For such fine works as The Earth: An Intimate History, Fortey is rightly regarded. Here he turns to the Natural History Museum in London, where he worked for almost 40 years. This is an affectionate and fascinating eulogy of “those people who have worked away unseen behind the public galleries”. It is a shame that Fortey finds no place for the lower orders, the janitors or warders, in this account of the museum's hierarchical taxonomy. But his cast of characters includes some splendid English eccentrics, such as the museum's expert on belemnites in the 1930s “compelled to plod up Knightsbridge” - it's a long story - in a diving suit, “like an extra in a science-fiction film, mouthing through his mask at strangers”.

This is an elegy too. Fortey bemoans, gently, our “competitive times” when academics, like the rest of us, are forced to be fast in favour of being right. Gone is the “security of tenure of the established civil servant” scientist. That had its banes. Its boons are what Fortey extols.

Along the way there is much science and instruction. As always, Fortey wears his learning lightly. The prince of scientific pedagogues, in his hands the likes of “orobatid mite larva” and “cladistic phylogenetic analysis” spring easily from the page. His wry, self-deprecating humour is another joy. Above all, this is a stirring admonition. The “fecundity of our small planet” is in peril. Fortey urges us all to open our eyes to, and preserve, its rich diversity, past and present, before the shadows fall.

Dry Store Room No1: The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum by Richard Fortey

HarperPerennial, £8.99

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