This book opens up a wonderland of natural history for all ages to enjoy, and will spark interest in the intricate web of Africa's natural history, one that is bursting with exuberance, a great variety of life. It covers a vast range of topics that are often neglected, and reveals untold mysteries hidden in this remarkable continent. It is written in a readable and clear style that allows the reader to gain an appreciation of its continent-wide approach, which is based upon half a century or more of knowledge. Delving into the intricate fossil history found in Africa, The Wonder of Africa's Natural History describes some of the largest dinosaurs that walked this earth and extraordinary giant mammals of the Pleistocene, to the largest mammal that still survives to this day. It also encompasses the tiny mites that reside inside animals' ears and the remarkable maggot that finds a home in the sole of the elephant's foot. This book discusses creatures great and small. The remarkable variety of animals described explores their colours, behaviours, displays of weapons and the meanings behind the differences. The book explains the animals' everyday lives, co-habitations, and how the large carnivores live alongside their prey. The reader is transported into their world from birth, through growing up to their social interactions. Fantastic migrations showing the exuberance of life are described from butterflies to wildebeest and elephants and the once huge increases in number of the springbok in South Africa. The Wonder of Africa's Natural History unfolds a great diversity of life from swamp to forest, rivers and lakes, each with their particular creatures. It shows how an antelope or the bizarre naked mole rat can survive in arid environments. It transports us across the vast panorama of the beautiful plains of Africa, revealing how they are exploited and how the real battles in Nature are fought among the small species, the myriad of insect forms. The co-evolution of the whole community is an astonishingly amazing tangled web of life, having its origin over 300 million years ago. This book is a natural history to be enjoyed by all.

Cattle Plague: A History is divided into five sections, dealing with the nature of the virus, followed by a chronological history of its occurrence in Europe from the Roman Empire to the final 20th century outbreaks; then administrative control measures through legislation, the principal players from the 18th century, followed by an analysis of some effects, political, economic and social. Then follows attempts at cure from earliest times encompassing superstition and witchcraft, largely Roman methods persisting until the 19th century; the search for a cure through inoculation and the final breakthrough in Africa at the end of the 19th century. The last section covers the disease in Asia and Africa. Appendices cover regulations now in force to control the disease as well as historical instructions, decrees and statutes dating from 1745-1878.