Book reviews 387
Although I cannot do justice to an 1108 page volume in a 300 word mini-review,
highlights for me were: Roy and Phillippe Cury analysing the optimal enviromental
window approach to the engimas of pelagic recruitment; Ken Mann scanning from
microns to megametres for key drivers of biological ocean production; Dan Ware
having his trophodynamic hake and eating it; Rob Crawford trying to understand the
role of top predators; Kevern Cochrane's neat catch-risk curves for anchovy recruit-
ment; Wickens et al.'s perspectives on conflicts over seals and fisheries; Ian Hampton's
beautifully clear account of acoustic surveys; and Gary Sharp wanting to give empirical
ocean science a firmer contextual framework and looking forward to cyber-oceano-
graphy. There is a memorable essay by Ray Hilborn parodying his fellow gurus and
scanning the conceptual horizon to try to find out where we are heading in fisheries
management science: not a science with the happiest public image at present.
I encourage readers of RFBF to dip into the many delights of this volume (or even
request their own copy - by all accounts it's free!). My only carp (well - there are few
in the sea): the editors might have given us an overview of the Benguela programme
and its achievements to date in rather more depth than the insert inside the front cover.
Here is advance notice that the third and final Benguela symposium will be held in
November 1996. Benguela Trophic Functioning will provide an excellent preparation
for that event.
TONY PITCHER
Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Parasitic Worms of Fish
Harford Williams and Arlene Jones
Taylor & Francis, London, 1994
ISBN 0-85066-425-X, £95.00
Hard cover, acid-free paper, pp. xvi + 593, 60 tables, more than 350 figures arranged in 140
plates, extensive reference list
Parasitic Worms of Fish is a comprehensive book on the metazoan parasites of fish
collectively known as helminths and belonging to three phyla: Platyhelminthes (flat-
worms), Nematoda (roundworms) and Acanthocephala (spiny-headed worms). The
Platyhelminthes include the Trematoda or flukes, Monogenea, and Cestoda or tape-
worms. In excess of 30000 species of helminths (including many of socio-economic
importance) are known from marine and freshwater fishes. The authors have drawn on
more than 60 years of combined experience to produce a volume that will undoubtedly
become the premier reference source for information on the biology and practical
importance of helminth parasites of fish. It will be used equally by novices in the field
and experienced researchers and university lecturers as a source of research ideas and
lecture material.
The six chapters cover all aspects of the biology of parasitic worms of fish, from
taxonomy and life cycles through ecology, population biology, evolution and phy-
logeny, to their significance as agents of disease in fish, their importance in public
health and their value as indicators of host population biology. A proposed chapter on
physiology and biochemistry was omitted for reasons of space; instead, an appendix
lists relevant sources of information.