REVIEWS EDITED BY JOHN WILLIAM HARDY Birds of paradise and bower birds.--E. Thomas Gilliard. 1969. Garden City, New York, The Natural History Press. Pp. i-xxii q-485, 24 black and white pls., 4 col. pls., 50 text figs., 23 maps. $20.00.--For some 15 years prior to his untimely death, E. T. Gilliard was probably the most active ornithologistworking in the New Guinea region and eventually led seven expeditionsthere. Among the array of birds he found there, apparently the birds of paradiseand bower birds fascinatedhim most. In this book he puts together the information he compiledon these two fascinating families along with his ideas on the evolution of their courtshipand nestingsystems. Although at least four others (Elliot, Sharpe, Iredale, Marshall) have written volumes on one or both of thesefamilies, Gilliard's, besidesbeing more up-to-date, is far more thorough in its coverage. After a foreword by Ernst Mayr that includes a brief biography of Gilllard, the introduction,and the acknowledgments,the book starts with a short but highly read- able chapter on the biogeography of New Guinea. The following chapter on the origin of animal stocks seems somewhat simplified and superfluous for this book. Three brief chaptersdiscuss the discoveryof birds of paradiseby Europeans,the era of plume hunting, and finally, conservationof the birds. Somewhat surprisingly,Gilliard concludesthat the birds are in no danger from local plume hunting, a different con- clusionthan someof his earlier papersimplied. Chapters on the evolution of the two groups and the evolutio.n of bower building follow. Chapter 8 lists hybrid forms, synopsesof the 20 genera of birds of paradiseand 8 genera of bower birds, and then separateand very useful synopsesof the display and mating systemsfor each of the genera. Chapters 9 and 10 form the main body of the book with speciesaccounts of 42 birds of paradise and 18 speciesof bower birds. Generally, the taxonomy follows Mayr in vol. 15 of Peters,although Gilliard recognizesan additionalbower bird (Ailuroedus melanotis) and two additional birds of paradise (Paradigalla brevicauda and Paradisaea raggiana). Generally the accountsinclude a descriptionof both sexesand the immature, the speciesrange, and the range and descriptionof the subspeciesknown. Most accounts includesome remarkson the nestinghabits, eggs,behavior, food, or other items of interestand are a valuablecompilation of information gleanedfrom Gilliard'spersonal knowledgeof the birds, correspondencewith otherswho have workedwith them, and published records including much on captive birds. Each account is clearly pre- sentedso that it is easyto find out what is known and often what is not known about the species.Forty-eight of the speciesare identifiedby black and white illustrations taken from Elllot's or Sharpe'smonographs and with the o.therplates, 54 of the 60 speciesconsidered are illustrated. Only four colorplates provide a hint of the dazzling plumageof thesebirds. Twenty-one maps show the range for all the speciesalthough some include severalgenera and are hard to read. A detailed map of the Papuan Subregioninside the front and back coversis handy for reference. In two appendicesGilliard describeshis experienceswith the introducedpopulation of Paradisaeaapoda on Little Tobago Island in the West Indies and then lists vir- tually all of the ornithologicalexpeditions to the New Guinea region,chronologically for each of 27 subregions.This secondappendix would be equally valuable to the earlier volume by Rand and Gilliard (Handbook of New Guinea birds, Garden City, New York, Natural History Press, 1968). A reasonablythorough bibliographyon 458 April 1972] Reviews 459 birds of paradiseand bower birds and an index end the book. Two notable omissions from the bibliographyare papers by Ogilvie-Grant (Ibis, 47: 429-440, 1905) and Wagner (J. Ornithol., 86: 550•553, 1938) on the behavior of Paradisaeaminor and P. guilielmirespectively. Easily the most intriguing and perhapsthe most controversialchapters are the ones on the evolutionof the birds and in particular the evolutionof bower building. Gil- Bard's novel idea that in bower birds the ornamentation of the bower is an external secondary sexual character that has led to the loss of colorful plumes in the male is describedhere in great detail. Some confusionin reading these chaptersstems from the fact that in the speciesaccounts he treats the two groupsas separatefamilies but in the chapterson evolution, which were written after the speciesaccounts but appear before them in the book, he considersthe two groupsto belong to one family, the Paradisaeidae.He proposesthat the founding stock radiated rapidly in New Guinea and, for unknown reasons,some adopted an arboreal promiscuousmating system. Strong defenseof the arboreal arenas forced some speciesto revert to a monogamous mating system while others were displaced downward to the forest floor. Some of these ground-displaying birds then developed the habit of bower building and gave rise to the bower birds. Although his ideas tie in with some of Bock's work on prim- itive and advanced skull types, I wish he had discussedwhy the birds adopted the arena behavior in the first place. The major deficiency of this book is the paucity of color plates, a somewhat ironic circumstanceas Gilliard personally took some of the most striking photographs of these birds in the wild in existence.Though the text refers to the mating systemsof arena birds as polygynous, perhaps promiscuous is more accurate as no pair bond is formed. Gilliard's use of Naked Tree (p. 402) would mean more to North American readers if he had identified it as the Gumbo Limbo tree common in southern Florida. The many workers at the American Museum of Natural History and elsewhereshould be congratulatedfor their efforts in seeingthis book to press. Although the price will prevent some ornithologists from owning it, the chapters on evolution and the sum- maries of mating systemsin particular should be valuable to all those interested in arian behavior and breeding biology.--J^•s J. Dr•s•roR•. Birds of Gtmtemala.--Hugh C. Land. 1970. Wynnewood,Pennsylvania, Living- ston Publ. Co. Pp. xvi q-381, maps, frontispieceand 43 col. pls. by the author and H. W. Trimm. $10.00.--The late Hugh Land completedthe manuscript of this book and submitted it to the Pan American Section of the International Committee for Bird Preservation before his tragically early death at the age of 39. With the sponsorshipof F. M. Smithe and final editing and proofreading by G. M. Sutton, the committee achievedpublication. There has been no summary account of the birds of this country since Griscom's "The distribution of bird-life in Guatemala" (1932), now long out of date and out of print although still valuable for its historical and zoogeographicsections. Land and his students and associatesvisited 19 of Guatemala's 22 departments, and he spent a total of 14 months there in the field. His records,combined with those of many earlier workers, provide a detailed picture of the distribution of speciesthroughout the country. The format of the book is that of a field guide,and most of the pagesare devotedto speciesaccounts. For each speciesthe author gives the range of the entire species,the subspeciesand rangesof each (if more than one) within Guatemala, the status (rare to abundant), elevation and habitat, a brief descriptionof appearance,and remarks on habits, vocalizations,or field marks. This is done compactly, with two to three species 460 Reviews [Auk, Vol. 89 coveredper page, and for most speciesthe range is given on a small outline map with degreesof abundanceindicated by heavinessof stippling. Color plates by Land and thoseof H. W. Trimm for Smithe's"Birds of Tikal" are placedtogether near the center of the book. Land's paintings are highly stylized, designedto show many similar speciestogether on the same page, and thus tend to be rather wooden in posture and sometimestoo stiffly upright. The frontispieceof the Quetzal is much more represent- ative of his talent. The familiar plates by Trimm are clearly and brightly reproduced, but unfortunately all of Land's are dull and muddy--so much so in some casesthat their usefulnessis impaired. Neverthelessthe plates provide color illustrations of many Central American speciesnot depicted in other books on this region and are a definite aid to identification. A 28-page introductory sectionincludes a discussionof the geography and climate of Guatemala, a division into Life Zones according to traditional usage and also the Holdridge system, and a listing of birds characteristicof each zone. Maps showing contoursand the associatedlife zonesillustrate the great complexityof the land forms other than in the Pet•n and Pacific lowlands, and these make understandablethe frequently patchy and disjunct distributions of many species. There is a brief account of the history of ornithologicalwork in Guatemala from Salvin's first expedition in 1857 to Land's last visit in 1968, and a map illustratescollecting localities. Terms used in the speciesaccounts are clearly defined (a refreshing feature) and the book con- cludes with a short but useful section on bird-watching in Guatemala, a selected bibliographyof publicationsdealing with Guatemala or adjacent areas,and an index. There is no space for detailed discussionsin this book, but the reader can use it as an up-to-date check list of Guatemalan birds as well as a field guide. Specialistswill detect a few minor errors (for example, Cyanolyca pumilo does not range south into Nicaragua as stated), but these are trivial detractions. It is fortunate indeed that this part of Land's work on Guatemala has been published, and his friends, colleagues,and ornithologists in general can only regret many times over that his untimely death prevented completion of his more comprehensive studies. The present book fills a decided gap in the literature of Central American ornithology and makes certain that Hugh Land's work will be recognizedand appreciated.--T•ro•^s R. HOWELL. A checklist of the birds of Ethiopia.--Emil K.