Birds of Seychelles. Malcolm Penny.
Nie opisywałbym tutaj tej książki, gdyby był to zwyczajny przewodnik o ptakach jak chociażby The Birds of Sao Tome e Principe, gdzie znajdują się wyłącznie zdjęcia i opisy awifauny danego kraju. Tutaj autor poświęcił pierwsze blisko pięćdziesiąt stron na przedstawienie krótkiej historii naturalnej Seszeli podając kilka bardzo ciekawych faktów. Można, na przykład, dowiedzieć się dlaczego ubarwienie ptaków żyjących na wyspach jest dużo mniej kolorowe od tych żyjących na kontynencie afrykańskim albo tego, które ptaki wyginęły i dlaczego miało to miejsce. Cytaty:
„Morne Seychellois on Mahe, bears a unique cloud-forest: here, as well as in the forestsof Silhouette, there are endemic populations of tree-frogs and chameleons, with snails and bettles which are found nowhere else.”
„The first permanent settlement in the Seychelles was in 1770, consisting of twenty-seven people on Ste Anne Island. Four years later there were over 1000 residents, mostly slaves, there and on Mahe, collecting coconuts as well as supplying tortoises and timber to passing ships and digging out the small stocks of guano.During the clearing of forests to establish the plantations, fires were a common occurrence, so that more land was cleared than was needed to grow the crops; the destruction of the islands had started.”
„The number of different invading species which an island group can collect is determined largely by its distance from continents and its size. Seychelles, being small even in the old days when more land was exposed than now, and isolated by more than 600 miles from Madagascar, has a rather small avifauna – though botanically it is richer than would be expected, and this is not readily explained.”
„The suggestion is that if the breeding dress of the male is drab, and not too different from his off-season dress, he will be more easily able to invade the territory of another male to make use of its resources. Thus if a tree is fruiting abundantly in the territory of a breeding pair, drabber males will have a better chance of invading the territory to feed on the tree without provoking aggression from the territory`s owner. Any reduction in aggression is advantageous to the individuals concerned, whether the attacker or attacked, because it reduces their chances of getting hurt or killed in a fight.”