The Horned Dinosaurs: A Natural History by Peter Dodson,
Princeton University Press, ÂŁ23/$35, ISBN 0 691 02882 4

CERATOPSIAN (more correctly, ceratopian) or horned dinosaurs are the
quintessential dinosaur. I seriously doubt that there is anybody reading this
who has not at least heard of one of their most notable representatives:
Triceratops. This group of dinosaurs are among the most spectacular and
bizarre examples of the clan—quite a claim, given how strange and
enigmatic most dinosaurs appear to the casual observer.

But there is no denying the bizarre appearance of the plant-eater whose skull
alone can be 2 metres long and combines a huge, hooked, eagle-like beak, with
adornments such as various sharply pointed horns (a metre or more long) topped
off by a huge frill, like an overgrown Elizabethan ruff, all of which are stuck
on the front of a stout, rhinoceros-shaped body that can stretch to 9
metres.

Indeed, as Peter Dodson relates, this odd combination of features, exhibited
by the small Asian ceratopian Protoceratops, could conceivably be the
source of the legend of the griffin. Beautifully articulated, upright, white
skeletons of Protoceratops have been weathering out of the soft, red
sandstones of the Gobi Desert for countless centuries. Is it any wonder that
legends of griffins, the wilderness-dwelling guardians of gold hoards, derive
from tribespeople and travellers from Asia? Aeschylus (460 BC) called them
“silent hounds with beaks”.

So why devote a whole book to Ceratopians when they already feature in all
compilations on dinosaurs? Is this justified? Does Peter Dodson have anything
new to say? Dodson’s credentials are impeccable: he is a professor of anatomy at
the University of Pennsylvania and the coeditor of a vast technical manual on
the Dinosauria, published in 1990. He is also arguably the leading authority on
horned dinosaurs and is undeniably passionate about them, so there is nobody
better placed to write such a book.

However, I think a book on one group of dinosaurs can be justified—
after all, modern biologists and natural historians devote entire books to
restricted subjects such as sharks, lions, whales, bears or canaries.

And palaeobiology is coming into its own within the natural sciences. So the
prospect of books on the natural history of specific groups of extinct animals
is a challenge. A writer has to lay bare the processes by which we deduce the
biology and way of life of remote and completely extinct forms of life when
there are no significant living counterparts to fall back on. This is a far
harder task than that of dealing with prehistoric subjects such as mammoths,
sabre-toothed cats and human ancestors, all of which have living counterparts
which can help when interpreting scenarios of biology and ecology. There are no
such counterparts for the ceratopians. Their ecology, behaviour and physiology
all have to be inferred indirectly by palaeobiological research programmes. So
how does Dodson try to meet this challenge?

The Horned Dinosaurs is split into nine chapters, plus a copious
section devoted to supplemental notes and references. As a taster, Dodson
outlines the general history of the discovery and recognition of these dinosaurs
and describes some of the overviews of behaviour and lifestyle which have been
applied to them. He devotes a chapter purely to anatomy—rather a bold
step, but helped by the full-scale cast of a ceratopian dinosaur (
Chasmosaurus) he carefully reconstructed in his living room. Though a neat
textual device, well-written and illustrated, I fear that this will be pretty
heavy going for general readers—and probably skipped by all but the most
conscientious.

Next Dodson deals in enormous detail with the main—and most
impressive—ceratopians: Triceratops and its allies, the
chasmosaurines; and Monoclonius and its allies, the centrosaurines. The
cataloguing of discoveries dominates these chapters—times, dates and
people involved in the discovery of all the main genera and species are
itemised. The tone is lightened by an overview of the biology of these animals,
particularly the centrosaurines. (Dodson has been involved in the matter of
resolving the taxonomy of the centrosaurines, and eliminating the problems
created by sexual dimorphism.)

He then turns to the less elaborately adorned and mostly smaller types of
ceratopian, of which Protoceratops is a notable example, as well as the
unusual small, bipedal forms such as Psittacosaurus and
Microceratops. Again, details of the sequence of discoveries are profuse
and well illustrated, and Dodson’s own work on the biometry of
Protoceratops helps to illuminate the problems encountered by
palaeobiologists when they are trying to distinguish between male and female
members of extinct species. He also covers the recent discoveries from Mongolia,
which have shown that many of the nests of eggs previously assigned to
Protoceratops are now more likely to be associated with the unusual
theropod Oviraptor, the animal that was always portrayed as stealing
the eggs of the unfortunate Protoceratops.

Dodson then turns to the evolutionary relationships between the ceratopians
generally, and interpretations of their ways of life. He outlines the history of
ideas concerning ceratopian descent, as well as more recent approaches to the
subject, specifically in relation to cladistic analyses and his own attempts to
rationalise the cladistic patterns suggested in recent years. This section seems
to be directed at his peers, rather than at the general audience to which the
book seems, for the most part, to be aimed.

Not until the final chapter (only 20 pages long), do we reach the rather
delayed “meat” of the book, the natural history of the horned dinosaurs. Dodson
examines evidence of herding from mass-mortality discoveries (bonebeds), feeding
mechanisms and possible dietary preferences, the stance and gait of these
animals (whether they could charge about the landscape at great speeds, as often
indicated in purely artistic reconstructions inspired by the opinions of Robert
Bakker). Anatomical and trackway evidence would seem to point to a more sober,
lumbering gait, with the forelimbs somewhat akimbo and a consequently less
dashing image for ceratopians generally (except for the smaller and either
lightweight or bipedal forms). The anatomy of running vertebrates is contrasted
with that of ceratopians and in all respects supports a lumbering, ambulatory
gait. Finally, Dodson almost apologetically ends up favouring a gradual,
long-term decline in ceratopian diversity rather than the cataclysmic end that
is preferred by almost all palaeobiologists at present.

In all, this book proved a little disappointing. The text is well-written by
an obvious enthusiast and aficionado of ceratopians. And the illustrations are
pleasingly chosen, mixing original lithographs, lino-cuts and pen-and-ink
drawings with more modern reconstructions and paintings. The book is nicely put
together. But I do not think that Dodson has succeeded in presenting a genuine
natural history of his beloved horned dinosaurs. I expected far more about the
natural history of these animals, and greater emphasis on the scientific process
of unravelling their biology than Dodson has been prepared to offer. This is an
excellent historical review of the discovery and study of ceratopian dinosaurs
and should be judged as that, but I don’t think that it qualifies as a natural
history of these animals. It will be of interest to the general reader,
especially all those dinosaurophiles out there, but I can’t help feeling a
little bit cheated: I know Dodson well, and know that there is so much more he
could have told us.

There is something magical about remote uplands. For many people a walk
across heather moorland with curlew calling, red grouse squabbling and buzzards
soaring overhead epitomises the true natural wilderness of Britain. But
is it natural?

Much of what we now find attractive about our uplands is the result
of human interference. After the end of the last ice age, when scrub followed
by forest gradually replaced tundra, people have systematically cleared
woodland to create grazing land. In the past two centuries landowners have
also artificially managed large areas to benefit red deer or red grouse.

Derek Ratcliffe’s book ends with a chapter on conservation that paints
a gloomy picture of how major parts of our uplands and their birds are being
destroyed by agriculture and afforestation, reservoirs and recreation, persecution
and pollution. But, bearing in mind the recent history of the uplands, with
extensive human manipulation leading to the landscape that we now value,
what grounds have we for complaint about the changes taking place?

Part of the answer lies in the speed of change. It took several thousand
years to establish the upland habitats yet only the past 50 years for 30
of these areas to be transformed by loss of heather and bilberry to grass
or bracken, and by loss of open ground to conifer plantations, fertilised
grassland or even arable farmland.

Another reason lies in the types of habitat and the species of bird
that are being displaced: greenshank and golden eagle are exciting birds
so there are more efforts to protect their habitat. Blanket bog, one of
the threatened habitats, doesn’t sound appealing but it is one of the rarest
vegetation forms in the world. The Flow Country of northern Scotland may
be the largest single expanse of blanket bog that exists.

And part of the answer lies in our dislike of the motives of the destroyers.
As the author says: ‘Much of the continuing damage and loss to upland habitats
results from the activities of a relatively small number of people whose
rights of land ownership and occupancy are mostly heavily subsidised from
public funds.’

Ratcliffe succinctly spells out the aims of conservation as being to
maintain the diversity of species and their density of population, especially
protecting and encouraging rare and endangered species. Above all, we should
ensure that damage to habitats is kept to a minimum and that we manage land
benignly. His book suggests four main ways of arresting these destructive
tendencies: protection of important areas; the ‘wider countryside approach’;
enforcement of bird protection laws; and adherence to international obligations
to conserve.

Protection of important areas is difficult, partly because in Scotland
proposals for national parks have consistently been blocked by the combined
power of landowning and local political interests, but also because many
of the important birds are widely but sparsely distributed throughout the
uplands. Even protected areas in apparently isolated places are not immune
from the effects of pesticides and pollution.

The only hope is for a national policy on land use, which is directed
not to the economic benefit of small sectional interests but for the interest
of the much larger number of people concerned to protect, cherish and enjoy
our national heritage of which the uplands and their birds are such a vital
part.

Wallets and bookcases are strained by the number of bird books published
these days, so each one sets out to try to be something special. Bird Life
of Mountain and Upland claims to be the first to look at birds and their
habitats from an ecological standpoint. There could be no better-qualified
author than Ratcliffe, who recently retired as Chief ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ of the Nature
Conservancy Council, having spent most of his life studying the wildlife
of Britain’s mountains and uplands.

This volume is well produced, enhanced by 24 black-and-white photographs
and 26 line drawings by Chris Rose, but it certainly is more than just another
pretty bird book. Even in the introduction we are plunged into eight pages
of tabulated data on the upland species, with later chapters containing
graphs of population trends.

The maps of breeding distribution within Britain and Ireland are somewhat
out of date, as they are based on the survey held between 1968 and 1972
organised by the British Trust for Ornithology. It is a pity that the species
mapped are only those that breed exclusively in uplands, such as red grouse
and snow bunting. Those lowland breeders for which uplands are also important,
for example, the curlew and meadow pipit, are not mapped.

Ratcliffe has the knack of writing scientific facts in a lively style,
with the quiet authority of the expert, although the reader still has to
work hard and think about the birds and how they relate to each other and
to their surroundings.

Everyone who loves our wild places will enjoy Bird Life of Mountain
and Upland. The chapter on conservation should become required reading for
all politicians and landowners. Buy this book, and start lobbying for a
secure future for Britain’s wilderness.

David Norman is a physicist in a government research laboratory who
spends most of his spare time ringing birds.