Extinct Birds

Rothschild, Lionel Walter Rothschild, Baron, 1868-Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.4

Word count: 413K words
Chapters: 42

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Extinct Birds by Baron Lionel Walter Rothschild RothschildAuthor: Rothschild, Lionel Walter Rothschild, Baron, 1868-1937,Language: English, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Jun 15, 2012

Editor's review

Extinct Birds is Baron Rothschild’s classic illustrated work on extinct birds, available as a free public-domain text in Project Gutenberg. Its value is first of all documentary: written in the early twentieth century, it systematically surveys the extinct or possibly extinct birds then known, preserving a wealth of morphological descriptions and distribution records that are hard to find today, and is an important primary source for the history of avian extinction and early conservation awareness. Its highlight is the combination of text and illustrations, which lets readers see what vanished species once looked like and sense the gap between early scientific records and modern conservation biology. It is best used as a desk reference rather than read straight through, and works best alongside ornithological taxonomy or environmental history. Note that the book is in English with dense terminology, and some classifications and conclusions have been updated by later research; readers should treat its scientific names and judgments critically.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in ornithology and the history of natural history who can read English
Students of environmental history studying extinction and early conservation thought
Science writers needing historical images and original descriptions of extinct birds
Collectors who enjoy classic public-domain scientific literature and read slowly with notes

Not a good fit for

Researchers seeking quick access to authoritative modern data on bird extinctions
General readers with weak English or unfamiliarity with biological taxonomy
Casual readers expecting popular stories or plentiful colour illustrations

Reading tips

Read the table of contents and introduction first for the book’s background and scope, then sample representative entries by group.
Keep a modern bird classification at hand and note scientific names and conclusions that have changed.
Compare the book’s extinction records with the contemporary Red List and build your own timeline of species loss.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book suitable as an introduction to ornithology?

Not really. It is an early twentieth-century English natural-history monograph with dense terminology and outdated classification and little modern context, so beginners will struggle. Read a contemporary general ornithology book first and use this as a historical supplement.

Are the classifications and conclusions still accurate today?

Treat them with caution. The book is old, and some scientific names, distribution records and extinction judgments have been revised or overturned by later research. Read it as a historical record and cross-check it against modern databases rather than as current authority.

What should I watch for when reading the public-domain edition?

Public-domain books are prepared and proofread by volunteers, so there may be typesetting or scanning errors, and image quality varies by edition. Verify specific information against the original publication or other reliable sources, and note differences between electronic editions.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Rothschild, Lionel Walter Rothschild, Baron, 1868- Author · British · 1868–1937

Lionel Walter Rothschild, Baron (1868–1937), commonly known as Walter Rothschild, was a British zoologist and the second Baron of the Rothschild family. His main contributions to zoology centred on the study of birds, with particular attention to the question of extinction; his representative work, Extinct Birds, takes this as its theme. The book deals with birds that have vanished or are on the verge of vanishing, and belongs to the tradition of writing at the intersection of natural history and ornithology, emphasising the arrangement of specimens and records rather than popular narrative. Public information about the details of his life is limited, and only one of his works is held in this collection. Overall, his writing addresses specialist readers and offers reference material for early research on bird extinction, giving it a place in the literature of natural history.