century effort to help the novice. Fol- 
lowing a description of each bird — in- 
cluding information on distribution, 
nests, and measurements — Bailey often 
gave some key field marks, although 
sketchily. For example, she included the 
important barred outer tail feathers in 
her list of the characters of the solitary 
sandpiper, but she failed to point them 
out where it really matters, that is, in 
comparisons with similar species. All 
she said in this regard is that “the soli- 
tary is distinguished from the other 
sandpipers in the field by its dark color 
and black wings, and by its shrill note as 
it takes wing.” 
One welcome aspect of Bailey’s book 
is the occasional short paragraph giving 
additional information on habitat and 
behavior. Solitary sandpipers are said to 
be “quiet, shy birds, but not unap- 
proachable, and they show an interested 
curiosity in strangers.” The handbook 
has 33 plates by Fuertes, not specifically 
geared for field identification, and more 
than 600 cuts in the text, although many 
of the latter are tiny photographs of 
study skins, not renderings of live birds. 
Two years later, with the publication 
of A Guide to the Birds of New England 
and Eastern New York , the first true 
field guide arrived. The author was 
Ralph Hoffmann, a young schoolmaster 
and Latin scholar with an eye for field 
marks, an ear for songs and call notes, a 
writer’s gift for setting them down, and 
an amateur’s joy in his task. While oth- 
ers had recognized the need for books 
addressed to the growing numbers of 
amateurs interested in the study of 
birds, Hoffmann was the first to concen- 
trate on field identification alone. In his 
preface to Birds of New England , he 
took the reader by the hand: 
The study of birds presents plenty of diffi- 
culties, which add fuel to the flame of real 
enthusiasm; there are sloughs of despond 
beyond which the faint-hearted never get. A 
guide who knows the way, its pitfalls and 
short cuts, is always welcome . . . when our 
only weapon is the opera-glass. 
The Guide had four black-and-white 
wash drawings by Fuertes and 95 cuts, 
generally good sketches illustrating di- 
agnostic field marks. The text paid un- 
precedented attention to behavior, habi- 
tat, and above all, call notes and songs. 
Hoffmann seems to have been among 
the first to recognize that the sounds 
birds make are essential to the identifi- 
cation of many species in the field. In 
many cases, he syllabicated them 
expertly with a refined phonetic system, 
both here and, to an even greater extent, 
in his Birds of the Pacific States , which 
appeared in 1927. 
One last look at the solitary sand- 
piper, this time through Hoffmann’s 
eyes: 
Ad. in spring . — Upper parts olive-brown, 
sparsely speckled with white; front of neck 
streaked with dusky; outer tail-feathers 
white, barred with black', wing not showing 
a row of white spots in flight. Ad. in fall . — 
Upper parts dark ashy, even less speckled 
with white; front of neck less streaked with 
dusky. Im . — Upper parts brownish-gray, 
everywhere speckled with white; sides of 
head and neck dusky; rest of under parts 
white; tail as in adult; legs greenish. 
Note his points of emphasis in the 
abbreviated description — the barred 
tail feather field mark is italicized (and 
illustrated in an accompanying sketch) 
and the unmarked wing pointed out. 
Furthermore, in comments following the 
description, Hoffmann compares the 
solitary sandpiper’s call notes, wing 
markings, and flight with those of simi- 
lar species, along with evidence to be 
gained from habitat. Everything in the 
profile is aimed at identification in the 
field. As he explained in the introduc- 
tion, 
There has been no attempt to give a com- 
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