Abstract
THE issue of these three works, which have no connection with one another, save as regards the approximate time of their birth, serves to indicate the increasing popularity of ornithology, and a consequent demand for histories of the avifauna of each and every country. As regards Great Britain, systematic treatises on its bird-fauna are, as we all know, to be counted by the dozen; and the chief business of the ornithologist of the future should accordingly be concentrated on the habits and distribution of the birds inhabiting this area. In America, on the other hand, much doubtless remains to be done in the working out of the details of local faunas; and there is accordingly in all probability ample room for the second and third volumes on our list. Although these are primarily intended to popularise the subject, they both possess a certain amount of importance to the systematic naturalist as being, apparently, accurate lists of local faunas. Not that by this statement we intend in any way to disparage the value of the work standing first on the list; we ourselves being at the present day inclined to assign a higher value to treatises dealing with the habits and environment of animals than to those devoted to their taxonomy.
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L., R. Three New Bird Books 1 . Nature 61, 323–324 (1900). https://doi.org/10.1038/061323a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/061323a0