The Subcontinent of India with it's long and varied coastline and associated offshore islands - Andamans, Nicobars and Lakshapweep - has a large and interesting molluscan fauna. Some 3271 marine species are recorded from India, of which this book deals with some 530 species, so even allowing that the book solely deals with Gastropoda and Chitons, it can be seen that this is by no means a comprehensivce coverage. On the whole this work is restricted to the larger species most likely to be encountered by the local students, for whom the book is, presumably, primarily intended.

The Ray Society has a history back to 1844 of publishing fine works on natural history with a special emphasis on the British Isles. This latest production is by David Reid of the Natural History Museum and is the latest (but I hope not the last) result of his studies in the Littorinidae which began in the early 1980s. It deals with 19 recent and 4 fossil species which he places in 4 subgenera of Littorina - Liralittorina, Planilittorina, Littorina ss, and Neritrema - together with 6 fossil species whose attribution is doubtful.

This beautifully produced book manages to delight the eye whilst efficiently explaining elegant hypotheses for the amazing diversity of striking patterns found on mollusc shells. The explanations are ultimately in terms of reaction-diffusion equations, but no mathematics is needed to follow the arguments. A simple example of the kind of model is of one substance, the activator, that promotes production both of itself and of another substance that inhibits production of the activator.

This book serves as a good introduction to the Marine shells of Djibouti, a small state at the mouth of the Red Sea, between Ethiopia and Somalia and opposite to Aden. As France is the former colonial power it is fitting that this study should have been published in France. The text is in French, but illustrations explaining the specialist terms used in the descriptions help make it easy to follow. The introduction includes details of local habitats and a section on conservation and it is interesting to note that such a small state should have two Marine National Parks.

The Molluscan faunas of tropical South America have been well documented in popular literature, A.M. Keen's Seashells of tropical Western America and E.C. Rios's Seashells of Brazil are key works in any Molluscan library. However there has long been a need for a book covering those species from the colder more southerly part of the continent, this book now fills that need.

Few molluscs have shells exhibiting a greater degree of colour polymorphism than the genus Liguus. Although there are only 5 or 6 species no less than 180 colour forms have been named. This book looks at the single species found in Florida, Liguus fasciatus (Muller, 1774), which occurs there in some 59 named colour forms. Although the species is also found in Cuba, where at least 32 additional named colour forms occur, these are not discussed here.