Access Data Analysis Cookbook

Colophon

The animal on the cover of Access Data Analysis Cookbook is a crab-eating mongoose (Herpestes urva), an endangered, essentially nocturnal mammal that is also an expert swimmer.

Comparable in size to the stripe-necked mongoose, the four-foot crab-eating mongoose is grayish-brown in color, with a white, contoured stripe running from a corner of its mouth to its shoulder. It has a long, tapered head with a protruding snout, a some-what rotund body, short, lean legs, and five claws on each paw. An elongated tail normally accounts for two-thirds of its body length.

More aquatic by nature than others of its species, the crab-eating mongoose not only hunts freshwater crabs, it also preys on reptiles, fish, snails, rodents, frogs, insects, birds, and whatever else it can snatch from underneath stones and pull from rock crevices along stream banks and other damp parcels of land.

Though native to Southeast Asia, sightings of the creature in the wild have been relatively rare—in India, the last sighting occurred more than 75 years ago; in Hong Kong, one sighting occurred more than 50 years ago, but, by luck, a healthy population was apparently discovered in 1988. Other countries that have reported sightings of the crab-eating mongoose include Nepal, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, China, Laos, and Malaysia.

The cover image is from Lydekker’s Royal History. The cover font is Adobe ITC Garamond. The text font is Linotype Birka; the heading font is Adobe Myriad Condensed; and the code font is ...