The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 123 ( 1 ): 188 — 197 , 2011 
Ornithological Literature 
Robert B. Payne, Book Review Editor 
EARLY TASMANIAN ORNITHOLOGY: THE 
CORRESPONDENCE OF RONALD CAMP¬ 
BELL GUNN AND JAMES GRANT 1836-1838. 
Nuttall Ornithological Club Memoir 16. Edited by 
William E. Davis Jr. 2009: 263 pages, 30 figures. 
ISBN 1-877973-47-5. $37.50 (cloth).—William E. 
Davis Jr. has edited and the Nuttall Ornithological 
Club has published a small gem of ornithological 
history. It gives unusual insight into what it must 
have been like to try to identify birds before the 
days of well-written regional books and field 
guides. 
Some 180 years ago. Van Diemen’s Land (now 
Tasmania, Australia’s island state) was sparsely 
settled and little explored ornithologically. It was 
at that time that Ronald Gunn, a public official, 
and James Grant, a physician, began to produce 
for eventual publication a list of Tasmanian birds. 
Each had a private collection of birds, owned 
many of the books then available, and was an avid 
and very serious amateur ornithologist. A serious 
drawback to their efforts was that most of the 
information in their books was brought together 
by European authors who had never seen the"birds 
alive and whose descriptions and hand-colored 
plates were frequently less than helpful. At best, 
reference was to mainland Australian forms. Each 
of these authors arranged the species in widely 
varying taxonomic sequence and with disparate 
ideas of relationships. 
In 1836-1838, Gunn, the better-known of the 
two, was a magistrate in Circular Head in 
northwestern Tasmania. Davis provides a most 
welcome biographical sketch of Gunn, who had a 
long career in public service and was a pioneer of 
natural history study in Tasmania. Grant was a 
physician in Launceston, northeastern Tasmania, 
about whom little is known. During these 2 years, 
they corresponded regularly and sent specimens 
back and forth, discussing identifications and 
relationships of the birds they collected. At 
various times Gunn also sent specimens to Sir 
William Hooker in Scotland and to John Edward 
Gray in London, perhaps for identification, 
although there is no information in the correspon¬ 
dence that this was provided. 
Davis has published the Gunn-Grant correspon¬ 
dence verbatim, interspersed with modern identi¬ 
fications of the birds and page references with 
frequent commentary on the contemporary refer¬ 
ences they used. These additions make accessible 
correspondence that would otherwise prove cryp¬ 
tic to today’s readers. 
The outlook of these unsung Tasmanian orni¬ 
thologists was surprisingly modern. Not only did 
they wish to publish a list of Tasmanian birds; 
they also wanted to incorporate into it the natural 
history information they had gathered by watch¬ 
ing birds in the field. Even though their work pre¬ 
dated Darwin’s concept of evolution through 
natural selection, they (page 3) “flirted in several 
places with evolutionary ideas,” as observed by 
Davis. 
The Gunn and Grant list unfortunately was 
never completed. Their correspondence ended 
when Gunn moved to Hobart and his increased 
civic responsibilities became very time-consum¬ 
ing, although an incomplete synopsis of their 
ideas on the taxonomic ordering of birds is dated 
as late as 1840. This cessation of letters also 
approximately corresponds to the 1838-1839 visit 
by John Gould to Tasmania, where he met Gunn, 
and to the beginning of Gould's publications on 
Australian birds. It is known that Gunn provided 
some notes and specimens to Gould subsequent to 
his visit. 
I recommend this book for the rare glimpse it 
gives into the early difficulties associated with 
ornithological research and hope it causes every¬ 
one to appreciate the splendid books and field 
guides available to us today.—MARY LeCROY, 
Department of Ornithology, American Museum 
of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th 
Street, New York, NY 10024, USA; e-mail: 
lecroy@amnh.org 
LOOKING FOR A FEW GOOD MALES: 
FEMALE CHOICE IN EVOLUTIONARY BI¬ 
OLOGY. By Erika Lorraine Milam. The Johns 
Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 
USA. 2010: 168 pages and 13 figures. ISBN: 978- 
0-8018-9419-0. $60.00 (cloth).—Charles Darwin, 
with just a few short sentences in the Origin of 
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