Frank M. - Chapman | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

CAMPS AND CRUISES OF AN ORNITHOLOGIST BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN CURATOR OF ORNITHOLOGY, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGISTS UNION AUTHOR OF HANDBOOK OF BIRDS OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA BIRD-LIFE BIRD STUDIES WITH A CAMERA, ETC. WITH 250 PHOTOGRAPHS FROM NATURE BY THE AUTHOR, 1908, - PREFACE with the assistance of artist and preparateur, I have devoted the nesting season of birds to collecting specimens and making field studies and photographs on which to base a series of what have been termed Habitat Groups of North Ameri- can birds for the American Museum of Natural History. These groups are designed to illustrate not only the habits and haunts of the birds shown, but also the country in which they live. The birds and, in most instances, their nests and young, are therefore placed in a facsimile reproduction, containing from sixty to one hun- dred and sixty square feet of the locality in which they are found, and to this realistic representation of their habitat is added a background, painted from nature, and so deftly joined to the foreground, that it is difficult to distinguish where one ends and the other begins. See the photographs of groups on pages, 62, 111, 233, 243, 291. In selecting the subjects for these groups, not alone birds, but the country they inhabit has been taken into consideration it being desired to have the series of great panoramic backgrounds, some of which are twenty-eight feet in length, portray not only the haunts of certain American birds, but America as well. Characteristic shore, marsh, prairie, plain, desert, forest, and mountain scenes present the major features of American physiography, and each is executed with an ac-curacy which gives to the groups a geographical as well as an ornitho- logical value. Some subjects were in nearby localities, which were easily visited others were in remote places which were reached with more or less diffi- culty. In some cases an entire season was given to gathering the mater- ial for a single group that of the Flamingos, for example in others, several groups were secured in a single season, the Bahaman Man-o-War Birds, for instance, being obtained in April, the Carolina Egrets in May, the Saskatchewan Geese in June, and the Alberta Ptarmigan in July, 1907...