A Book of BIRDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 874, 4 May 1956, Page 12

A Book of BIRDS

NEW ZEALAND BIRDS, by W. R. B. Oliver, D.Se., F.R.S.N.Z., etc. Second edition, revised and enlarged; A. H. and A. W. Reed, 661 pp., £6.

(Reviewed by

C. A.

Fleming

1873, two hundred of our grandfathers subscribed three guineas for Buller’s History of the Birds of New Zealand, with superb hand-coloured plates by Keulemanns, prince of 19th century bird artists. Buller’s standard works (two editions and supplement) had no successors in the early 20th century (when this country and its birds | were changing rapidly), until Oliver’s first edition in 1930 provided a handy | up-to-date and authoritative summary | of knowledge. The need that work filled has increased in the past 25 years. In an age of science, ornithology has become a most popular science for the amateur. The data to be summarised in a handy reference work have approximately doubled- and an ever-increasing army of bird-watchers, photographers, trampers, sportsmen, scouts and guides is hungry for facts about the birds that play a large part in our national tradi- | tion. The second edition follows the gen- | eral plan of its predecessor, with chapters on history, structure, distribution, migration, changes in the fauna, the economic value of birds (no mention of their uneconomic value, so important to the bird-watcher), on species, subspecies and classification, introducing a systematic review of New Zealand species, native, extinct, and introduced. Almost twice the size of the first edition, it contains many new illustrations, about 360 in all. Since Darwin’s day, zoologists have tried to show their ideas on animal relationships by the names and classification they use. As opinions change, the names change too, to the layman’s annoyance. Scientists must be free to differ, always with the pious hope, the elusive ideal, of approaching ultimate stability. Oliver differs from most contemporaries, probably from all, in his views on bird classification and nomenclature. The book follows his opinions on evolutionary sequence and introduces a novel method of naming the interbreeding colour phases of several New

Zealand birds. For forms like Black Fantail, which most students now treat as "phases" of the normal forms with which they freely interbreed (and thus not as separate species or sub-species), he uses the technical term "semispecies" in a different sense from its original meaning, a questionable Procedure. Oliver’s definition of a species results in many deviations from usage in other books. The descriptions of birds and keys to their identity have been drawn up with great care from specimens--but how many readers will have the chance to use the descriptions to identify dead specimens? Field characters, by which so many wild birds can be identified at sight, are rarely mentioned, Ernest Thompson Seton writes of a lad who had a book to identify ducks "in the

hand," which was no use for naming wild ducks at a distance. So he made sketches of mounted ducks to show their distinctive simplified patterns. Bird books in Europe and America now specialise in such bird spotting aids, so badly needed for New Zealand waders and petrels, When ‘straining through ©- spraydrenched binoculars

from a tossing vessel, what use to know that Buller’s Mollymawk "can be distinguished from the Grey-headed Mollymawk by the broad base of the culminicorn"? We are not told that these similar birds differ conspicuously in relative beak length. Keys based on breeding plumages are little use to identify immature and wintering terns (for instance) which so often puzzle the field ornithologist. To be fair, the book does not aim to be a field guide, but many readers will try to use it as one, like the lad in Thompson Seton’s story. Some misleading anachronisms have been perpetuated. No longer, alas, is the Kakapo "still plentiful in the larger areas of forest,’ nor the Weka "quite common" at Rodney Point. These statements were scarcely true in 1930, and have escaped correction in 1955. The chapter on Migration, unchanged from

1930, contains no reference to modern work on its persistent mysteries. These are but a few of many failures to be up-to-date. Dr. Oliver believes that the changes due to settlement continue to reduce native birds and that their worst enemies, rats and stoats, are still increasing throughout the land, implying that a balance has nowhere been attained, an attitude (whether justified or .not) that is akin to Buller’s confidence, 50 years ago, that native birds were’ inevitably doomed. Fortunately several of the species Buller condemned to extinction still thrive, and Oliver’s chapter on Changes in the Fauna does not record any losses in the quarter century between editions-in fact the only changes in this section are a transfer of responsibility from weasel to stoat, and an under-statement of improved conditions for some species. Apparently no bird has been exterminated for 25 years (compared with several in the previous like period). No complacency of course! New Zealand legislation to protect birds is well known overseas, but receives little mention and some neglect in this standard work. We learn that "the Kermadec Petrel ... has always formed the staple food of the inhabitants" of Raoul Island, but not that it has been totally protected since 1922. Use of Bittern feathers for trout flies is mentioned without caution of its illegality. Sportsmen will find no help in determining which New Zealand waterfowl they may shoot as game. Many fine photographs, tribute to bird photographers of three decades, have been added to the new edition. A dozen in colour, however, fall short in the standard set in overseas bird books, chiefly owing to the false values of blue and green tones. Of the brush drawings of bird heads, those by the late Lily Daff brought forward from the first edition remain outstanding, but E. H. Atkinson’s have suffered by insufficient reduction and lack of scale detracts from their value. Several fine petrel heads have been sympathetically drawn by R. Jacobs, but some by other artists are grotesque and misleading, For these illustrations, conveniently spaced, the reader suffers the glare of reflecting light from text printed on shiny art paper, substantial contribution to a total Weight of over 41% pounds. No pocket handbook this, but the size does not justify the price, again by overseas standards. ~The second edition of New Zealand Birds has the good qualities of the first and many additional merits; its deficiencies are also mostly inherited. Dr. Oliver has collected more information on his subject than has ever appeared in one volume before. He has compiled the observations and opinions of past and contemporary New Zealanders conscientiously if not thoroughly. This is the work of one man, and not a young one, with inspiration and energy to finish a task few would tackle unaided. Future standard New Zealand bird books will probably be written by a team, who will depend on Oliver’s volume to provide a foundation and to spotlight the pitfalls. Meanwhile, New Zealand Birds is a much-needed reference work for hundreds of amateur and professional ornithologists «who will observe and record the data for its successor; unfortunately, few of them can afford to buy it. .