Cuban Ornithology

Title: Cuban Ornithology

Author: Barbour, Thomas

Publication: Cambridge, Massachusetts: Published by the Club, 1943.

Description: Annotated list of the birds of Cuba by noted ornithologist Thomas Barbour. No. IX of the Memoirs of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. First edition. Bound in full green cloth with gilt lettering on the spine; in plain dust wrapper. With two photogravure plates depicting the Botanical Garden of the Atkins Institution of the Arnold Arboretum (now known as Jardín Botánico de Cienfuegos). 11 x 9 inches; 144 pages, [2] leaves of plates.

Binding with mildly bumped corners and moderate offsetting of wrapper flaps to endpapers; title page with mild offsetting from plate. Dust wrapper significantly tanned and with minor chipping at the corners and top edge. Very Good+ in a Good+ dust wrapper.

Thomas Barbour (1884-1946) was an American ornithologist and herpetologist who conducted extensive field work in the West Indies and Central America. He described many new species of birds, reptiles, and amphibians, and served as director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard from 1927 until his death. "Cuban Ornithology" is a follow-up to Barbour's "The Birds of Cuba" (1923). In the introduction to "Cuban Ornithology," he explains that this is a new work, not simply a revision of the earlier work. "Returns from banded birds have provided a lot of new information, and other circumstances have developed that have made it worth while practically to prepare a new manuscript.... I think, for the convenience of librarians, it is just as well to consider this a new book, so I have changed the title" (p. 3).

The publisher, Nuttall Ornithological Club, is the oldest ornithological organization in North America, founded in 1873 by a group of Harvard University students and faculty members. Its mission is to promote the scientific study of birds and encourage their conservation. The club publishes a leading scientific journal in ornithology titled "The Auk," and its members continue to make significant contributions to the field of ornithology.