Helpful Score: 1
This book is worth checking out if only for the beautiful illustrations.
This translation by T. H. White, author of the Arthurian legend, The Once and Future King, includes all sorts of facts and beliefs about all sorts of animals--real and imaginary. Bees, dolphins, dogs, camels, eagles, ducks, weasels, unicorns, hydra. It is both a reference work about natural history and a valuable resource showing how these beliefs have been reflected in literature over the ages. The format of one entry per animal makes it easy to pick up the book and spend a few enjoyable and stimulating minutes learning about, horses, for example, in an entry which includes the source of the name equi, the animal's temperament, the horses of Alexander the Great and Julius Ceaser, which color the ancients considered best, and information about the "love charm" with which foals are born....
