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This book is one half of a publication intended to form a comprehensive guide to the Birds of
the Palearctic Region: an area including Europe, North Africa, Asia north of the Himalayas, China,
Korea, and Japan. Yet this book comes in at only 240 pages, and weighing just under 14 ounces. So
how did so many species fit into this tiny volume?
Part of the answer to this riddle lies in the title. While other volumes in the Illustrated
Checklist series just served to confuse consumers who were looking for a "Field Guide", this volume
lives up to its name. In the UK, this book was published under the title Collins Field Guide -
Birds of the Palearctic: Passerines. According to reviewer Charlie Moores 1,
Arlott himself fought against the "Field Guide" representation, because he intentionally fashioned
the book as a "coloured checklist."
And "Illustrated Checklist" is indeed the best description for this book. The illustrations are
somewhat small, though the artwork is of excellent quality, and detail and color representation seem
good overall. The text, following the format of this series, is succinct: English name, Latin name,
length, field notes, song, call, habitat, and races. The distribution maps form a separate section
of the book and seem fine aside from the fact that they are too small to represent such
a large section of the globe.
References:
Charlie Moores - Charlie's Bird Blog: http://charliesbirdblog.com/
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