THE HONEYEATERS and THEIR ALLIES OF AUSTRALIA. The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife. By Wayne Longmore.

1991 1st edition. Large 4to (219 x 2198mm). Ppxviii,429. Colour photographs, b/w line illustrations, distribution maps, bibliography. Dark brown boards, spine titled in white.

This book "is a major work covering seventy species of honeyeaters and several other groups of arboreal birds. Honeyeaters are conspicuous, intensely active, and very aggressive. They range in size from very small to some large enough to have provided, in the past, food for hunters. Most species are rather plain but a few genera are very brightly coloured. Many species enjoy an intimate relationship with flowering shrubs, while others that are insectivorous exploit a variety of niches available in eucalypt forests. Others are inhabitants of rainforests, living mainly on fruit. Some species have evolved extremely advanced social structures, though most honeyeaters are gregarious. Some species are sedentary, others migratory, and many strongly nomadic. the other small groups of birds included in this volume share a diet of nectar and isnects and include sitellas, treecreepers, flowerpeckers, pardalotes, sunbirds and white-eyes." Each volume of this series includes a detailed section on the eggs of the species under examination. The series, although wholely new in all aspects of its content, is modelled on Gould's Birds of Australia. "(This book) is both a serious reference book and a magnificent production, designed to give pleasure to a wide audience". This is the sixth volume in the ornithological volumes of The National Photographic Index of Australian Wildlife.