$5-oo 



LIFE HISTORIES 

 OF NORTH AMERICAN 



DIVING BIRDS 



By ARTHUR CLEVELAND BENT 



With 32 pages of illustrations 



ALMOST forty years ago Arthur Cleve- 

 land Bent, distinguished Taunton 

 ornithologist, began work on a book which 

 in scope and importance is rivaled only by 

 Audubon's famous Birds of America. This 

 gigantic project is the life story of every 

 one of the more than 1500 kinds of birds 

 known to this continent, including the hab- 

 its of each bird, its food, plumage, voice, 

 range, courtship, eggs, nest, young and 

 migration. 



Today fourteen volumes of this great 

 book have been published by the Smith- 

 sonian Institute, all of them paper bound, 

 and the earliest in editions as modest as 

 2500 copies printed for specialists and col- 

 lectors only, the type then being distributed. 

 The first of these publications is so widely 

 sought and so difficult to find that it ac- 

 tually brings as high as fifty dollars in the 

 open market and is unobtainable even at 

 that figure. 



Dodd, Mead & Company is planning to 

 publish these invaluable books in a trade 

 edition with the complete text reproduced 

 exactly as the author originally prepared it, 

 but in a regular library format with cloth 

 binding. The first volume to appear will 

 be the life history of the American diving 

 birds the grebes, loons, puffins, auks and 

 auklets, murres and murrelets, guillemots, 

 and dovekies. 



In writing these life histories, Mr. Bent 

 has drawn on his own wide field experi- 

 ence, ranging from Alaska, Labrador and 

 Newfoundland to California and Florida 

 a first-hand knowledge which gives his 

 many-volumed book an immeasurable in- 

 terest and value. In addition, he has quoted 

 from the best in ornithological literature, 

 adding the testimony of many other au- 

 thorities in the field to his own personal 

 observation. 



The LIFE HISTORIES represent, therefore, 

 the most complete factual story of Ameri- 

 can birds ever made available, and each suc- 

 cessive volume will be eagerly awaited by 

 amateur and professional bird-lover alike. 

 Indeed, no naturalist can afford to miss the 

 opportunity, now for the first time offered 

 to all, of adding these great and indispen- 

 sable books to his library. 



DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 



