Birds of Arabia

Description:

First edition. Colour plates by George Lodge, D.M. Reid-Henry, and Miss Talbot Kelly. An important early ornithological survey of the Arabian Peninsula, illustrated throughout and long regarded as a foundational work on the region’s avifauna. Covers the whole of the Arabian Peninsula and the desert regions of Sinai, Palestine, Syria, Transjordan and Iraq. A full systematic list of Arabian birds is given.

Richard Meinertzhagen (1878-1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer, and ornithologist whose extensive travels and specimen collecting in the Middle East and East Africa made him a significant figure in early twentieth-century ornithology. His long association with Arabia and the wider Near East informed the present work, one of the earliest comprehensive studies of the birds of the Arabian Peninsula. Although later controversy surrounded aspects of his scientific methods and provenance claims, his publications remain influential in the history of Middle Eastern ornithology.

Condition

4to, orig. buckram, gilt title to spine, top edge tinted. Vg in d/w (light soiling; minor edge wear; not price-clipped; in removable protective sleeve). Light foxing to fore-edge of text block and a few spots of foxing to the folding map, otherwise very clean. Ownership name to endpaper - D.K. Balance. David Balance is a well-known British ornithologist, bibliographer, and county avifauna historian.