BOOK REVIEWS

Peru.The distinctiveeastern Pacific race granti (a candidatefor speciesstatus!) of the MaskedBooby is ignoredin thetext butshown in Figure1, page115. The textimplies that both sexesof the easternPacific race brewsteriof the Brown Boobyhave a whitishhood when only the maledoes, and sex-specific differences in bare-partcolors of BrownBoobies are overlooked(a pairof brewsteriis shown in Figure4, page116). I hope infomationfor otherareas of the worldis better. The unhelpfulword "jizz"is often usedas a convenientway to avoiddescribing featuresthat have a structuralbasis; indeed, these days jizz seemsincreasingly to be usedas a synonymfor structure.The continueduse of archaicterms such as "adult breeding"(arguably better than summer/winter) does little to helpan understandingof moltsand plumagesand can be inherentlymisleading. For example,contrast the "breeding"and "nonbreeding"plumages of Xantus' Murreletwith the photo of Craveri'sMurrelet, which lacksany seasonalmodifier. Fewphotographic bird guides are free from misidentified or mislabeledphotos, and thisone is no exception.I foundthe followingon a quickscan through, and I imagine thereare others:Figure 3 (page39) is a Southernnot NorthernGiant-Petrel; Figure 5 (page53) isa JuanFernandez Petrel not a De Filippi's(in fact, the same photo, with differentcropping, is usedon page59 for a JuanFernandez); Figure 12 (page117) isa Double-crestedCormorant, not a Brandt's;the upper(flying) bird in Figure8 (page 137) is an immatureGreat Frigatebird, not a Magnificent.Figure 3 (page33), labeled asa ShyAlbatross, looks suspiciously like an immatureBlack-browed, but the photo sizeand qualityare insufficientto confirmor denythis possibility. Also,before readers of WesternBirds panic and wonder if theymissed something, captionsfor Figures4 and5 (page55) areswitched, and the dark-morph Herald Petrel wassurely off "Arianticcoast, USA," not Pacific! These errors of commissionand omissionaside, I recommend Seabirdsof the World as a very usefuladdition to the libraryof all interestedin seabirds,and I commendboth the authorand photographiceditor for bringingtogether this wealth of information in an attractive book.

Steve N. G. Howell

Skuas and Jaegers:A Guide to the Skuas and Jaegers of the World, byKlaus MallingOlsen and Hars Larsson.1997. YaleUniversity Press. 190 pages,12 color plates,156 figures(mainly black-and-white photos). Hardback, $35.00. Co-publishedin the U.K. by PicaPress (which explains why the ParasiticJaeger is calledthe ArcticSkua!), this excellent work treats the threejaegers and four skuas with an emphasison identification.With 190 pagesdevoted to only sevenspecies, an enviable level of detail has been included. The well-writtenintroduction includes brief sections on taxonomy,general charac- teristics(such as plumagepolymorphism and kleptoparasitism),breeding behavior; age developmentand molt, skuasand man, observingskuas in the field;and an explanationof the speciesaccounts. Then follow13 paintedplates (12 in color),the speciesaccounts which comprise the bulk of the book, a selectionof color photo- graphs,an extensivebibliography, and the index. Unlike almost all other books in the Pica et al. "... of the World" series,the introductionincludes frequent citations of data to sourceand I hope this trend is continuedby futureauthors. Occasional lapses in citations,such as somethat might havebenefited the introductoryparagraph on taxonomy,are annoying, but it isall too easyto assume,albeit wrongly, that one'sreaders have an equalgrasp of the subject. A minorgripe is that the introduction's"organization" results in redundantrepetition,

6O BOOKREnEWS e.g., pages16-19 wherethe discussionof lemmingsand the breedingof Pomarine Jaegeris coveredthree timeswhen oncewould do. It is goodto seein the explanation of the speciesaccounts that measurementssuch as "winglength" are defined,and to learnthat the platesportray individual plumages rather than an amalgamthat may,or may not, representa typicalplumage. The excellentcolor platesare attractiveand well laid out, and the facing-page captionsprovide succinct species-specific identification criteria (extracting such infor- mationfrom the lengthyspecies accounts is far harder),although they wouldbenefit fromnoting the (approximate)date of the plumagesportrayed. Most illustrations are of flyingbirds, with only one plate õuveniles) of standingbirds and no paintingsof birds on the water,reflecting a not unsurprisingEuropean bias; jaegers along and off the Pacific coast of the Americas are seen far more often at rest on the water than on shore and thus presenta somewhatdifferent slant to identification.A surprsing absencefrom the platesis any Brown¾ SouthPolar Skua hybrid, presumably not a rare productof pairingsin the AntarcticPeninsula and certainlyan identification nightmare. The speciesaccounts include extensivesections on field identification,molt, plumagedescriptions of all ages/morphs,geographic variation, biometrics, and migrationand wintering,with shorterdiscussions of voice, food, and breeding. Accountsrange from 7 pagesfor the ChileanSkua (with 9 black-and-whitephotos anda full-pagerange map) to 21 pagesfor ParasiticJaeger (with 29 black-and-white photos,3 black-and-whitefigures--including one showingsix morphsof adults,and a full-pagemap). The highlevel of detailin the speciesaccounts is, exceptfor molt (seebelow), likely to tell you all you want to know (and more!). There is, however,much repetition among the field identification,molt, and detaileddescription sections, such that a differentformat might have saved a few pagesover the book'slength and perhaps increasedthe user-friendlynature of the text. The many black-and-whitephotos scatteredthrough the speciesaccounts are good to excellentin quality, and I congratulatethe authorsfor includinglocation and date for apparentlyall photos. Oddly, the captionsappear to have been written for color reproduction--notethe frequentreference to coldand warm tonesthat are not apparentin blackand white. The book'sEuropean bias is againmanifest by the lack of any photosof juvenile Brown or Chilean skuasand only two (presumed)immature South Polar Skuas.The obverseof this is that thesereal or apparentgaps can be seen and, one hopes, addressedby photographers. The relativelylarge-scale range maps are a plus, although the Americas, in particularthe easternPacific Ocean, seem (as in all European-spawnedseabird books) to be the subjectof someconfusion: I wouldhave thought the "main"non-breeding range of the PomarineJaeger should extend north to westernMexico, and I am unaware of any conclusiverecords of Brown Skua from the west coast of South America.The text for BrownSkua mentions two vagrantsfrom Brazil(not shown on the map),and I suspectthe vagrantGreat Skua plotted for Nicaraguashould instead be from Belize. My only seriouscomplaint is that the authorsmissed an importantopportunity to elucidateupon the moltsof jaegersand skuasrather than to confusethe issuefurther with inappropriateuse of "summer"and "winter" terminology.In this case, the northernEuropean penchant for detailruns into an almostimpenetrable mass of trees thatdo notemerge as a forest.Want of data(with which I sympathize)is certainlyone factor,but the problemis compoundedby tryingto fit what undoubtedlyare very complexmolt patterns into an unsuitableterminology. The authorsalso seem wrongly to equate"first summer" with "first alternate," as in theLong-tailed Jaeger, for which they note (p. 154) "probablysome head and mantlefeathers are moltedagain during

61 BOOKREnEWS spring,"followed by the potentiallycontradictory "molts direcfiy from first-winterto second-winter."ls there a first-alternateplumage in the firstsummer? Are there three cyclesof (at leastsome) body feather replacement by the end of a bird'sfirst summer (asin gulls)--inwhich case the authors'first-winter/first-summer jaegers are, in fact, first-winter/first-summer/second-winterbirds! It appearsthat the Long-tailedJaeger has a protractedcomplete first prebasicmolt so that the "first-winter"plumage is attainedover the first summerand that there may be no first alternateplumage, at leastin the first summer.It seemsunlikely to me that the remigeswould be molted againwithin a few monthsof havingbeen replaced (e.g., mostgulls do not do this, althoughcertain terns do, in part); rather, it seemspossible that a partial (first prealternate?)molt in the secondwinter couldproduce the first alternateplumage worn throughthe secondsummer and in which birdsare seen on the breeding grounds.Subsequent molts would be expectedto followthe adultcycle but perhaps averagingslighfiy earlier for a yearor two. A corollaryof allthis is thatthe age-labels for severalphotos may be in error,pending a clarificationof the molt of Long-tailed Jaeger:Figure 112 lookslike a juvenile(and note the confusingcaption), Figures 113, 114, and 126 couldbe variationsof first-alternateplumage ("second-summer" birds), and Figures124 and 125 couldbe first basicplumage. Simple bar-chart diagrams showingwhen various tracts (especially the flightfeathers) are replaced would help cut throughthe confusiongenerated by the detailedbut dispersedtext on molt and highlightwhere criticalstudy is still needed.Confused? I'll stop here, but similar problemsexist for molt in the otherjaegers, and then thereare the skuas... Editingoverall seems good and typos rare, althoughon the diagramsof skua topographythe line to the bill's"cutting edge" (tomium, I presume)instead points at the culmen.The designis attractive but following on fromcolumns on one pageto the oppositepage is unconventional--bottomto top ratherthan sequentialleft to right (e.g., seepages 132/133). Besidethe molt dilemma(which is very mucha "workin progress"),these are all minor gripes in a remarkablework that sets a new standardin terms of field identificationtexts. In short,this is one of the bestbooks ! haveseen in a longtime and I recommendit to all west-coastbirders whose gaze or thoughtsveer awayfrom the confines of land.

Steve N. G. Howell

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