Extinct birds
by Errol Fuller
On This Page
Description
Since 1600 some 80 bird species have become extinct. The author of this text has drawn on a wide range of sources for his accounts of these birds, their habits and demise, with evidence of preserved specimens brought to life by the eye-witness accounts of early travellers and explorers. Their stories are sometimes tantalizingly slight: isolated sightings of a single bird may be the only evidence that a species ever existed. By contrast, the expeditions of 19th-century naturalists are often show more well documented and their descriptions accompanied by detailed drawings and paintings. In more recent cases our knowledge about an extinct species can be so extensive that even the precise time and place of death of its last surviving member is recorded. Virtually all of the species documented here are illustrated with colour plates from archival sources, including the work of such acknowledged masters as Audubon, Keulemans and Lear. These artists often had the advantage of working from fresh specimens or even from living birds, and besides its beauty their work is a primary source of scientific knowledge in its own right. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Recommendations
Member Reviews
A catalog of birds which have gone extinct mostly since the 1600s, this book is interesting to the layperson as well as the ornithologist. The author includes interesting vignettes about the personalities and people who discovered and collected these birds and also interesting historical information about the areas where the birds resided.
Lavish illustrations make the book worth checking out just for the pictures, but the text is worth reading. Non-specialists should feel free to skip over the technical parts, but don't miss the chance to discover interesting trivia about these creatures and the humans who studied them.
Worth reading for both the casual reader and the expert.
Lavish illustrations make the book worth checking out just for the pictures, but the text is worth reading. Non-specialists should feel free to skip over the technical parts, but don't miss the chance to discover interesting trivia about these creatures and the humans who studied them.
Worth reading for both the casual reader and the expert.
Ratings
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Extinct Animals
22 works; 1 member
Author Information
14+ Works 512 Members
Errol Fuller is a painter of sporting subjects, particularly boxing, who lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, U.K.
All Editions
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Extinct birds
- Original publication date
- 1987
- People/Characters
- birds
- Important events
- extinction
- Epigraph
- [None]
- Dedication
- To the memory of my father, Errol Fuller - born Calcutta, 1921; died London, 1986.
- First words
- The timing of the publication of this volume is perfect.
Foreword.
For many years now I have been collecting the materials - pictures, articles, pamphlets, transcripts of diaries etc. - from which this book is assembled.
Preface.
The ratite birds are almost always placed at the head of listings of living avian groups.
Ratites. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Only from the West Indies have extinct hypothetical birds been described on anything like the same scale; the validity of these is assessed together with other mysterious parrots in the introduction to the order Psittaciformes (page 131).
- Original language
- English
- Canonical DDC/MDS
- 598.042
- Canonical LCC
- QL676.8
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 124
- Popularity
- 262,172
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.06)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
