A PARROT WITHOUT A NAME: The Search for the Last Unknown Birds on Earth

Back in the 1960's, John O'Neill, a graduate student at Louisiana State Univ. discovered several new species of birds in Peru, thus stunning a scientific community that believed all birds had long been identified. Since then, O'Neill (now coordinator of field studies at LSU) and protÉgÉ Ted Parker (now a research associate at LSU) have made numerous forays into the Peruvian wilderness to study and collect birds for the university. Here is a carefully detailed and eloquently written, if somewhat academic, account of their careers and expeditions. Accompanying these two experts on neotropical birds into remote Peruvian rain forests, Stap (Univ. of Central Florida) documents all of the daily doings of a team of researchers: the difficult treks upriver by canoe; the rigors of camp life; the ongoing collection, identification, and preparation of specimens to be studied; and the thrill of discovering a new species. There's much to learn here, about ornithology, rain forests, and the demands of field research. And the book should have a broad appeal among bird fanciers--though the realities of killing birds to study them may prove distasteful to some.