white detail of the hard skeleton built by 
the coral polyps. Indeed, throughout the book the 
illustrations give more than just a picture of an animal 
or a plant—they also often indicate its habitat, other 
creatures associated with it, and details of its anatomy 
needed for identification. 
A delight of the book is that it covers groups neglected 
by many field guides—worms, smaller crustaceans, sea 
squirts, coralline and encrusting algae, lichens, even 
plankton are here in colour and detail. Now you can 
identify everything! Well, nearly everything. Naturally, 
in a book of this wide a scope, only the commonest, 
most characteristic or most outstanding species in each 
group have been included. The book probably features 
more crabs and prawns than you might expect, and 
perhaps fewer fish, However, the representative families 
and most of the common species in our area are there. 
This is a book I had been waiting for: the familiar 
creatures of countless walks and swims seemed to leap 
out of the brilliant colour pages. I remembered trying 
to identify what I had seen, poring for hours over a motley 
assortment of references: old editions of the Journal of 
the East Africa Natural History Society , magazine 
articles, American field guides, worn photocopies of A 
Natural History of Inhaca Island, Mozambique . Now the 
living things of our East African shores have all been 
brought together between the covers of this book. 
A Guide to the Seashores of Eastern Africa is also a 
textbook and an encyclopaedia. Each phylum of living 
things is introduced by a summary of its classification, 
morphology and life histories, written by a battery of 
experts from Africa and Europe. A glossary explains 
the scientific terms used in each group. The book’s 
opening pages cover the geology, climate, tides, currents, 
and coastal habitats of Eastern Africa, with excellent 
maps. There is a section on the people of the coast and 
their activities, from traditional boats to pollution. At 
the back, the appendix includes explanations of scientific 
terms and an impressive bibliography. 
A review would not be complete without some 
criticism. My main complaint is that the scale of each 
page of illustrations is not immediately obvious, and 
since the coverage ranges from plankton to whales, it 
can be a bit misleading. The size can usually be found 
in the text on the opposite page, but who reads the text 
when the illustrations are so gorgeous! Well, of course 
it is important to check the habitat and distribution, and 
often it will be necessary to read the description to 
confirm identification. Leafing through the illustrations, 
I could not find the small hermit crab with green and 
orange stripes that is common in very shallow water on 
Kenyan beaches. When I am at the coast l shall try the 
scientific descriptions to pin it down, as the colours of 
sea animals vary with seasons and regions, and I found 
the pictures of stinging coral and box crab much greener 
than the ones I have seen. It would also have been useful 
to have toxic species flagged with a bright marker, since 
the section on coastal dangers and treatment is tucked 
away in the introduction . 
The scientific names and terminology in the text are 
a bit daunting. It’s true dial there are glossaries, and 
that the few English names for these marine creatures 
have usually been included. However, the text would be 
more user-friendly if the common names of the families 
(such as “Violet shells") stood out in bigger and bolder 
text. Perhaps, now that wc have A Guide to the Seashores 
of Eastern Africa , members can collect more Swahili 
or coastal names of these living things, and add to our 
knowledge of the world at the edge of the sea. 
Fleur Ng’weno, c/o P.O. Box 44486, Nairobi Kenya 
APPRECIATION 
GURNER CUNNINGHAM VAN SOMEREN, 1913- 
1997 
Van Someren is a Dutch name. In the last century, 
however, a family of van Somerens became British, By 
the time that Vernon (or V.G.L, as he was known) van 
Someren joined the British East Africa Protectorate 
Medical Service in 1910, these van Somerens were 
Cunningham van Somerens and as Scottish as 
Meinertzhagen was English. Gurner (or Chum) 
Cunningham van Someren. whose memory we honour 
here, was the first of seven children bom to Vernon and 
Elizabeth van Someren,“and outlived them all. 
As a good Scot, Chum was educated at Herriott Watts 
and attended an agricultural college. One of his first 
undertakings on returning to Kenya in 1933 was to build 
the house on Miotoni in which he lived for the rest of 
his life. His early employment was varied. Among many 
things, he laid the original Karen Estates water pipelines 
and helped build the Karen Golf-course. As an employee 
of the Nairobi Municipal Council’s Health Service, he 
