Abbot, John.

Birds, Butterflies and Other Wonders. Holberton. London. 1998. Color illustrations by one of America's first natural history collectors and illustrators.

Birds of Georgia. Beehive Press. Savannah. 1997. Contains reproductions of the Abbot drawings now in the Houghton Library, Harvard.  Abbot (1751-1840) contributed much field knowledge to early natural history of Georgia.

Adams, Alexander.

Eternal Quest, The Story of the Great Naturalists. Putnam. NY. 1969. Primarily deals with Europeans like Linnaeus, Humboldt, Cuvier, Darwin and Wallace.  Good reading.

Allen, Elsa.

The History of American Ornithology Before Audubon. American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia. 1951. Focused on Eastern seaboard, does not mention Steller or any early Pacific Coast expeditions.  Very good on the area covered.

AUDUBON:

Audubon, J. J.

The Birds of North America. Havell. London. 1827-1838.

There is an American Library edition of Audubon's writing as well. NY. 1999.

Delineations of American Scenery and Character. (selections from Ornith. Biogrpahy.) Baker & Co. NY. 1926.

Ornithological Biography. 5 vols. Black. Edinburgh. 1831-1839. [much was written by MacGillivray]. A later reprint by Volair Books. NY. 1979.

Watercolors for Birds of America. Villard. NY. [Ed. By Annette Blaugrund and Theodore Stebbins] This is largely from collection owned by New York Historical Society, many bought from Lucy Audubon when she was broke. This book also gives current names for species shown, including some birds that were mistakes or might be extinct.

Birds of America. Seven volumes. Dover. NY. 1967. The last reprint of Audubon's text on American birds he had drawn, many for the first time. Much of the scientific work in these volumes was done by William MacGillivray. There is an exhausting number of books about Audubon and reprints of his work.

Audubon's Birds of America. Text by Robert and Virginia Peterson. Abbeville Press & Audubon Society. Baby elephant folio. NY. 1981.  Contains notes on all species and modern names of each (if changed).  Also, fine Introduction that is history of American bird illustration. If you can find and afford it, I recommend this book.

Audubon, J. J. & Bachman, Rev. John.

The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. 3 vols. NY. 1851-1854. (ed. By V. G. Audubon) Elder Audubon forced to withdraw from project in 1846.  Much of the research and writing done by Rev. Bachman.

ABOUT AUBUDON:

Adams, Alexander B.

John James Audubon, a Biography. New York. 1966.

Arthur, Stanley.

Audubon, an Intimate Life of the American Woodsman. Harmanson. New Orleans. 1937.

Audubon, Maria (ed).

Audubon and His Journals. 2 vols. Dover. NY. 1960. With contributions by Elliott Coues.

Bachman C. L. (ed).

John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. Walker, Evans & Cogswell. Charleston, S.C. 1888.

Buchanan, Robert.

The Life and Adventures of Audubon the Naturalist. New York. 1864.

Clement, Roland.

The Living World of Audubon. Grosset & Dunlap. NY. 1974.

Corning, Howard (ed).

The Journal of John James Audubon Made During His Trip to New Orleans in 1820-21. Boston. 1929.

Delatte, Carolyn.

Lucy Audubon: A Biography.  Southern Literary Studies. 1982.

Durant, Mary & Harwood, M.

On the Road with John James Audubon. New York. 1980.

Ford, Alice (ed).

The Bird Biographies of John James Audubon. Macmillan. NY. 1957.

John James Audubon. Univ. of Oklahoma. Norman. 1965.

Fries, Waldemar.

The Double Elephant Folio, the Story of Audubon's Birds of America. Chicago. 1973.

Herrick, Francis H.

Audubon the Naturalist, a History of His Life and Times. 2 vols. New York. 1917.

Lindsey, Alton.

The Bicentennial of John James Audubon. Indiana Univ. Bloomington. 1985.

McDermott, J. F. (ed).

Up the Missouri with Audubon. The Journal of Edward Harris. Univ. of Oklahoma. Norman. 1951.

Peattie, Donald. 

Audubon's America.  Houghton Mifflin, Boston. 1940.  Beautiful book, lovingly edited with comments by Peattie, himself a fine nature writer.

Shuler, Jay.

Had I the Wings. The Friendship of Bachman & Audubon. Univ. of Georgia. Athens. 1995. Shows the close connections and the invaluable information and support from Bachman to Audubon. Includes letters between the two men. Bachman's daughters married two of Audubon's sons.

Teale, Edwin Way.

Audubon's Wildlife. Intro and commentary by one the great nature writers of the 20th Century.

Barrow, Mark V.

A Passion for Birds. American Ornithology After Audubon. Princeton Univ. Princeton. 1998. Thorough, very good on conservation movements.

Bartram, William (Joseph Ewan, ed)

Botanical and Zoological Drawings, 1756-1788. American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia. 1968.  Includes 59 full color plates from the British Museum's collection of Bartram materials.  Editor's comments and notes excellent.  Hard to find and long out of print.

Bartram, William

Travels & Other Writings. American Library. NY. 1996. Includes his classic account of the wilderness of southeastern U.S. that was first published in 1791. Includes a few of Bartram's drawings.

Bartram, William (Francis Harper, ed.)

The Travels of William Bartram. Naturalist's Edition. Yale. New Haven. 1958. The annotations and commentary by editor comprise over 300 pages.  Every detail is explained.

Bartram, William.

Travels of William Bartram. Cosimo Classics. 2007.

ABOUT BARTRAM:

Sanders, Brad.

Guide to William Bartram's Travels. Fever Tree Press. 2002.

Magee, Judith.

Art and Science of William Bartram. Pennsylvania State Univ Press. 2007.

Bent, Arthur Cleveland. 

Life Histories of North American Birds.  Various editions, still in print by Dover. Classics and unrivalled in their day, now replaced by Birds of North America which is even available online. Brent's first volume was published in 1919 and the series continues after his death.

Bodworth, Fred. 

Last of the Curlews.  Museum Press. London. 1956. Tragic and classic story of an Eskimo Curlew, a bird you and I will never see alive. Fine woodcuts.

Boynton, Mary Fuertes & Fuertes, Louis Agassiz.

Louis Agassiz Fuertes. Oxford Univ. Press. NY. 1956. Daughter's loving reflections on her famous father, contains many Fuertes' letters.

Burt, William.

Shadowbirds.  Lyons & Burford. NY. 1994. Innocent photographer decides to get pictures of all six species of rails in the U.S.  Great modern adventure story.  Meet the ghost of Reverend P.B. Peabody, the Yellow Rail man of the Great Plains.

Cantwell, Robert.

Alexander Wilson, Naturalist and Pioneer. Lippincott. Philadelphia. 1961. Carefully drawn biography that includes great list of all the people who subscribed to Wilson's American Ornithology.

Cassin, John.

Illustrations of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America. Reprint by Texas Historical Assn. Austin. 1991. Includes first scientific descriptions of eleven western species.

Catesby, Mark (Alan Feduccia, ed.)

Catesby's Birds of Colonial America. Univ. of North Carolina. Chapel Hill. 1985. Great reference on the first great bird artist of American birds.  Has guide to modern names of all the birds he drew plus his contemporary text on each species, but only a few color plates.

Catesby, Mark. 

Mark Catesby's Natural History of America. Holbertson. London. 1997. Catalogue for exhibition of 52 of the colored drawings by Catesby.  All are still owned by the British Royal Family and this was their first U.S. exhibition!

Chapman, Frank. 

Camops and Cruises of an Ornithologist.  Appleton.  NY. 1908. One of the first bird books to include color photographs.  Chapman knew everybody who mattered as he was ornithologist at the American Museum of Natural History, New York.  Also created the first Christmas Bird Count. Includes accounts of field trips to Farallones and Klamath Lake.

Connor, Jack. 

The Complete Birder.  A guide to better birding.  Houghton Mifflin. Boston.  1988. A book any birder will enjoy and learn from.  I re-read this book every few years.  Makes any airplane trip go by without notice.

Coues, Elliott. 

Key to North American Birds. various publishers starting in 1872. The classic summary of taxonomy by end of 19th Century by the most exacting of ornithological taxonomists. 

Cutright, Paul R. & Brodhead.

Michael Elliott Coues. Naturalist and Frontier Historian. Univ. of Illinois. Urbana. 1981. Definitive biography of strong-willed and brilliant ornithologist who was prominent in the science in America at end of 19th Century.

Cutright, Paul R. 

Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists. Univ. of Illinois. Urbana. 1969. Definitive book now out of print and hard to find.  Best version of L & C journals is the one edited by Elliot Coues, and even the Dover reprint is hard to find.  Univ. of Nebraska has issued scholarly set of all journals from the L&C expedition, edited by Gary Moulton.

Dawson, William. 

The Bird of California.  Three or four volumes.  South Moulton Co.  San Diego.  1923. The classic and once definitive study of California birdlife.  Thorough, first such study since J.G. Cooper's pioneering but incomplete work published back in 1870.  Never reprinted. illustrations by Allan Brooks.  He and Dawson were the first Christmas Count Team to top 100 species, in San Diego County, 1913.

Dunne, Peter & Sibley, David and Sutton, Clay.

Hawks in Flight.  Houghton Mifflin.  Boston.  1988. The first book to really illustrate the fine art of picking up species traits while hawks in rapid migration overhead. Makes migratory hawk counts possible or at least much more accurate.

Eifert, Virginia.

Men, Birds and Adventure. Thrilling story of the discovery of American bird species. Dodd, Mead. NY. 1962. Readable popular history.

Elman, Robert.

America's Pioneering Naturalists. Winchester Press. Tulsa. 1982. Nice book to read on an airplane.  Good introduction but not a detailed reference.

Evans, Howard E.

Pioneer Naturalists. Henry Holt. NY. 1993. Discovery & naming of North American plants and animals. Well written and fun to read. Good reference because of its breadth and decent bibliography.  Out of print, so if you find this book, buy it.

Farber, Paul L.

Discovering Birds. Emergence of Ornithology as a Scientific Discipline, 1760-1850. Johns Hopkins. Baltimore. 1997. Good reference, but reads like a PhD thesis.

Forbush, Edward Howe.

Birds of Massachusetts and other New England States. 3 vol.  Mass. Dept. of Agriculture. Boston. 1938.  Includes many fine color plates by Louis Fuertes.

Fuertes, Louis Frederick Marcham (ed.)

Louis Agassiz Fuertes & the Singular Beauty of Birds. Harper & Row. New York. 1971. Contains many fine color reproductions, a short biography and a 3-page tribute from Roger Tory Peterson.  Must own if you love Fuertes' work.

Gaskell, Jeremy. 

Who Killed the Great Auk?  Oxford.  London. 2000.

Gibbons, Felton & Strom, Deborah.

Neighbors to the Birds. A History of Birdwatching in America. Norton. NY. 1988. An easy read on some key figures in history of birding in America.

Graustein, Jeanette.

Thomas Nuttall, Naturalists, Explorations in America, 1808-1841. Harvard. Cambridge. 1967. Definitive biography of this first, great professor of natural science at Harvard and author of North America's first handbook of birds.  He was first scientist to reach Pacific Coast on foot.

Griscom, Ludlow. 

Modern Bird Study. Harvard.  Cambridge.  1945. Written by the most proficient field ornithologist of the 20th Century, the man who proved you did not need to shoot a bird to identify it.  Inspired Peterson, Hickey and indirectly most modern American birding.

Dean of the Birdwatchers.  Griscom biography, by William Davis.  Smithsonian.  Washington.  1994. Intro by Peterson, the pupil.

Hammond, Nicholas.

Modern Wildlife Painting.  Pica Press. Sussex, UK.  1998. Includes major Americans and many Europeans you've never heard of.

Hay, John (ed). 

The Great House of Birds. Sierra Club.  SF.  1996. Best of the many anthologies of bird writings.  Ranges from Lucretius to modern times.  Not solely American in focus.

Heinrich, Bernd. 

The Mind of the Raven.  HarperCollins. NY. 1999. This guy writes like a scientist.  He is one.  But the story is thrilling and enlightening, told by a man who climbs 100 foot tall pines during a New England winter and sits there for hours. He has other titles on ravens as well.

Another title: Ravens in Winter appropriately enough.

Hickey, Joseph. 

A Guide to Bird Watching.  Oxford.  London. 1943.  Illus. by Francis Jacques. A bright book published at a dark time in history.  First book aimed at the passionate amateur with modern binoculars.

Hoose, Philip. 

The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.  Farrar, Strauss. NY.  2004. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker, looking more and more like we truly lost this race.

Hume, Edgar Erskine.

Ornithologists of the United States Army Medical Corps. Johns Hopkins. Baltimore. 1942. Biographies of the field work and careers of important medical men in far-flung Army posts.

Huxley, Robert.

The Great Naturalists. Thames & Hudson. 2007

Jackson, Christine.

Bird Painting. The eighteenth Century.  Antique Collectors club., Suffolk, UK. 1994. High water mark of oil paintings including birds as realistic subjects.

Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World. Antique Collectors Club. Suffolk, UK. 1999. If you find yourself scouring through old bird prints in antique stalls, or birding the art when you're in a museum, you gotta have this book.  Constable's landscapes, by the way, contain many tiny bird portraits.

Jaques, Florence and Lee, Francis.

Canoe Country & Snowshoe Country. University of Minnesota. Mpls. 1999. Reissue of two books published before 1950.  Jaques and his wife did much work on nature of upper Midwest. His black & white bird drawings may be the finest since Thomas Bewick in Britain 120 years before.

South Carolina Birdlife.  By Sprunt & Chamberlain.  Univ. of South Carolina.  Columbia. 1949. A classic because of its illustrations, by Francis Jaques and a guy named Roger Tory Peterson plus two more illustrators. In a color illustration following page 10, Jaques portrays several birds including Hooded Merganser. That single page justifies owning this book.

Johnsgard, Paul.

Those of the Gray Wind: The Sandhill Cranes.  St. Martin's NY. 1981. Fine little book  by man who has written numerous volumes about bird families, cranes, et al.  Johnsgard, himself, looks very much like a tall, stately Sandhill.

Kastner, Joseph.

A Species of Eternity. Knopf. NY. 1977. Book on leading naturalists who have animals named after them in North America.  Well written, useful index.

A World of Watchers. Knopf. NY. 1986. Informal history of American birding.  Great to read.  Must own if you are a serious American birder.

Kaufman, Kenn. 

Kingbird Highway.  Houghton Mifflin.  Boston. 1977. The best book ever written about a Big Year.  Includes anecdotes of many great contemporary birders including Ted Parker and Rich Stallcup.

Keeler, Charles. 

Bird Notes Afield.  Elder.  S.F. 1899. Birds and Birding in California over a century ago, includes account of trip to the Farallones.

Kroodsma, Donald.

The Singing Life of Birds. Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2005. Through explanation of his work by one of the leading birdsong scientists in America.  The knowledge is astounding, Kroodsma's obsession even more so.

Krutch, Joseph Wood & Eriksson, Paul.

Treasury of Birdlore. Doubleday.  Garden City, NY. 1962. Aldo Leopold, John Burroughs, Rachel Carson, Sigurd Olson, Ludlow Griscom, John Muir on the Water Ouzel. Many of the finest bird essays written before 1960 are here.

Lambourne, Maureen.

The Art of Bird Illustration.  Quantum. London. 2001. From pre-history to 20th Century.

Leopold, A. Starker.

The California Quail.  Univ. of California.  Berkeley. 1977. Classic study of our state bird.

Macleish, William.

The Day Before America.  Changing the nature of a continent.  Houghton Mifflin.  Boston. 1994. More general natural history but lays groundwork for understanding America before colonization.

Mailliard, Joseph.

The Birds of Golden Gate Park. California Academy of Sciences. San Francisco. 1930. Long out of print but of great historic interest if you bird Golden Gate Park today.  Much has changed.

Mearns, Barbara & Richard

Audubon to Xantus, Lives of Those Commemorated in North American Bird Names. Academic Press. San Diego. 1992. If you care about the history of American birding and ornithology this is a must own.  Clearly written and definitive.

The Bird Collectors. Academic Press. San Diego. 1998.

Both Mearns' volumes are encyclopedic and definitive as references.  This latter book deals with global exploration and bird collecting.

Wheelock, Irene.

Birds of California.  McClurg, Chicago. 1903. Things have changed. No Starling, no Cattle Egret.  Cowbird a rare winter visitor.

Merriam (Bailey),  Florence.

Birds Through an Opera Glass.  Houghton Mifflin.  Boston.  1891. First book about birding with binoculars. Book aimed at youngster.

Handbook of the Birds of the Western United States.  Houghton Mifflin.  Boston. 1902. First field guide for western American birds.  First guide to give actual size of the bird in inches! Has some black & white illustrations by Fuertes.

No Woman Tenderfoot.  Florence Merriam Bailey, pioneer naturalist.  By Harriet Kofalk.  Texas A&M. College Station, Texas.  1989.

Nice, Margaret Morse.

Research is a Passion with Me.  Autobiography of a bird lover.  Margaret Nice Club. Toronto. 1979. The woman who was the ultimate authority on Song Sparrows after meticulously studying these birds in her neighborhood for decades.

Nuttall, Thomas. 

A Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada. Hilliard, Gray.  Boston. 1840. This book went through many editions long after Nuttall had died.  He was self-taught and became natural history professor at Harvard in 1823.  He left to make cross country expedition with Townsend in 1834.  This manual was the first portable and affordable field guide to birds in North America.

Pasquier, Roger & John Farrand.

Masterpieces of Bird Art.  700 years of ornithological illustration. Abbeville Press. NY. 1991.  Foreword by Roger Tory Peterson.  Best book I've seen on birds in art. Fine color reproductions.

Pearse, Theed.  

Birds of the Early Explorers in the Northern Pacific. Published by the author. Comox, Br. Columbia, Canada. 1968. Obscure and out of print, this book is found only in rare book shops in Vancouver, B.C.  Comprehensive but sometimes hard to follow.  Definitely without peer.

Peterson, Roger Tory.

Everything he drew or wrote is noteworthy.  My two favorites:

The Field Guide Art of Roger Tory Peterson. Leatherbound.  Easton Press.  Norwalk, Conn.  Two vol. 1980. Includes text by Peterson and considerable autobiographical data.

Peterson & James Fisher.

Wild America.  Houghton Mifflin.  Boston. 1955. Classic account of Peterson introducing British naturalist Fisher to North American wildlife in 1953.  That year Peterson became the first person to record over 500 species in a single year, giving rise to the Big Year competition in America.  In 2005 Scott Weidensaul published his book about revisiting the places seen by Peterson and Fisher.  His book: Return to Wild America.  Farrar, Strauss.  NY. 1955.

The Bird Illustrated 1500-1900.  From the collections of the New York Public Library. Intro by Peterson. Further text by Joseph Kastner.  Abrams Press. NY. 1988. Almost as good as seeing the original exhibition.

ABOUT PETERSON:

Carlson, Douglas.

Roger Tory Peterson: A Biography (Mildred Wyatt-Wold Series in Ornithology). University of Texas Press. Austin. 2007

Ralph, Robert.

William MacGillivray. Natural History Museum. London. 1993.

Reed, Chester.

Doubleday, Page.  NY.  1913. Pocket-size book with color illustrations of each species.  The eastern volume was the one young Roger Tory Peterson carried as a young birder.  First popularly priced bird guide with colored pictures and short written description.

Richmond, Jean.

Birding Northern California.  Mt. Diablo Audubon. Walnut Creek.  1987. Now a classic, like Jean herself.

Rivinius, E.F. & Youssef, E.M.

Spencer Baird of the Smithsonian. Smithsonian Press. Washington. 1992. The greatest museum curator in American history and a genius at collecting collectors.

Rosen, Jonathan.

The Life of the Skies. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. NY. 2008.

Sanger, Marjory.

Billy Bartram and His Green World. Farrar, Strauss. NY. 1972. An admiring biography that includes some black & white pictures.

Sitwell, Sacheverell, et al.

Fine Bird Books. Atlantic Monthly.  NY. 1990. Illustrated books, 1700-1900.

Slaughter, Thomas.

The natures of John and William Bartram. Knopf, NY. 1996. Dual biographies of father-son team of native born American naturalists.

Small, Arnold. 

California Birds. Their status and distribution.  Ibis. Vista, Ca. 1994. Detailed if not always complete. Great reference. 

Snetsinger, Phoebe. 

Birding on Borrowed Time.  ABA. Colorado Springs. 2003. The late, greatest bird lister of all time.  Wow!

Sprunt, Alexander & Chamberlain, E. B.

South Carolina Bird Life. Univ. of S.C. Columbia. 1949. Includes fine drawings by Peterson and Jaques.

Stap, Don.

A Parrot Without a Name.  Search for the last unknown birds on earth.  Univ. of Texas. Austin. 1990. Touching and exciting account of tropical birding with the late, lamented genius, Ted Parker. read this book.

Stejneger, Leonhard.

George Wilhelm Steller. The Pioneer of Alaskan Natural History. Harvard. Cambridge. 1936. All later works based on this exhaustive, definite biography published when the author, a fine scientist himself, was in his eighties.

Stewart, Frank. 

A Natural History of Nature Writing.  Island Press.  Washington. 1995.

Strom Deborah (ed.)

Birdwatching with American Women. Norton. NY. 1986. Includes essays from leading American women naturalists of the late 1800s and early 20th Century.

Stroud, Patricia.

Thomas Say. New World Naturalist. Univ. of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia. 1992. Definitive biography of this brilliant, tragic figure who knew and contributed to work of Nuttall, Wilson, Bonaparte, Bartram and Audubon.

Sutton, George Miksch.

Bird Student.  An autobiography.  Univ. of Texas.  Austin. 1980. One of the 20th Century's leading American ornithologists, includes some of his fire artwork.

Birds of Western Pennsylvania.  Univ. of Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh. 1940. Sutton's illustrations in black & white as well as color of each species makes this book worth finding.

ABOUT SUTTON:

Jackson, Jerome A.

George Miksch Sutton: Artist, Scientist, and Teacher. University of Oklahoma Press. Norman. 2007.

Terres, John (ed).

Discovery.  Great moments in the lives of outstanding naturalists.  Lippincott. Philadelphia. 1961. Includes several classics: artist Don Eckleberry on his sighting and drawing of Ivory-billed Woodpeckers on the Singer tract, 1944.  Robert Allen on his efforts to save the Whooping Crane when their population had dwindled to only 24 birds.  Several hours of wonderful reading herein.

Townsend, John.

Narrative of a Journey.  (the trip with Nuttall across North America, starting 1834). Henry Perkins.  Philadelphia.  1839. Townsend was a brilliant young naturalist when he accompanied Thomas Nuttall, his mentor, a band of fur trappers across America.  Nuttall became the first scientist to reach California after crossing the continent on foot.  They discovered many new species.  This book was republished by Oregon State University in 1999.

Torrey, Bradford. 

Field Days in California.  Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 1913. Published posthumously, this book portrays birdlife of a century ago.  Dippers in the hills west of San Jose.

Weidensaul, Scott.

Of a Feather. A Brief History of American Birding. Harcourt. Orlando. 2007.

Welch, Margaret.

The Book of Nature. Natural History in the United States. Northeastern Univ. Press. Boston. 1998. This is a doctoral thesis.  Good information and killer footnotes.

Wilson, Alexander.

American Ornithology.  Three volumes.  various editions, beginning in 1808.  Later editions were enlarged and updated by Charles Bonaparte.  The first complete ornithology of American birds, pre-dating Audubon.  Wilson did much first-hand collecting exploration east of the Mississippi River, dying in 1813.

(Clark Hunter, ed.) The Life and Letters of Alexander Wilson. American Philosophical Society. Philadelphia. 1983. Definitive, includes much of Wilson's early poetry and some pictures of key places in his life.

Xantus, John (Ann Zwinger, ed.).

The Fort Tejon Letters, 1857-1859. Univ. of Arizona. Tucson. 1986. Ms Zwinger is herself a brilliant nature writer and this collection is fascinating as was Xantus himself, a deeply flawed but tireless explorer.

Xantus, John.

Letters From North America. Wayne State University. Detroit. 1975. Translations of his letters written in Hungarian, many quite fanciful.  Some were published in Hungary building Xantus's reputation there based on material he borrowed from others.

Letters from John Xantus to Spencer Fullerton Baird from San Francisco and Cabo San Lucas, 1859-1861. Notes and illustrations by Ann Zwinger, unfortunately most of Xantus's material from S.F. is full of bureaucratic complaints, little natural history.