Animal Behavior

Fifteen international zoologists here contribute essays that cover just about every phase of animal life. Halliday, a professor of biology at Great Britain's Open University, writes the introduction and closing chapter, ``Adapting to a Changing World.'' Other pieces survey the behavior of animals observed courting, mating and rearing their young; in groups; in relation to food and shelter and to instinct and intelligence. There are stories of species that hunt together, like cormorants and pelicans, snowy egrets and pie-billed grebes. We learn that 20 families of songbirds use spider silk for nest-building and that other species use snakeskin. In ``Living with Other Animals,'' addressing parasitism, commensalism (in which the behavior of one species benefits another without damaging itself) and symbiosis, we see hornbills and mongooses as symbiotic: mongooses flush insects for hornbills, which act as sentinels for the mongooses. Illustrated with 251 color plates, the text is filled with delectable bits of animal lore. (May)