FOR reasons best known to its publisher, this adopts a 1950s format, complete with only black-and-white illustrations.

Equally oddly, the author hides behind a pseudonym. Yet it works, aiming to be much less an identification manual than a lively source of facts. The badger is introduced thus: "Despite what you might have learnt from your reading of the adventures of Rupert Bear, not all Badgers are necessarily called Bill, nor even do they speak in rhyming couplets."

This soon toughens into: "The Badger is Britain's largest land carnivore and its claws make it a natural digging machine and prodigious fighter if attacked."

We learn: "When first classified scientifically, Badgers were thought to be a type of bear, whereas they're actually related to Weasels, Stoats and the like." And in a panel headed What You Should Say, which completes each profile, we are told: "Of course there's still no compelling proof that they spread TB to cattle." Mammals, flowers, insects, birds, trees, fish, amphibians, and so-called Odds and Ends (eg fungi, shells, how to date hedgerows and animals that turn white in winter) all enjoy Johnson P Johnson's idiosyncratic treatment.