sie ASC DU BaO Nia BU lid etal N 39 
diseased pigeon. Feeling that Ata- 
lanta had but a few weeks more 
to live, they were willing to make 
a gift” of the bird to Barnes. 
Their leader said, ‘“‘We do not trade 
our Berkuts with Westerners.” 
Thus begins the story of the only 
Berkut Eagle in captivity in the 
western world. 
Everything that follows is pure 
excitement. The pain and _ the 
pleasure, the thrill and the fright 
of training such a huge bird, were 
all part of the challenge. He kept 
the bird on a lawn, where it was 
visible to spectators and walkers. 
One day, while exhibiting the bird, 
Barnes turned his head while 
Atalanta was preening his hair, 
and the sharp beak accidentally 
tore off his left eyelid, but he was 
fortunate that he did not lose his 
eyeball. 
Not content with merely train- 
ing a Berkut Eagle, Barnes later 
trained Shep, a pure-bred Welsh 
Collie. It was Shep’s task to find 
Atalanta when the bird became 
lost on several falconry flights. A 
bond of affection grew between 
the Eagle and the dog, both jealous 
of the attention of their master. 
I had trouble locating the Kir- 
ghiz Republic in my atlas. It is 
hundreds of miles east of the Cas- 
pian Sea, and northeast of the 
fabled city of Samarkand. In an 
adventure book of this kind, a 
couple of maps of U.S.S.R. and 
Wales would have been in order. 
—Raymond Mostek 
THE RAND McNALLY ATLAS 
OF WORLD WILDLIFE 
Victor Stevenson, Editor 
Julian Huxley, Consulting Editor 
Rand McNally, 1973 
208 pp, $25.00 
A beautifully-produced, large-for- 
mat treatment of wildlife, created 
in consultation with the Zoological 
Society of London. 
The book begins with a general 
introduction covering paleontology, 
evolution, zoogeography, and ecol- 
ogy, each capsulized on a double- 
page spread featuring excellent il- 
lustration. Then the various great 
zoological realms are covered, each 
beginning with a painting showing 
a typical community. A relief map, 
major communities and their pop- 
ulations of characteristic animals 
are the vehicles used to convey an 
acquaintanceship with the realm. 
The oceans and their islands are 
also treated in a similar manner. 
The final sections cover man and 
his influences on nature, endan- 
gered species, and national parks 
and reserves. The book is complet- 
ely indexed. One minor error noted 
is the reversal of the key drawing 
on page 40 indexing the plate on 
pages 38-39. The numbers are lo- 
cated correctly. 
For those who wish to get a good 
overall picture of wildlife on this 
planet, this book is very highly 
recommended. One cannot expect 
to use it as a reference to identify 
particular species for any given 
community, since that type of de- 
tail is beyond any single volume. 
It is a good source of general back- 
ground on an area, perhaps to be 
used as a part of pre-travel study. 
Public libraries would do well to 
have at least one copy available. 
Junior high and high school librar- 
ies should also have it, and anyone 
building a general nature library 
should also consider it seriously. 
—Peter Petersen 
