If there is another book which even remotely approaches the character of this one, this reviewer has not seen it. It is a presentation of observations which appear haphazard and disconnected and yet fall into a pattern. There are twenty chapters, each with a theme, such as time, hunger, life, exercise, hearing, fight, sleep, posture, sex and death. For each chapter the author presents observations on animals, such as a cat that knows Monday, storks that talk Egyptian, the smell of twelve million headless codfish and their severed heads, a rabbit which adopted a family and a spotty dog that walks on two feet. The presentation of careful scientific observations is given life and interest by the author's vivid imagination, his whimsical fantasy, and an occasional touch of mordant humor, such as the opening sentence of one chapter: "I was told this by a pretty woman, but I believe it."