Ornithology for Africa

A few years ago I had the opportunity to review O.S. Pettingill's Ornithology in laboratory and field, a large volume fundamentally similar in content to that reviewed here. In my review of Pettingill's book I commented several times on the bias towards Northern Hemisphere and, in pariticular, North American birds and the resulting inapplicability of a large proportion of the book to students of ornithology in southern Africa. Gordon Maclean's book to some extent redresses Pettingill's omissions, being described on the jacket as 'the frrst book on ornithology to focus on the Southern Hemisphere using African examples'.