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Complete your New Naturalist collection with Harper Collins's facsimile versions, which are printed on demand. Natural History in the Highlands and Islands was first published in 1947.
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are rugged moorland, alpine mountains and jagged coast with remarkable natural history, including relict and specialised animals and plants.
Here are animals in really large numbers: St. Kilda with its sea-birds, North Rona its seals, Islay its wintering geese, rivers and lochs with their spawning salmon and trout, the ubiquitous midges! This is big country with red deer, wildcat, pine marten, badger, otter, fox, ermine, golden eagle, osprey, raven, peregrine, grey lag, divers, phalaropes, capercaillie and ptarmigan. Off-shore are killer whales and basking sharks. Here, too, in large scale interaction is forestry, sheep farming, sport, tourism and wildlife conservation.
F. F. Darling: 1903-1979. Animal ecologist, conservation prophet and environmental sage, author of Natural History in the Highlands and Islands (1947). A much-admired but enigmatic man, melancholic, reflective, perhaps more influential as a philosopher than scientist. Lived primitive life on islands, but liked his comforts – books, claret, pets and collections of jade, carpets, bronzes and glassware from around the world.
"The Highlands are a great wildlife area, and this finely illustrated volume in the New Naturalist series is an excellent guide to their natural riches."
– The Scotsman
"Together these two experts have produced a magnificently detailed account of the abundant wild life of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. This is just the book for an intelligent reader to pack on his next visit to the North."
– The Church Times
"This is simply crammed with information, made real and alive by the author's ecological approach. Nothing is observed in isolation. Again and again they reveal, in terms of cause and effect, relationships I had puzzled over or, indeed, had never guessed at."
– The Listener
"There is no question at all of the value of the book as a mine of information on the natural history and ecology of the Highlands, and it is certainly essential reading for anyone who is interested in these subjects. The book is finely produced and illustrated."
– The Times Literary Supplement
