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Primates in Nature. By Alison F. Richard (Freeman, New York, 1985.)

In this excellent, comprehensive and well presented book, Alison Richard provides the reader with an up-to-date summary of the state of knowledge in the field of primate socio-ecology. There is an introduction to the primates, and to ecology, introducing the concepts of levels of explanation and emergent features. There is also an appreciation of the difficulties of primate studies when conducted in the field. Primate diets are classified and reproductive habits reviewed, especially the length of female sex cycles and the inter-birth interval in different species. This leads on to a discussion of population size, and the problem of distinguishing changes in population size caused by births and deaths from those caused by migration and fission. The problem of obtaining accurate ages for the animals is also stressed. Such difficulties have been overcome in a number of long-term studies, which are reviewed. Two types of study are distinguished: provisioned and unprovisioned, and case studies of each are summarized. The former include studies of rhesus monkeys in Puerto Rico (26 years) and India (20 years), Japanese macaques at Takasakiyama (29 years), and chimpanzees at Gombe Stream, Tanzania (19 years). The latter include the study of rhesus monkeys in Pakistan (4 years), Toque macaques in Sri Lanka (14 years), vervets in Kenya (19 years), geladas in Ethiopia (4 years), howlers in Panama (50 years) and sifakas in Madagascar (20 years). Demographic parameters of these studies are presented in tabular form and these will be useful to primate workers, as will the accompanying life tables. Such findings as can be derived from the available data on population dynamics, birth and mortality rates are discussed. Emerging patterns in many species are of unstable populations characterized by variable migration rates, and variations in fertility and mortality rates, with evidence of age-specific differences in fertility in some species but not all. Some of the identified environmental factors influencing fertility and mortality are drought (vervets), cold and starvation (Japanese macaques), rain (geladas), predation (baboons), yellow fever (howlers) and poliomyelitis (introduced from humans to the Gombe chimps). It is well known that primates are a diverse group and that this diversity expresses itself in social organization. The patterns of social organization found in various primate species are described, including prosimians, New and Old World monkeys and apes. The thumbnail sketches provided are of necessity brief, but serve to describe the variance if not the finer detail. Typological thinking is rightly criticized, and the author points out that in some species such as Hanuman langurs several variations of primate social organization have been reported, while in others long-term studies have shown structural changes over time. The most interesting chapter to me was the ninth, in which the author discusses the determinants of social organization. The roles of environmental features, food