854 
THE WILSON JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY • Vol. 123, No. 4. December 2011 
full of photographs of birds in action, but there 
are no figures or illustrations of results of detailed 
scientific investigations of these birds. We find 
loads of behavior and conservation but very little 
evolution or physiology. There is discussion of 
phylogenetic relationships, but no trees and only 
simple (and misleading) subfamily diagrams. 
After coming to grips with the specific mission 
or function of the series, one can see this volume 
meets this function very well. We should expect 
to read about the cage bird trade, for instance 
(given the significant role the estrildids and the 
Atlantic Canary [Serinus canaria] have had), but 
not necessarily song learning and its neurobio- 
logical basis (despite the significant role the 
Common Chaffinch [Fringilla coelebs\. Zebra 
Finch [Taeniopygia guttata\, and Atlantic Canary 
have had). There arc notable exceptions to this 
general picture, however, especially in the area of 
evolution, such as the description of spccialion by 
host switch and mimicry in indigobirds, and the 
excellent coverage of the problems faced when 
constructing phylogenies of the vireos and 
warblers. Still, as a parting shot. I’ll just mention 
three wishes I’d have had for exceptions to the 
behavioral-photographs-and-species-plates-only ru le 
for illustrations, that I think would have adhered 
well to the HBW mission: a series of photo¬ 
graphs of the mouth markings of estrildids, another 
of the eggs of weavers, and a plate of illustrations 
of weaver nests. However. I did enjoy seeing the 
plate of extinct honeycreepers; these eight com¬ 
plement a previous eight that appeared in 
Volume 7, page 58 in a Foreword on bird 
extinctions. 
To say that this is a bird lover's book is not to 
denigrate it, and even for ornithologists it is much 
more than a ‘curl up and read shop’ book. There is 
a wealth of information here suitable for leaching, 
data mining, example-searching for review pa¬ 
pers, and even hypothesis generation. And let’s 
face it, most of the people who will buy this $300 
tome are actually professional ornithologists or at 
least die-hard birders who know as much as 
professional ornithologists. Resides, we already 
know how to search for our references when we 
need them. That’s boring stuff compared to the 
delights of this book and of the HBW in general. 
I look forward to the one last volume to 
come.—DAVID C. LAHTI, Assistant Profes¬ 
sor, Queens College, City University of New 
York, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Flushing, NY 
10541. USA; e-mail: david.Iahti@qc.cuny.edu 
CONSERVATION OF TROPICAL BIRDS. By 
N. S. Sodhi. C. H. Sekercioglu, J. Barlow, and S. 
K. Robinson. Wiley-Blackwell. Oxford. U.K. 
2011: ix + 300 pages, 19 color plates. ISBN: 
978-1-4443-3482-1. $129.95 (hardcover),—This 
book is a comprehensive and clearly written 
source of information on populations and ecology 
of tropical birds and suggestions for conservation 
action. The scope is worldwide. The 1.400 
references cover mainly the past three decades, 
notably the literature on conservation biology and 
ecology as well as ornithology. The chapters are: 
(1) the state of tropical bird diversity. (2) habitat 
fragmentation. (3) bird extinctions, (4) ecological 
functions of birds, (5) fire and conservation. (6) 
biotic invasions, (7) harvesting by people, (8) 
climate change. (9) conservation of migratory 
birds, and (10) conservation prospects. The 
chapters also discuss the interaction of these 
topics. The emphasis is on birds of tropical 
forests, the habitat where many local endemic 
and threatened restricted-range species occur, and 
where little is known about their life histories and 
ecology. Most species under threat are not 
mentioned; there are too many to treat all species 
in the book. Extinction continues to occur. 21 
species have been lost in the past 30-40 years; this 
rate is many times greater than the estimated one 
species extinction per 100 years in the period 
before the 1500s. The book is rich in case 
histories and short-term trends of the loss of bird 
species w ith deforestation and degradation of their 
habitats. It also reports a few successes in 
conservation to encourage local people to protect 
their forests and birds. 
Most threatened bird species occur in the 
tropics, and deforestation is the major threat to 
their populations. Tropical forests are cleared for 
agricultural development, and forests that are not 
totally destroyed are fragmented and degraded by 
agriculture, selective logging, and development of 
human infrastructure and urbanization. Neighbor¬ 
ing secondary forest may retain some forest birds, 
but the understory insectivores and large frugi- 
vores are often lost. Large areas of intact forest 
are required for persistence of the most sensitive 
forest species, and large protected areas arc 
needed to maintain species diversity and bird 
population size. In Singapore, long-term observa¬ 
tions show that 95% of the original vegetation has 
been lost since settlement in 1819, and 67% ot the 
forest species are locally extinct. Some decreases 
in birds in small forest patches in fragmented 
