I love Gerard Durrell and his books. However, I didn’t find this one so captivating because he here focuses on the various animals that fascinate him, and there wasn’t so much room for humour, though Gerry just can’t avoid being funny, so he did elicit a few chuckles from me nonetheless.

G’s descriptions of the various searches for the specific species he was interested in, how they first seemed invisible, but later dramatically appeared, were fascinating, As a whole, his prose is superb.

The book deals with Gerry’s visit to Madagascar together with his wife, Lee. They also visited the Mascarene Islands, one of them Mauritius, being the island where the famed dodo lived and was exterminated – a sad tale. The dodo became the symbol of the Jersey Trust, founded by Gerry.

The book is filled with beautiful photographs, some taken by Lee, both of animal species which they found and the surrounding landscape.

Previously Gerald had been absorbed with capturing and thus saving the pink pigeon whose nesting site is also in Mauritius. It has now been bred in captivity. This time on the tiny volcanic Round Island they found some endangered Telfair’s skinks. On Rodrigues they attempted to catch some little fruit-bats, the rarest bats in the world, though as far as I could make out, failed to do so.

Om Madagascar itself, Gerald’s main fascination was the lemurs, the ring-tailed lemur, the woolly ruffed lemur, the mouse lemur, and the sifaka. There were also the indris, the biggest and most spectacular of the lemurs.

If you’re a keen zoologist/naturalist I would recommend that you read this book too, otherwise perhaps not. ( )

After making the TV series The Stationary Ark, about the successful project of collecting and breeding endangered animals in captivity, Durrell went on to make a new series, Ark on the Move set in Mauritius and Madagasgar. The animals were shipped to Durrell's zoo in Jersey because many of the countries of origin lack facilities for breeding. The Jersey Trust adopted the dodo as their symbol while they were in Mauritius. The dodo, tame and without enemies, was discovered in the 1500s when explorers arrived and was completely exterminated within 100 years. Among many of Durrell's goals while in Mauritius was to breed the pink pigeon, a truly beautiful little bird, of which only ten were remaining. His efforts have been successful, not only in his lifetime, but in 2011 the number was estimated at over 400.

This is a more serious story, not so much like many of Durrell's amusing tales but it still has his voice and is typical of his passion for wildlife. ( )