Bugs Britannica

s:1185:""As with Flora and Birds this is not a biological guide but a richly-illustrated cultural one, bugs' as seen through the eyes of writers, musicians, artists and naturalists from the great Victorian scientists to Irvine Welsh's talking tapeworm in Filth as well as contributions by ordinary men and women who are fascinated by creepy-crawlies of all kinds. Marren and Mabey cannot hope to include every one of the 40,000 British invertebrates, but they do include all those with a significant cultural profile, as well as those with fascinating folk-names, superstitions, social history or domestic use. The book is structured along a roughly evolving path, from simple cell life-forms amoeba, worms, crustaceans (proof say the authors of just how far you can go on very little') on to bugs we all might recognise spiders, butterflies, bees and back into the water to meet molluscs and almost-fish' The book works so triumphantly because Marren and Mabey have examined bugs in the dusty corners of our houses and gardens as well as traversing mountains, lakes and fields. In addition to the fascinating habits of the bug world they also include the eye-gogglingly odd behaviour of the b";