"Today I rush out to buy the latest in the long-running New Naturalist series, Larks, Pipits and Wagtails by Eric Simms. I won't read it, of course, not caring a great deal about larks or pipits or even wagtails, but it looks uncommonly well on the shelf with all the others. 'The New Naturalist series', said Desmond Hawkins in New Scientist, 'has this in common with Rolls-Royce cars and ginger marmalade: they all belong to that sadly dwiindling group of things which are as good today as I can ever remember them to be.' "