Not unlike many other fields of Nineteenth Century natural history, the ornithology of the period is filled with a cast of characters that range from colourful and eccentric to brilliant and obsessed, with more than one of these qualities not uncommonly being found in a single individual. Consequently, it makes a particularly interesting and entertaining period about which to read.
In the new The Birds That Audubon Missed; Discovery and Desire in the American Wilderness, one of America’s most well-known and best-selling authors of natural history field guides, as well as other books about birds and birding, Mr. Kenn Kaufman, examines the period and its prominent ornithologists to explore the history of their identification of a large number of birds as well as their overlooking a curious assortment of others that were not described into the ornithological record until many years later.
And as Mr. Kaufman has a long history of undertaking his work in a manner that is distinctly his own (for which he has become very much admired and applauded by his readers), so too in this present book has he added a touch that only he would have included: including his own illustrations, drawn in his own interpretation of Audubon’s style, of some of the birds overlooked by Audubon.
