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Re: BookTV

From:

Elliot Kirschbaum

Reply-To:

Elliot Kirschbaum

Date:

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 09:57:26 -0400

on 10/26/08 6:38 PM, Philip Brody at  wrote:

> I look forward to seeing the book TV presentation regarding the original Roger
> Tory Peterson Guide. However influential that guide was it was not the first
> guide for non-scientists. For example, there is a series of guides by Frank
> Chapman who was Curator of Ornithology at The American Museum of Natural
> History. I have in front of me "Color Key to North American birds"-the  color
> range is limited to red, yellow and blue. It's organized like many modern
> guides though not like Peterson; gives field marks, ranges and calls next to a
> color drawing of the bird. The copyright is 1912. To top it all Chapman
> authored a "Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America that came in a pocket
> edition-flexible covers $4.10 postpaid. He also had a book of photographs that
> included a chapter on outfit and methods. I would love to see that one. The
> only one I have actually seen is the " Color Key...." which I have a copy of.
> It has the Ivory-billed Woodpecker ("range now restricted") and the Passenger
> Pigeon ("exceedingly rare").

My wife, Nancy, also has a copy of the Chapman "Color Key To North American
Birds", copyright 1903.

For Ivory-billed Woodpecker it shows the range as: Florida west to eastern
Texas; north to southern Missouri and Oklahoma; formerly north to North
Carolina, Illinois, and Indiana.

For Passenger Pigeon, Wild Pigeon it shows the range as: Formerly eastern
North America north to Hudson Bay; now exceedingly rare, less so in the
upper Mississippi valley than elsewhere.

For Eskimo Curlew, no mention of rarity at all.

-- 
Elliot

-- 
Elliot Kirschbaum
Shepherdstown, WV
kingfisher501 at gmail dot com