Sparrows (eBook)

Dr. Summers-Smith's absorbing monograph is concerned with the world's twenty species of True Sparrows, the genus Passer. An international authority on the sparrows, his earlier monograph, The House Sparrow, first appeared in the Collins New Naturalist series in 1963 and was later reprinted. The True Sparrows have an extensive natural distribution in the Afrotropical, Palaeartic and Oriental regions, but they have been successfully introduced in Nearctic, Neotropical and Australasian regions so that today their distribution is almost worldwide. The twenty species accounts include physical characteristics, distribution, breeding biology, feeding and other aspects of biology and behaviour in a common format that aids comparisons and speculation as to the evolution of the genus. Important additional chapters discuss sparrow characteristics and relationships, their evolution and systematic position. Robert Gillmor provides eight superb colour plates illustrating all the species and a further 62 of his drawings grace the book's pages. In addition, the text is supported by over 100 maps and diagrams.

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While Denis Summers-Smith's monograph The Sparrows presented his knowledge of sparrow biology, this volume tells the other, human, side of the tale. Denis Summers-Smith first took up the study of the House Sparrow in 1947, thinking that the difficulties of travel in post-war Britain would best suit the study of a species always close at hand. The humble House Sparrow, common everywhere, was surprisingly poorly researched and his work soon provided interesting insights into this successful and adaptable little bird. As new opportunities to travel opened up, his interest blossomed to take in the genus Passer as a whole. His travels would ultimately lead to his study of all but one of the group, found only in deepest Turkestan, and to the publication of his authoritative monograph on sparrows in 1988. His wry descriptions of the tribulations and unexpected pleasures of a traveller on four continents, from the Himalayas and Thailand to Africa and the Americas (with a good few islands in between), are interspersed with observations and speculations on the biology of sparrows in a wide variety of habitats. Everywhere local officials and bird watchers warmed to the eccentric Scot in pursuit of the little birds that nobody notices but which so often make their homes beside us. The author's own photographs and delightful cartoons by Euan Dunn further paint the picture of this lifelong search.