Paul R. Shaffer (1) (1910–2000)

One of several pocket-sized Golden Guides that lined my shelves back in the day. Each was interesting, small, easy to carry around in a pocket and thumb through without even being connected to the internet.

When I was a boy, we had multiple "Golden Nature Guides", including this guide to minerals, gems, and rocks. As a pocket- sized guide it was ideally suited to the amateur naturalist. Its small color figures were very useful guides to identification.

As compared to our guides to birds and mammals, this guide probably did not get much use in our house. But we would get it out from time to time to identify a rocky treasure brought back from "out west".

Describes the whale’s structure and adaptation to water life as a mammal, telling how it breathes, dives, feeds and mates, and briefly notes the importance of the whaling industry.

mini guide de 1968