Die Amphibien und Reptilien Griechenlands

Abstract

SINCE the old days of Sibthorpe and of the Expédition de la Morée, the study of the Greek fauna and flora has fallen more and more into German hands. Erhard, Krüper, Linder-mayer and Otto Reiser have told us wellnigh all we know of bird-life in modern Greece, and now, following on the fifty-year-old work of Bedriaga, we have from Dr. Franz Werner an account of the many Greek amphibia and reptiles. The more we learn of the Greek fauna the more thankful we may be. Its varied ecology has many interesting facts and problems for the zoologist. The mountains have a mid-European fauna, the plains are 'Mediterranean', and the Peloponnese is typically 'Greek' ; the islands differ notably from one another, and the Asiatic or Anatolian fauna begins in Rhodes and Cos and the rest of the Dodecanese. The classical student longs to know more about the several species, their folk-lore, their vernacular names, and all that may elucidate the ancient writers. Now Dr. Werner has given us a good, but it must be confessed a dry account, with many photographs and drawings, of the abundant Greek fauna of frogs and toads, tortoises, lizards and snakes. He is a good zoologist ; but he very seldom quotes a Greek name, he cares nothing at all for Aristotle, he does not touch on the many ill-identified reptiles mentioned by Nicander in his “Theriaca”. Nevertheless his book is of no small interest even to the classical student.

Die Amphibien und Reptilien Griechenlands.

Von Prof. Dr. Franz Werner. (Zoologica: Original-Abhandlungen aus dem Gesamtgebiete der Zoologie, Herausgegeben von R. Hesse, Heft 94.) Pp. iv + 117 + 18 plates. (Stuttgart: E. Schweizer-bart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1938.) 62 gold marks.