ORNITHOLOGICAL LITERATURE 
657 
has little understanding of museum collections and 
taxonomy. We live in the molecular age. a lime (as 
noted by one well-known curator) in which a 
trained monkey could produce an estimate of 
phylogeny. In the old days, only people well versed 
in field and collections-based ornithology attempt¬ 
ed to define the relationships of birds. Now. 
everyone can estimate phytogenies, including kids 
who have never collected a specimen or even seen 
the birds they are studying. The good news is that 
modem molecular methods produce more accurate 
trees' than the old authoritative methods, and rapid 
growth in the number of phylogenv-builders means 
that we are learning, at an unprecedented rate, 
about bird relationships. The bad news is that 
phylogeny production is overwhelming the few 
avian taxonomists with the training and desire to 
produce modem classifications. Moreover, few 
people care about this problem; the glory lies in 
discovery, not pedantry. 
Ornithology in the Western Hemisphere regu¬ 
larly updates bird classification with new research 
findings via two formal committees of the 
American Ornithologists’ Union: the North Amer¬ 
ican Classification Committee (e.g., Chesser et al. 
2010) and the South American Classification 
Committee (Remsen et al. 2011). Classification 
revision in the Old World has not been centralized 
formally. Systematic studies published in various 
journals (e.g., Bulletin of the British Ornitholo¬ 
gists' Club) have been compiled periodically by a 
few individuals into updated classifications (e.g., 
Dickinson 2003). However, for Asian birds, a 
concerted effort to revise bird classification more 
regularly has been in place for 10 years. The 
Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum (Leiden Mu¬ 
seum) and the Trust for Oriental Ornithology 
'TOO), starting in 2000, began publishing taxo¬ 
nomic reviews and revisions in Systematic Notes 
on Asian Birds ( SNAB) under the editorship of R. 
W. R. J. Dekker, Edward C. Dickinson, and (more 
recently) David R. Wells. Five annual issues 
appeared in Zoalogische Verluindelingen and a 
sixth in Zoologische Mededelingen in 2006. 
Thereafter funding ran out. Now. following a 4- 
year hiatus, SNAB is back thanks to the efforts of 
the TOO and British Ornithologists’ Club (BOC). 
It is now edited by David Wells and will be 
published periodically in the BOC’s Occasional 
Publications series. 
The first product of the new collaboration is 
excellent. It contains outstanding reviews of some 
particularly difficult groups; babblers (Timalii- 
dae) and the Old World warbler genera Seicercus 
and Pliylloscopus ; a preliminary review of grebes; 
and an update of a classic work on Bangka Island, 
Indonesia, by G. F. Mees. It is wonderful to have 
SNAB back in action. Indeed, I have only one 
complaint, which is not a criticism of SNAB per 
se. but rather of the genre. The new' SNAB has 
some outstanding contributions, especially the 70- 
page effort on Seicercus and Phylloscopus by J. 
Martens, but these articles are not indexed or 
searchable on the web. Thus, they will not be 
found (at least initially) by the uninformed. 
Worse, the authors, who have done a tremendous 
amount of hard work, will not receive proper 
credit from citation-compiling programs, such as 
the Web of Science. (Universities regularly look 
at citation numbers on the internet to judge the 
productivity of their faculty.) The BOC needs to 
fix this problem, not only for SNAB but also for its 
Bulletin. That aside, ornithologists and birdwatch¬ 
ers interested in the latest on Asian bird 
classification should grab this SNAB and keep an 
eye out for future volumes.—FREDERICK H. 
SHELDON. Louisiana State University Muse¬ 
um of Natural Science and Department of 
Biological Sciences, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, 
USA; e-mail: fsheld@lsu.edu 
LITERATURE CITED 
CHESSER, R. T.. R. C. Banks, F. K. Barker. C. Cicero, J. 
L. Dunn, A. W. Kratter, 1. J. Lovette, P. C. 
Rasmussen, J, V. Remsen Jr.. J. D. Rising, D. F. 
Stotz, and K. Winker. 2010. Fifty-first supplement to 
the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-list of North 
American birds. Auk 127:726-744. 
DICKINSON. E. C. 2003. The Howard & Moore complete 
checklist of the birds of the world, Third Edition. 
Christopher Helm. London. United Kingdom. 
Remsen. J. V.. C. D. Cadena. A. Jaramuxo, M. Nores. J. 
F. Pacheco. J. PiIrez-Eman. M. B. Robbins. F. G. 
Stiles. D. F. Stotz, and K. J. Zimmer. 2011. A 
classification of the bird species of South America. 
Version 4 January 2011. American Ornithologists' 
Union. Washington. D.C., USA. http://www.museum. 
lsu.edu/~remsen/saccbaseline.hlml 
NIGHTJARS. POTOOS, FROGMOUTHS, 
OILBIRD AND OWLET-NIGHTJARS OF THE 
WORLD. By Nigel Cleere. Princeton University 
Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. 2010; 464 
pages, 560 photographs. 279 distribution maps, 2 
tables, 2 appendices, and index. ISBN: 978-0-691- 
