ANDERTON: Recollections on illustrating The Ripley Guide 167 Recollections on illustrating The Ripley Guide John C. Anderton Anderton, J. C., 2020. Recollections on illustrating The Ripley Guide. Indian BIRDS 16 (6): 167–175. John C. Anderton, 4927 Americana Drive, #105, Annandale, VA 22003, USA. E-mail:
[email protected]. Manuscript received on 08 November 2020. ne Friday morning in 1989, while I was reconnecting record of what a bird looks like in any given location, and provides with the staff of the Division of Birds in the Smithsonian’s the illustrator with true colour, detail, and scale that cannot be ONational Museum of Natural History, an ornithologist conveyed in photographs. Such an operation, inevitably, has whom I had not met before asked me if I would be interested in spinoffs—purging the literature of erroneous records (Pied Triller working on a new guide to the birds of India. That ornithologist in the Andamans); finding new species that had lain unnoticed was S. Dillon Ripley’s Scientific Assistant, Bruce M. Beehler. in museum drawers (Nicobar Scops Owl); and even revealing I was 27 years old; I had not travelled in Asia. I had heard systematic scientific fraud, leading to the rediscovery of a species of bulbuls only because there were introduced North American believed extinct (Robert Meinertzhagen and the Forest Owlet). All populations of the Red-Whiskered. I had no idea what a drongo of these issues, and more, are addressed in senior author Pamela was, let alone a prinia or a baza. Rasmussen’s article in Indian Birds (2005). The world has changed radically since Birds of South Asia: The main challenge for the illustrator is to show all of the The Ripley Guide was first proposed.