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Australia: 1899-1794

This page is part of the main list of Australian bird books which is split by date.

Bird books: 2000 onwards
Bird books: 1999 to 1900
Bird books: 1899 to 1794

Australian bird art

Australian bird art

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Australian species

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Australian series

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Birds of Australia series
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Collins regional guides
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Australian Nat. Hist. Series

Oceania/Australasia

Oceania

A Key To The Birds Of Australia And Tasmania With Their Geographical Distribution

Robert Hall

1899

A 110 page annotated checklist with no illustrations. Covers 767 species with brief description and simple 9 area distribution code for each.

From the preface:

"The opportunity to publish a Key to the Birds of Australia is practically given in the catalogues of the British Museum dealing with the birds of the world, commenced in 1872 and concluded in the present year. The Key, comprising in each case a concise digest of the 770 species of birds found in Australia and Tasmania, is built principally upon these catalogues. Many descriptions are exactly reproduced, others are added to, and a portion is described from the author's collection. The classification is almost wholly that of the British Museum, while the nomenclature is entirely so. Gould's and Ramsay's names appear as synonyms in nearly all cases, and the most important vernaculars of late use are bracketed after each species."

The Naturalist In Australia

W. Saville-Kent

Chapman & Hall

1897

From the preface:

"The endeavour is made in this volume to present to the English reading public a few glimpses of the Faunal and Floral products of that magnificent component of our Empire the Island-Continent of Australia. No attempt is made here to produce a systematic monograph or anything beyond a general compendium of any particular group or groups, the purpose being more in the direction of recording data concerning the life phenomena or peculiarities of biological types that specially attracted the author's attention during the period of close upon twelve years in which he acted as Commissioner of Fisheries, or specially engaged Fisheries expert to the greater number of the Australian colonies, and in the fulfilment of which professional engagements he extended his travels throughout the entire Australian coast-line. The material here selected for description and illustration will, it is trusted, assist towards the promotion of a wider interest in the natural history wealth in sea and on shore possessed by the Australian peoples, and conduce towards its more intimate investigation both by dwellers on the land and by systematic explorers. Concerning many of the subjects here dealt with, as for example the form, habits, and architectural fabrications of the Termites and the varieties, distribution, and bizarre manners of many members of the Bird and Lizard races, a wide field is open both for original investigation and for inexhaustible recreation to every intelligent observer."

On the Bower-bird recently described by Mr. C. W. De Vis as Cnemophilus mariae

P.L.Sclater

Ibis: Volume 37, Issue 3, pages 343-344

1895

Opening lines:

"As already recorded in this Journal Mr. C. W. De Vis, the Curator of the Queensland Museum, in a report, dated June 30th, 1894, and addressed to the Administrator of British New Guinea, described a collection of birds made by Captain Armit and Mr. Guise during Sir William Macgregor's recent exploration of Mount Maneao. Amongst the new birds characterized on this occasion was what Mr. De Vis considered at the time to be a second species of his lately instituted genus Cnemophilus, which was dedicated to Lady Macgregor as Cnemophilus maria. Of this species a male had been obtained on Mount Maneao in the month of April at an elevation of 6650 feet, and a young male and five females at 5000 feet."

The Birds Of Australia

Vol. VI

Gracius J. Broinswski

1891

Originally published in 40 parts between 1887 and 1991. These parts were subsequently collected in six volumes as listed here. The whole work covers over 700 species and includes 300 full page colour plates by the author.

From the first species description (Graucalus swainsonii):

This species, named by Gould after the naturalist who first described it, is an inhabitant of Queensland, and the northern part of New South Wales. Unlike the other members of the genus, it does not feed on insects, or at any rate to a very small extent, berries and Moreton Bay figs forming almost its sole food. It breeds from October to December. There is no difference in the plumage of the sexes. The lores are black; the head, upper surface, wing-coverts, throat, and breast, grey; primaries and secondaries, black, margined with grey; tail, grey, tipped largely with black ; abdomen, grey, crossed by short narrow bars of black; irides, reddish-brown; bill, black; legs and feet, grey.

The Birds Of Australia

Vol. V

Gracius J. Broinswski

1891

Originally published in 40 parts between 1887 and 1991. These parts were subsequently collected in six volumes as listed here. The whole work covers over 700 species and includes 300 full page colour plates by the author.

From the first species description (Poephila mirabilis):

This Finch is very often confused with the Poephila Gouldiae, which it resembles in many respects, both in appearance and habits, and with which it often associates in large flocks. In fact, for a long time the two species were thought to be identical; hut the error of this theory was pointed out by Mr. Elsey, who lived in the midst of them on the Victoria River for many years, and whose name is associated with many other discoveries. It is found only about the north coast, especially on the Victoria River, where it is very abundant. Head and cheeks, carmine, below which is a band of black, and below this again is a line of light blue; throat, black; back and wings, green, passing into black on the primaries; across the breast a patch of lilac; under surface, orange; tail and thighs, black: irides, light brown; bill, fleshy-white; feet, flesh-colour.

The Birds Of Australia

Vol. IV

Gracius J. Broinswski

1891

Originally published in 40 parts between 1887 and 1991. These parts were subsequently collected in six volumes as listed here. The whole work covers over 700 species and includes 300 full page colour plates by the author.

From the first species description (Ptilorhis paradisea):

There are few birds in the Australian forest, or indeed in any forest, with more beautiful plumage than the Rifle-bird. This can only be properly appreciated on seeing it in its native state. The principal resort is among the cedar brushes of the rivers of the northern portion of New South Wales, where great numbers may be seen. It possesses many of the characteristics of the Climacteres, particularly in its manner of ascending the trunks of trees. At sunrise it leaves the thickets where it has spent the night, and passes the morning in flying between the tops of the lofty pines and sunning itself. During its flight it makes a peculiar sound, resembling the rustling of a silk dress. Its song consists of a prolonged utterance of the word "Tass," bv which name it is called bv the aborigines of the Richmond River. The powers of flight are very seldom used except to pass from tree to tree.

The Birds Of Australia

Vol. III

Gracius J. Broinswski

1890

Originally published in 40 parts between 1887 and 1991. These parts were subsequently collected in six volumes as listed here. The whole work covers over 700 species and includes 300 full page colour plates by the author.

Opening lines:

The Pigeon family - one of the most widely distributed of all the families of birds, being common to every part of the terrestrial globe except the extreme Arctic and Antarctic Zones - was long distinguished as a distinct Order, under the one generic term, Columbae; but, under a more philosophical classification, has been regarded as forming a secondary order to the Gallinaceae (or Clamatores), under the designation of columbaceae (or Gemitores), to which classification I defer; still, it may be remarked, that those systematists who have proposed a separate classification for the members of this important family, have good general grounds for their decision, were the extraordinary claims of the Australian group, with their remarkable features of internal organization and their striking external characteristics, alone to be considered.

The Birds Of Australia

Vol. II

Gracius J. Broinswski

1890

Originally published in 40 parts between 1887 and 1991. These parts were subsequently collected in six volumes as listed here. The whole work covers over 700 species and includes 300 full page colour plates by the author.

From the first species description (Anas superciliosa):

In this species, which stands as the Australian representative of the Common Wild Duck (Anas boschas) of Europe, we find a bird of cosmopolitan habits, for it is found in every known latitude of the mainland, in Tasmania, New Zealand, and Norfolk Island, besides many less important islands. No other bird enjoys so wide a range of habitat: from the burning sun of the tropics to the glacier ranges of the South it has spread, adapting itself to climatic differences with the hardihood of a Briton.

The Birds Of Australia

Vol. I

Gracius J. Broinswski

1890

Originally published in 40 parts between 1887 and 1991. These parts were subsequently collected in six volumes as listed here. The whole work covers over 700 species and includes 300 full page colour plates by the author.

From the Order Natatores:

The want of many great rivers and lakes in Australia may account for the absence of a considerable number of the more valuable or famous varieties of aquatic birds which are found in other continents blessed with larger inland seas. Still, a general survey of the oarv-footed kinds which inhabit our fresh waters, shows that we possess many strange and interesting species of these birds, while our coast, with the great extent of latitude which it spans, gives habitation to a great and varied multitude of them.

The Cockatoos and Nestors of Australia and New Zealand

Gracius J. Broinswski

13 colour plates with accompanying text. Uncertain if this was published as a book or as a set of loose plates. The plates had been prepared for the proposed publication Birds Of Australia.

A limited edition book with facsimile reproductions of the plates and their supporting text together with a number of appendices was published by Lansdowne Editions in 1981.

Pigeons of Australia

Gracius J. Broinswski

11 colour plates with accompanying text. Uncertain if this was published as a book or as a set of loose plates. Sets of the plates have been subsequently bound. The plates had been prepared for the proposed publication Birds Of Australia.

Catalogue Of The Australian Birds In The Australian Museum At Sydney, N.S.W.: Part I, Accipitres

E. Pierson Ramsay

1876

Title above is as on Front cover. Title page has Catalogue Of The Australian Accipitres Or Diurnal Birds Of Prey Inhabiting Australia In The Collection Of The Australian Museum At Sydney, N.S.W..

Preface: "This Part I of the Catalogue of Australian Birds contains a description of all the Species of the Accipitres or Diurnal Birds of Prey at present known to inhabit Australia - in all 27 Species - and a list of such as are contained in the collection of the Australian Museum."

Natural History Sketches

By The Old Bushman

1871

This work is a new edition of Bush Wanderings Of A Naturalist which was published in 1861. Black and white illustrations have been added for this edition.

Handbook To The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

1865

Published in two volumes. No colour plates.

From the preface:

" Nearly twenty years have elapsed since my folio work on the Birds of Australia was completed. During that period many new species have been discovered, and much additional information acquired respecting those com- prised therein; consequently it appeared to me that a careful resume of the entire subject would be acceptable to the possessors of the former edition, as well as to the many persons in Australia who are now turning their attention to the ornithology of the country in which they are resident. Indeed I have been assured that such a work is greatly needed to enable the explorer during his journeyings, or the student in his quiet home, to identify the species that may come under his notice, and as a means by which the curators of the museums now established in the various colonies may arrange and name the collections intrusted to their charge. With these views the present Handbook has been prepared."

Bush Wanderings Of A Naturalist

By An Old Bushman

1861

Opening lines:

Amidst all the wonderful revolutions that have marked the present century, no country beneath the sun has experienced such a rapid change, in so short a period, as the Australian colony of Port Phillip. Tracing the gradual development of this colony, we find that, in the year 1788, the first British convict ships landed their melancholy freight on these shores, and until the year 1803 this country remained a penal settlement. In that year the convicts were transferred to the Derwent. The first French discovery ships, under Capt. Baudin, entered Western Port bay and christened one of the large islands there, French Island, which name it now bears.

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume I

1840 to 1848

This is volume one of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

From the preface:

"Having in the Summer of 1837 brought my work on the Birds Of Europe to a successful termination, I was naturally desirous of turning my attention to the ornithology of some other region; and a variety of concurring circumstances induced me to select that of Australia, the Birds of which, though invested with the highest degree of interest, had been almost entirely neglected. Dr. Shaw in his Zoology Of new Holland, had devoted a few plates to the subject, from specimens collected by Sir Joseph Banks during the first voyage of Captain Cook; the Birds Of New Holland by Lewin comprised not more than twenty-six plates; and figures and descriptions of a few species were given in the earlier voyages of Phillip, White and Collins, and the more recent one of King. At a subsequent period the late Mr. Vigors and Dr. Horsfield commenced an elaborate memoir on the Collection of Australian Birds in the possession of the Linnean Society; but unfortunately, they did not proceed farther than the Meliphagidae, and the non-completion of their labours is the more to be regretted, inasmuch as the Linnean Society's collection of Australian Birds, at that time the finest extant, comprised many specimens collected by Mr. Brown during his voyage with the celebrated navigator Flinders, and was moreover enriched with some interesting notes by the late Mr. George Cayley, by whom the collection was chiefly formed. Descriptions of many Australian birds were also included in the works of Latham, Shaw, Cuvier and Vieillot, as well as in several of the recent French voyages of discovery; still no general work on the subject had been undertaken, and nearly all that had been recorded by the various writers above enumerated, had reference almost exclusively to the productions of New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, these being almost the only explored portions of that great country. In the absence, then, of any general work on the Birds of Australia, the field was comparatively a new one, and of no ordinary degree of interest, from the circumstances of its being one of the finest possessions of the British Crown, and from its natural productions being as remarkable for the anomalous nature of their forms, as for their beauty, and the singularity of their habits."

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume II

1840 to 1848

This is volume two of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume III

1840 to 1848

This is volume three of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume IV

1840 to 1848

This is volume four of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume V

1840 to 1848

This is volume five of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume VI

1840 to 1848

This is volume six of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

The Birds Of Australia

John Gould

Volume VII

1840 to 1848

This is volume seven of a seven volume collected edition published in 1848. The work was originally published for subscribers in 36 parts between 1840 and 1848.

Zoology Of New Holland

Volume I

George Shaw

Published by J. Sowerby

1794

Though described as volume one it is possible that there were no further volumes.