230
BOOK REVIEWS
tion for the field ornithologist. Most species are illustrated in colour, and some with black and white photographs.
Apart from tiny Hong Kong, there is no area on the eastern seaboard of Asia between Korea and South Vietnam which is accessible to Western ornithologists. This gives the Republic of Korea a somewhat artificial importance, as it is part of the breeding area of many palaearctic species which winter in South-East Asia, and on the migration route of others. A total of 366 species have been recorded from the Republic, of which about one in seven is resident. For a foreigner, therefore, the main interest of the Birds of Korea lies in the details of migratory species known to him from other countries.
This book is intended for the field ornithologist, and it is therefore a little surprising to find it too bulky to be carried on a field trip. The necessity for this large size is the very admirable fact that the text is bi-lingual in Korean and English, but it would surely have been cheaper and more practical to have printed the English and Korean texts as separate volumes. This could also have kept the price down to a more reasonable level: not perhaps that it is too expensive for the expatriate community, but it is certainly high for the ordinary Korean student for whom the Korean version was presumably prepared.
The text describing each species is rather brief, even for a field guide, and in many cases is insufficient for field identification. This particularly applies in the case of difficult families like the Phylloscopi, where a key at the beginning would have helped, and where details of distinctions in the hand would not have come amiss, and of the whole order of Falconiformes, for which diagrams of flight-patterns are a sine qua non in identification works these days. Data regarding distribution are fragmentary, as would be expected from a country where practically all ornithological collections and field-work have been done by foreigners, with the notable exceptions of Professor Won and his father. However, there is a certain advantage in that the majority of records, particularly of rarer and more difficult species, are of collected specimens, and are therefore not subject to dispute in the same way as the sight-records upon which more and more modern ornithology is based.
Previous literature has been carefully collated, and, with Professor Won's knowledge of the Korean and Japanese literature, and Mr.
230
BOOK REVIEWS
tion for the field ornithologist. Most species are illustrated in colour. and some with black and white photographs.
Apart from tiny Hong Kong, there is no area on the eastern seaboard of Asia between Korea and South Vietnam which is acces- sible to Western ornithologists. This gives the Republic of Korea a somewhat artificial importance, as it is part of the breeding area of many palaearctic species which winter in South-East Asia, and on the migration route of others. A total of 366 species have been recorded from the Republic, of which about one in seven is resident. For a foreigner, therefore, the main interest of the Birds of Korea lies in the details of migratory species known to him from other countries.
This book is intended for the field ornithologist, and it is there- fore a little surprising to find it too bulky to be carried on a field trip. The necessity for this large size is the very admirable fact that the text is bi-lingual in Korean and English, but it would surely have been cheaper and more practical to have printed the English and Korean texts as separate volumes. This could also have kept the price down to a more reasonable level: not perhaps that it is too expensive for the expatriate community, but it is certainly high for the ordinary Korean student for whom the Korean version was presumably prepared.
The text describing each species is rather brief, even for a field guide, and in many cases is insufficient for field identification. This particularly applies in the case of difficult families like the Phyllos- copi, where a key at the beginning would have helped, and where details of distinctions in the hand would not have come amiss, and of the whole order of Falconiformes, for which diagrams of flight- patterns are a sine qua non in identification works these days. Data regarding distribution are fragmentary, as would be expected from a country where practically all ornithological collections and field- work have been done by foreigners, with the notable exceptions of Professor Won and his father. However, there is a certain advantage in that the majority of records, particularly of rarer and more difficult species, are of collected specimens, and are therefore not subject to dispute in the same way as the sight-records upon which more and more modern ornithology is based.
Previous literature has been carefully collated, and, with Professor Won's knowledge of the Korean and Japanese literature, and Mr.
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.