The Life of Animals: Chapter 8: The Swifts, Chapter 9: The Petrels

Brehm, Alfred Edmund, 1829-1884Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.0

Word count: 49K words
Chapters: 5

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.Het Leven der Dieren: Hoofdstuk 8: De Vinduikers; Hoofdstuk 9: de StormvogelsAuthor: Brehm, Alfred Edmund, 1829-1884,Language: Dutch, Class: QL: Science: Zoology, Release Date: Jun 15, 2010

Editor's review

These are two chapters from Alfred Edmund Brehm's Animal Life, covering the tubenoses (albatrosses, petrels, and their kin) and the storm petrels respectively. The original is in Dutch, released as a free ebook by Project Gutenberg. Brehm's natural history writing is known for meticulous observation and readable narration; these chapters link form, habit, and reproduction to the marine environment, combining informative density with the narrative appeal of nineteenth-century natural history. For Chinese readers its value lies in documentary and comparative reading: it offers insight into early bird classification and description, and serves as supplementary material for Dutch reading or the history of science. As a public-domain ebook, it lacks modern translation notes and taxonomic updates; readers should note that names and classifications have changed with later research and read with a critical eye.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in ornithology and the history of natural history, for source material and comparative reading
Intermediate and advanced Dutch learners who want to read popular-science originals
Researchers in the history of science and nature writing, interested in nineteenth-century zoological narrative style
Nature observers who want to learn about early seabird descriptions and classification frameworks

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking the latest bird classification and conservation information; the content is now historical
General readers who need a Chinese translation; this book is in the original Dutch
Readers who want a richly illustrated, modern field-guide experience

Reading tips

Read the chapter titles and opening sentences first to grasp the descriptive framework for the two seabird groups, then go into detail.
Read alongside a modern bird guide and note changes in names and classification.
Dutch learners can read one or two pages a day and note vocabulary for form and habit.
When taking notes on natural history, record the author's observational angle and period limitations for future citation.

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 in Dutch? How can Chinese readers use it?

The original is in Dutch and contains no Chinese translation. Chinese readers can treat it as a document in the history of natural history or as Dutch reading material, using a dictionary and a modern bird guide for reference, focusing on the descriptive framework and observational approach rather than reading word by word.

Can the bird classifications in the book still be used directly?

Not directly. This is nineteenth-century natural history writing, and classifications and names have been revised since. Read it as a historical document; for specific groups, check modern taxonomic systems. Understanding the differences is itself part of the reading value.

What do the two chapters cover?

Judging from the titles and classification, Chapter 8 covers the tubenoses, including albatrosses, petrels, and other pelagic birds; Chapter 9 covers the storm petrels. Both chapters deal with form, habits, and marine life, and belong to the bird section of Brehm's Animal Life.

Does the lack of illustrations affect reading?

The ebook is text-based, and the absence of the original illustrations does reduce visual immediacy. It helps to read alongside a modern seabird guide or reliable images, comparing appearance and behavior descriptions as you go.

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

Brehm, Alfred Edmund, 1829-1884 Author

Alfred Edmund Brehm (1829–1884) was a noted nineteenth-century writer on zoology. Details of his life are limited in publicly available sources, yet he left his mark on the history of European natural-history reading through the voluminous Het Leven der Dieren (The Life of Animals). The library holds twenty-two of his works, most of them fascicles of this great series, arranged by taxonomic group and covering beasts of prey, parrots, fowl, rails, waders, seabirds, rodents, and edentates, which shows how he introduced animals order by order within a classification system. His writing combines scientific description with readability, skillfully setting out habits and forms and bringing natural-history knowledge to ordinary readers; it thus had a lasting influence on later popular animal books.