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The book is illustrated with beautifully reproduced color plates, black 
and white photographs, and ink sketches by such artists as Allen Brooks, 
George Miksch Sutton, Roger Tory Peterson, Karl H. Maslowski and 
others. The end paper is a helpful map of the area explored. 
The reader cannot fail to be impressed with Mr. Brandt’s thoroughness. 
If he mentions any bird, tree or date, he does it with precision. If he 
speaks of a horned lark, it is a Chihuahua or Scorched Horned Lark, not 
just a plain ambiguous horned lark. 
Mr. Brandt’s habit of naming subspecies causes those of us who rely 
on binoculars and a pocket field guide for our identifications a good deal 
of index-searching to find what we are reading about. Whereas we, with 
a Peterson’s Western Bird Guide, would be satisfied to identify a bird 
as a California Woodpecker, Brandt identifies it as a Mearn’s Wood- 
pecker. 
This technical obscurity is puzzling enough to the amateur, but his 
literary faults are alarming. His style is exceedingly flowery and in a 
highly ecstatic key. Alliterating seems to be his particular delight, 
“simple samples” of which are — “bulky barracks boldly built”, and 
“what exciting avian adventures that mighty mountain mansion might 
offer to one fortunate enough to penetrate its vastness!”’ His florid style 
is replete with such phrases as “noble arcade of delight,” “thrilling 
message of exotic rarity to my ear,” “our ever happy, boisterous friend, 
the Canyon Wren.” Sometimes it is hard to see the birds for the words. 
However, if you are an ardent birder who stops at nothing, you will 
have the stamina to wend your weary way through peaks of purple prose 
and find the struggle well worth while. If you plan to go into Arizona 
birding, you will find that this book will instruct, inspire and guide you. 
If you have been there, it will make your visit more vivid and significant. 
F.' J. Freeman, Itasca, Til. 
Birds of an Iowa Dooryard, by Althea R. Sherman, 1952. Edited by 
Fred J. Pierce. Christopher, Boston. 270 pp, $3.75. Althea Sherman 
published from 1910 to 1913 four notable life history articles — on the 
flicker, sparrow hawk, screech owl and ruby-throated hummingird, but 
most of the results of her thirty-five years of intensive observation she 
reserved for a book. Unfortunately, the task was too great and she died 
before its completion. A woman of originality, imagination, and clear 
thinking, of tremendous vitality and determination, she made contri- 
butions of fundamental importance to ornithology. 
Mr. Pierce has reprinted seven of her most valuable published articles 
and presented eleven new chapters on the house wren, phoebe, chimney 
swift, catbird and others. There are photographs of Miss Sherman and 
of the tower she built for the chimney swifts, as well as seven of her own 
charming drawings of birds. This is a book to appeal to all people in- 
terested in birds with its vivid, outspoken style and its accurate records 
of the life of nesting birds. 
Margaret M. Nice, 5725 Harper Avenue, Chicago 
