Australia and the Pacific Islands

Fülszöveg

The Continents We Live On
AUSTRALIA
AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS A Natural History by Allen Keast
With a Foreword by Alan Moorehead
249 illustrations, including io6 in colour
The land of kangaroos, koalas, parrots, lyrebirds, bowerbirds, lungfishes, gum trees and the platypus, Australia has in some ways the most exciting animal and plant life in the world. Scenl-cally, too, it is fascinating in its diversity, with tall eucalypt forests on the east coast, glacier-carved mountain-tops and highland lakes in Tasmania, dense guUies of tree ferns in Victoria, lily-covered lagoons in the Northern Territory, a coral wonderland on the Great Barrier Reef, and the vast red sand plains and picturesque mountains of the central desert.
To the east and north-east lies the Pacific Ocean, with islands so beautiful that some have long been considered an earthly Eden. Many of these islands are little changed from the days when brave mariners first ventured among them. They include the fiery... Tovább

Fülszöveg

The Continents We Live On
AUSTRALIA
AND THE PACIFIC ISLANDS A Natural History by Allen Keast
With a Foreword by Alan Moorehead
249 illustrations, including io6 in colour
The land of kangaroos, koalas, parrots, lyrebirds, bowerbirds, lungfishes, gum trees and the platypus, Australia has in some ways the most exciting animal and plant life in the world. Scenl-cally, too, it is fascinating in its diversity, with tall eucalypt forests on the east coast, glacier-carved mountain-tops and highland lakes in Tasmania, dense guUies of tree ferns in Victoria, lily-covered lagoons in the Northern Territory, a coral wonderland on the Great Barrier Reef, and the vast red sand plains and picturesque mountains of the central desert.
To the east and north-east lies the Pacific Ocean, with islands so beautiful that some have long been considered an earthly Eden. Many of these islands are little changed from the days when brave mariners first ventured among them. They include the fiery volcanoes, tree ferns and honeycreep-ers of Hawaii, and the tranquil loveliness of Tahiti and Bora Bora. Further east are the palm-fringed foreshores, azure lagoons, and brilliant coral reef of the Tuamotu atolls. North of Australia lie New Guinea and Melanesia with their jungles, huge mountain ranges and birds of paradise. Finally, there are the lovely islands of New Zealand with their kauri forests, hot springs, caves of glistening glowworms, the curious kiwi and primitive tuatara, great glaciers and breath-takingly beautiful fiords.
Our guide through the area. Dr. Allen Keast, Is a biologist with a Continued on back flap
Continued from front flap
unique ability to see flora and fauna through the eyes of the general reader and yet make clear their scientific significance. Frequently he speaks from intimate knowledge. The present work is the first to cover this vast area and to discuss it as a whole.
Illustrating the book are an extraordinary multitude of colour and black-and-white photographs by some seventy outstanding photographers. The photos are reproduced in the same superb Swiss gravure used in the earlier volumes in this series.
THE AUTHOR
Professor Allen Keast is an Australian biologist who holds a Master of Science degree from the University of Sydney. In 1953 he was awarded the Peter Brooks Saltonstall Scholarship at Harvard and took his Ph. D. there. From 1955 to 1961 he was Curator of Birds, Reptiles and Amphibians at the Australian Museum, Sydney. Since then he has held a professorship at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. He is a former President of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union and a Corresponding Fellow of the American Ornithologists' Union. He became a Research Fellow of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in 1964. He is the author of several books and one of the editors of Biogeography and Ecology in Australia (1959). Dr. Keast has spent twenty years in the areas about which he writes, and has travelled widely in the Pacific in the course of his research.


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