ANIMALS AND THEIR FOOD

by James R. Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 27, 1972

For the undiscriminating omnivore, a loosely scrambled assemblage of amazing facts, personal anecdotes, and ill-natured swipes at ""zealous but misguided conservationists."" Johnson skips from one species or continent to another, from the topic of feeding to breeding to foot structure to ecology, so that what is actually served up in each chapter bears only occasional resemblance to what is promised in the heading. Sometimes there is a connection between one paragraph and the next, but Johnson makes no attempt to provide a transition, tending instead to abrupt topic sentences that emphasize the disjointedness of it all. McCoy's Shadows Over the Land and McClung's Lost Wild America (both 1970) offer antidotes to Johnson's repeated but unsubstantiated claims that ""overall America is more productive of wildlife today than it was before Columbus""; worthier treatments of the ostensible subject are provided in Mason's Animal Appetites and Martin's Amazing Animal Appetites (both 1966).

Pub Date: March 27, 1972

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: David McKay

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1972

Categories: NONFICTION