cover image Sch-Amng Predtr&prey

Sch-Amng Predtr&prey

Sierra Club Books, Hugo Van Lawick. Random House (NY), $35 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-87156-774-1

Filmmaker, photographer, naturalist Van Lawick has lived among wild animals in Africa for 25 years. He has observed at close quarters the large carnivoreslions, leopards, cheetahs; wild dogs, hyenas, jackalsand he spent six years with chimpanzees, documenting Jane Goodall's studies. This book is a distillation of his experiences that reveals his fascination with the predator-prey relationship. Van Lawick gives us splendid panoramic views of the Serengeti plains, but his most captivating pictures are of individual animals: a zebra foal, a mother elephant restraining her calf, a chimpanzee mother and child. He speculates on history's first predators, then organizes the text by areaforest, plains, bush and woodlandwith a separate chapter on apes. The book provides an engrossing glimpse of African wildlife. (October 1)