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PARROTS OF THE WORLD by Joseph M. Forshaw • Illustrated by William T. Cooper
Few groups of birds are as well Icnown as the Order Psittaeiformes—the parrots. Parrots have attracted the attentipn of naturalists from the earhest times, and their popularity as pets is well documented in history. It was probably Alexander the Great who introduced to Europe tame parrots from the Far East, and Aristotle almost certainly based his descriptions of parrots on birds brought back by Alexander's triumphant armies. The voyages of discovery to Asia and the Americas during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries resulted in new parrot species being brought back to Europe, and trading in live birds soon commenced. Nowadays the popularity of parrots is world-wide and the international trade in live birds has reached alarming proportions.
Despite this widespread interest in the parrots no definitive book on the Order has been published during the past century, the last authoritative work being Die Papageien, by O. Finsch, in 1867-68. Furthermore, no book in which every species is illustrated has hitherto been published. Joseph Forshaw's book is thus a significant event in world ornithology, and will remain, for many years, the definitive reference on this important group of birds.
Parrots of the World has been conceived to meet the needs of ornithologists, institutions, aviculturists, and naturalists generally. Its basically scientific appeal, however, will not prevent it from becoming the bible of parrot-fanciers throughout the world. Every species and subspecies, including those now extinct, is described. Standard taxonomic measurements taken from museum specimens are listed as part of these descriptions. Information on distribution, status, habitats, general habits, including measurements of eggs, is given. There is a distribution map for each species.
All of the approximately 340 species and some of the more divergent subspecies—a total of almost 500 birds—are magnificently illustrated in color by William Cooper, whose recent work has ranked him among the world's leading bird-painters. Each illustration is of a particular specimen and the registration numbers for specimens are included in the captions to the plates. Particular attention has been paid to backgrounds so that they are indicative of typical habitats in which the depicted species occurs.
THE AUTHOR Joseph Forshaw is an Australian ornithologist with a special interest in the parrots, and has travelled widely round Australia studying parrots in the wild state. He has published papers and articles in Australian, British, and Dutch journals, and his definitive monograph, Australian Parrots (Lansdowne Press, 1969) has been published in British and American editions.
In 1964 Mr. Forshaw received a grant from the Frank M. Chapman Memorial Fund enabling him to visit the United States and work with the reference collections at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and at the Chicago Natural History Museum. En route to the United States he visited some Pacific Islands and studied parrots in their natural environments. In 1965, before returning to Australia, he organized an expedition through western Mexico and carried out field observations on some Central American parrots.
Early in 1970 Mr. Forshaw and Mr. Cooper visited Papua-New Guinea to study the local parrots, and later the same year Mr. Forshaw was awarded a Churchill Fellowship by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, Canberra, Australia, to enable him to complete his research for the present work. As a Churchill Fellow he visited Asia, Europe, Britain, the United States, South America, and some Pacific Islands. Systematic and distributional information was obtained from museum collections in these countries. In Asia, South America, and the Pacific Islands field observations were carried out on parrots in their natural state.
Mr. Forshaw is a.technician with the Division of Wildlife Research in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Canberra, and works on the biology of rabbits and small mammals.
THE ILLUSTRATOR William Cooper is an Australian whose recent paintings of birds have been acclaimed in many parts of the world. In addition to his private and commissioned work he recently collaborated with the late Keith Hindwood to produce A Portfolio of Australian Birds (A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1968).
As a boy Mr. Cooper spent most of his spare time drawing, painting, and exploring the bush on the outskirts of his home town. He worked as a display manager of a retail store, but eventually resigned to become a freelance painter, concentrating mainly on landscapes and seascapes in traditional style. His paintings are to be found in private collections in AustraUa, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, the United States, and the U.S.S.R., and he is represented in the Australian Commonwealth Collection. Mr. Cooper spent three years working full time to paint the illustrations which appear in this book. Each illustration is of a specimen from an established reference collection and whenever possible postures and attitudes are from live birds and photographs.
PUBLISHED BY T.F.H. PUBLICATIONS, INC. P.O. BOX 27, NEPTUNE, N.J. 07753 USA
ISBN 0-S766e-3S9-3
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