Bird Identification: a reference guide. By Kristian Adolfsson & Stefan Cherrug. SOF, Lund, 1995. 379 pages. ISBN 91-86572-24-5. Paperback, Europe: 220 SEK (+60 SEK if cheque); rest of World: 240 SEK (+60 SEK if cheque). The standard researcher's tool--Zoological Record: Section 18: Aves--is not generally available in the ordinary birdwatcher's personal library, purely for reasons of cost, although it will be accessible in every serious ornithological library. This new reference guide performs the same task for the single subject of bird identification, with the advantage that it covers 20 years of published papers, notes and photographs in a single volume. The 11,800 references, compiled from 66 ornithological journals published in 21 countries, are grouped under species, so, for instance, all the references (to identification) for Sharp-tailed Sandpiper Calidris acuminata occupy two pages. Unlike Zoological Record, there is no separate listing under author (sensibly, for that would probably have been largely a waste of space for the potential users of this book). Under each species, the references are listed rather strangely, in alphabetical order of the country of the journal concerned, rather than, for instance, by date order, which might have been helpful for anyone wishing to consult only the latest references on the identification of a particular species. Under Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, for instance, this leads to an Egretta reference (from Austria) being followed by one from Aves (Belgium), one from Dansk Omitohgisk Formings Tidsskrift (Denmark), single references from Lintumies and Ornis Fennica (both Finland) and then five from Birding World, one from Birds, two from Birdwatch, ten from British Birds.
