The Pond

Everyone can explore a pond. Just a net, a few jars and a hand-lens, and you can discover a world teaming with every kind of life. It is a self-contained habitat, and follows a surprisingly uniform pattern all over the globe.

This quite remarkable book introduces the pond and its inhabitants in over 400 superb color photographs, accompanied by an authoritative text.

The photographs were taken by Oxford Scientific Films, and reveal an extraordinary variety in the intricate lives of the pond's plants and insects, fish, snails, and amphibians, and among the birds and mammals at its edges. They show in stunning detail how a water spider traps air bubbles in its web to form a diving bell, how a mosquito emerges from its pupa, and many other stories on and in the water, arranged in sequence from the simplest creatures to the most sophisticated. Representative types of all the important forms of temperate pond life are included.

Text and captions describe the natural history of the pond's organisms and, together with the illustrations, allow identification to family or genus.

There is an introduction to the ecology of ponds in general, lists of taxonomic orders, and a color key to all the plants and creatures featured, as well as advice on how to collect and study pond life.

All of the authors are associated with Oxford Scientific Films, Ltd., a company which has become world-famous for its outstanding work in natural history photography and films. Gerald Thompson, who spent his early years in the concrete jungle of inner Glasgow, founded the company and was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1982 in recognition of his contribution to the understanding of Zoology. Jennifer Coldrey is a stills manager and has written a number of natural history books for children. George Bernard is stills photographer and one of the leaders in this field.