Judging a Book by its Cover

Today's natural history books are generally wonderful, covering a wide choice of organisms and illustrated with excellent photographs and illustrations. But there is one aspect of natural history publishing that Victorian and Edwardian publishers excelled in and that has now almost disappeared: embossed covers. It's also something that downloaded digital books can never have - there is no way you can run your fingers over an embossed cover on your Kindle. Here are a few attractive examples from old natural history books.

Three Great Naturalists by John Upton, published in the early years of the 20th. century.

Wildlife at Home: How to Study and Photograph it, by Richard and Cherry Kearton, published in 1907

Morris's British Birds by the Rev. F.O. Morris. 1891 edition, published in 6 volumes.

Morris's British Butterflies by the Rev. F.O. Morris. 1870

A Popular History of British Mosses by Robert M. Stark, 1860

A Treatise on the Esculent Funguses of England by Charles David Badham, 1863

Bees, Wasps and Allied Insects of the British Isles by Edward Step, 1932

Rambles Among the Flowers: Fruiting Time by T. Carreras, early 1920s.

Ferns of Great Britain and their Allies by Anne Pratt, 

Wayside and Woodland Ferns by Edward Step

Shell Life by Edward Step, early 20th. century

Toadstools and Mushrooms of the Countryside by Edward Step

Weird Eyes

Starlings aren't as common as they used to be but we've had quite a few in the garden during the present spell of cold weather. Today I noticed something odd about their eyes that I've never seen before. Above is a starling in wary mode, with its beady eyes looking all around for danger.

Here's a starling trying to feed with that rather strange technique that they use, with their beaks gaping then closing. Take a close look at where its eye is now - almost in its mouth and almost under the upper mandible.

When a starling switches from wary to feeding mode and it opens its beak wide the tension in the flesh on either side of the gape pulls the eyes forward, so that they are almost on the edge of the mouth and focused with binocular vision on the food source that it's pecking at. Imagine how their focus must flicker between near and far, and their field of view must vary between narrow and broad, every time they open and close their beak and their eyes move backwards and forwards accordingly. 

For a human comparison, it would be somewhat akin to oscillating between reading from your computer screen with both eyes, and then focusing independently with each eye on the walls on either side of the room, then back to looking at the computer screen again, every second or so.

Buds Bursting

Despite almost two weeks of freezing temperatures and constant snow, we found these fresh new leaves sprouting from elder Sambucus nigra twigs in Durham city yesterday. Unlike most trees and shrubs, common elder doesn't form closed winter buds gripped by tough bud scales. Instead it forms open leafy buds, that can sprout into new growth at the first available opportunity.

Nearby we found Sambucus racemosa, a relative of our native elder that has been introduced from mainland Europe into North East England and is more commonly found in Scotland. You can see a  photo of the plant in flower by clicking here. Unlike our native elder, which produces deep purple, almost black fruit, this species carries bunches of larger scarlet fruits. It also differs from the native species in producing these rather attractive winter buds, whose bud scales are already beginning to loosen.