Dereon oe Us Usb ON BU bry DiIN 35 
Corps of Engineers from the Army to the Deparment of the Interior may 
have second thoughts after reading Laycock’s chapters about the Bureau 
of Reclamation, always a part of the Interior Department. Its ravages of our 
environment are described as nearly as extensive and frequently as disas- 
trous as those of the better known and more widely hated C. of E. Laycock 
credits the B. of R. as being more subtle, though some conservationists 
would say more “devious.” 
Repeatedly the author stresses the fact that it should be better known 
that all these “diligent destroyers” always work within the law and often 
under direct orders from Congress. This implies, though it is not stated, 
that the only way to correct disastrous practices is in the voting booth. 
Not always, however, are the gigantic mining interests law-abiding in 
Kentucky and other states that have strict strip mining laws that are 
inadequately enforced. Illinois, Indiana and Ohio conservationists who are 
understandably disturbed by the wake of strip mining operations in their 
relatively level states would be shocked to see the abandoned sites in 
mountainous sections of Kentucky, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Lay- 
cock calls for complete cessation of strip mining in areas where it is not 
possible to repair the devastated terrain. “No man can put the mountain 
back.” 
Concerning the recently set-up Council of Environmental Quality, 
which holds out great hopes for many conservationists, the Diligent De- 
stroyers author is dubious, declaring: “If permitted only to advise and 
recommend, it will probably accomplish little. What might well be re- 
quired at this late date is a Board of Planners and Ecologists that could go 
a step farther than advise and recommend. To insure the widest permanent 
use of our remaining natural landscape calls for establishing an agency 
strong enough to tell the dam builders where they may and may not build, 
the highway planners what they must leave untouched, and the private 
land-owners what they, as stewards of the land, must not destroy 
permanently.” 
*One of the set of four in series which can be ordered for $4.50 
per set from Service Department, National Audubon Society, 
1150 Fifth Ave., New York 10028. Other titles in a set are “The 
Alien Animals” (George Laycock), “Killer Smog” (William 
Wise), and “Life and Death of a Salt Marsh” (John and Mil- 
dred Teal). 
—R. M. Barron 
THE WAYS OF WILDFOWL Reproductions and Etchings by 
Richard Bishop. Text by Russ Williams. Published by J. G. Furguson Co., 
Distributed by Doubleday and Co. $24.95. 260 pages 1971 
As a young boy, Richard E. Bishop was a companion to his father on many 
hunting trips. He grew to love wildfowl, and as an adult he learned to drop 
his rifle in favor of a camera and a sketch pad. 
The paintings of Mr. Bishop have been famous for over 35 years, 
well-known, especially to calendar and stamp collectors. The lithography 
of “The Ways of Wildfowl’ was done by a local concern, Photopress, Inc., 
Broadview, Ill. The volume is the largest collection of Bishop’s paintings 
