African Naturalist

For a landlocked country, Malawi is surprisingly aquatic. Much of Malawi is lakefront property, and the unofficial national dish is chambo fish and nsima, washed down with Carlsberg beer.

I had had several delicious meals like that before I had the chance to go snorkeling in Lake Malawi. When I did, I was stunned by the brilliant colors of the fish, as bright as fish from the tropical ocean.

Rodney Carrington Wood (1889-1962) spent half a century studying the flora and fauna of what was then Nyasaland, and established the first national parks there. African Naturalist, a new book by David Happold, tells his story. An authority in African mammals with 17 years’ experience in Malawi, Nigeria, and Sudan, Happold traces the life and career of Wood from his childhood to his last years in the Seychelle Islands.

Twelve pages of color plants are a welcome addition, including photos of Malawian landscapes, a 1919 caricature of Wood, and photos of some of his specimens: rodents, birds, bottled fish, and a beautiful assortment of butterflies from the collection of the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe.