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India (1790 to 1899)

The books are listed by date with the most recent at the top.

This list of books about birds in India is split over three pages:

- books published 2000-2017
- books published 1900-1999
- books published 1790-1899

Also see:

Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan: First edition

Handbook of the Birds of India and Pakistan: Second edition

Andaman Islands

Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

Asia

Asia

A Manual Of The Game Birds Of India: Part II: Water Birds

Eugene W. Oates

1899

From the preface:

"In this part of my Manual I have attempted to deal with the species of Ducks and Snipes which occur within the limits of the Indian Empire, forty-four in number. The Game Birds which are now known with certainty to occur in India number altogether one hundred and thirty-four species, of which two have been discovered since the issue of the first part of this Manual and are now brought to notice in an Appendix to this volume. The treatment of the Ducks has entailed an amount of original investigation which I little contemplated when I first proposed to write about them, and the issue of this part has, in consequence, been some- what delayed."

A Manual Of The Game Birds Of India: Part I: Land Birds

Eugene W. Oates

1898

From the introduction:

"The Game Birds of India which frequent the land, as distinguished from those which swim or wade, are eighty-eight in number, and are referable to five sections or orders, containing the following number of species :- Sand-Grouse .. 8 species, Hemipodes .. 5 species, Gallinaceous Birds .. 68 species, Megapodes .. 1 species, Bustards .. 6 species."

The Fauna Of British India including Ceylon and Burma

Birds: Volumes 1 to 4

W.T. Blanford, Eugene W. Oates

1889-1898

The Game Birds Of India, Burmah and Ceylon, Volume III

Allan Hume and C.T. Marshall

1880

The third of 3 volumes. This volume covers cranes, geese, ducks, snipe and godwits.

The Game Birds Of India, Burmah and Ceylon, Volume II

Allan Hume and C.T. Marshall

1880

The second of 3 volumes. This volume covers partridges, francolin, quail, button quail, crakes and rails.

The Game Birds Of India, Burmah and Ceylon, Volume I

Allan Hume and C.T. Marshall

1879

The first of 3 volumes. This volume covers bustards, sandgrouse, peafowl, pheasants, tragopan and others.

From the preface:

"In presenting to our Subscribers this First Volume of 'The Game Birds of India,' we feel keenly how much we shall need their indulgent consideration. The plates, the most important portion of the work, and to secure the proper preparation of which Captain Marshall devoted nearly an entire year's leisure at home, are by no means all that we could have desired. In the first place having 150,000 plates to produce within a limited period, we were compelled to have recourse to chromo-lithography. Great as may seem the delay that has occurred in the appearance of this work, this would have been increased by some years had we adhered to our original design of giving hand- coloured plates. Chromo-lithographs, though more uniform in their tints, (every copy of any plate being infallibly exactly like every other copy, while hand-coloured plates always vary a good deal in tone) are yet always more harsh and staring, and admit of less elaboration of delicate details. Some, at any rate, of our plates are really beautiful for chromos, but the best chromo is not equal to a really good hand-coloured plate. But it would have taken five years to get 150,000 plates really well coloured by hand, and as for those coloured by hand by indifferent workmen, they are often worse than chromos. Here therefore, we were helpless."

Notes on the late Colonel Tickell's manuscript Work entitled "Illustrations of Indian Ornithology"

Arthur Viscount Walden

Ibis: Volume 18, Issue 3, pages 336-357

1876

Opening lines:

"Amomng the books of the Zoological Society's library is to be found the manuscript work alluded to. It was presented to the Society by the late Colonel Tickell in 1874, failing health and obliterated sight having prevented him from carrying out the cherished object of his later years, its publication. On Colonel Tickell's career as an ornithologist it is not my intention now to enter. An obituary by an old friend was published last year. Suffice it to say that he belonged to that band of zoologists who, more than forty years ago, commenced in India the then much neglected study of natural history, and who worshipped as simple and single-minded devotees in the temple of nature, and not for their own self glorification."

My Scrap Book: Or Rough Notes On Indian Oology And Ornithology

Allan Hume

1869

From the preface:

"These rough notes are merely intended as a sort of nucleus round which future observations, (which it is hoped that they may somewhat tend to systematize) may, as it were, crystallize. In them, I have thrown together all the information in regard to Indian Oology and Ornithology, supplementary to my friend Dr. Jerdon's excellent work, that I have happened to collect. Much of this information is original, the result of recent observations of my own, or of the different gentlemen who have kindly communicated it, and whose names are duly recorded in loco, but much has also been extracted from the pages of the Ibis, Yarrell, Bree, Gould, &c., works with which every ornithologist ought to be acquainted, but which no working Indian field naturalist, (for whose use these notes are chiefly designed), can possibly carry about with him. My object in now printing these avowedly miserably imperfect and disjointed scraps is, primarily, to enable my numerous coadjutors, in different parts of India, to ascertain what I have already on record, and what portion of the information they may happen to possess, will help to fill in many of the woeful blanks remaining in that record."

The Game Birds And Wild Fowl Of India : Being Descriptions Of All The Species Of Game Birds, Snipe, And Duck Found In India

T.C. Jerdon

1864

From the preface:

"The following pages are a verbatim transcript from the Author's Birds of India relating to the Game birds and Wild-fowl of India, and are put in a separate form to meet the views of such sportsmen as do not care to possess a general work on the Ornithology of India. The only birds omitted, which might perhaps have been introduced, are the European Crane, Grus cinerea, and the Demoiselle Crane, Anthropoides virgo, both occasionally called Koolung by sportsmen, though the name is properly restricted to the former bird; and these will be found described in the Birds of India, Vol. II, p. 664 et seq."

The Birds Of India: Being A Natural History Of All The Birds Known To Inhabit Continental India

Volume III

T.C. Jerdon

1864

This volume is also referred to as Volume II, Part II

From the preface:

"The author has at last the gratification of concluding his Birds of India, the compilation of which has occupied him incessantly for upwards of two years. The second part of this Volume has been delayed by the illness of the author, as well as by other causes beyond his control; and he is rejoiced to find, by the impatience of many of his correspondents and others, that the study of Ornithology is on the increase, and that the utility of the present work is already apparent. The number of species recorded is above one thousand, about double that of the Avifauna of Europe. The author mentions this to show that he has not been unnecessarily long over his task, about two years and one month; and that those who expected more were somewhat unreasonable in their views. Indeed, had he not been working under Government, and against time as it were, he certainly would have taken more time over the work, and the imperfections would have been fewer. None can be better aware than the author himself of the numerous imperfections and blemishes throughout the work, some of which have been kindly brought to his notice, and all of which he hopes to correct if a second edition be called for ; and with this view, the author most earnestly begs for information from all interested in the study of Ornithology, both with regard to any in- accuracies of the present work, and especially additional information on the habits, changes of plumage, &c, &c, of such birds as are least known."

The Birds Of India: Being A Natural History Of All The Birds Known To Inhabit Continental India

Volume II, Part I

T.C. Jerdon

1863

From the preface:

"In consequence of the time that the careful compilation of an Index will take, and other circumstances, the Author has been induced to issue the Second Volume in two parts. This will be attended with great additional expense to the Author; but, in consideration of the numerous observers, now fortunately scattered over the country, who are anxious for the early appearance of the Work, the Author has not grudged it. The concluding part will, he hopes, be issued in a few months."

The Birds Of India: Being A Natural History Of All The Birds Known To Inhabit Continental India

Volume I

T.C. Jerdon

1862

From the preface:

"The present work is the first of a series of Manuals which the Author proposes to bring out, if his health be spared, on the Natural History of the Vertebrated Animals of India. The want of such books has long been greatly felt in this country; and the increasing attention now paid to Natural History calls, more imperatively, for the fulfilment of this desideratum. The author's uninterrupted residence for above a quarter of a century in India, during which period he has diligently examined the Faunae of the different districts in which he has been a resident, or a traveller, has enabled him to give, in detail, from personal observation, the geographic distribution and limits of most of the animals of this country; for, with the exception of the North-West Provinces, the Punjab, and Sindh, he has traversed and re-traversed the length and breadth of the continent of India, and has also visited Burmah."

Illustrations Of Indian Ornithology

Containing Fifty Figures Of New, Unfigured And Interesting Species Of Birds, Chiefly From The South Of India

T.C. Jerdon

1847

Introduction:

"It is with much satisfaction that the Author has brought this work to a conclusion, though so long delayed by various obstacles. Forty-seven distinct species of Birds are represented in the fifty plates. The great majority of them are figured here for the first time, and either improved figures, or different states of plumage, compose the remainder of the drawings. Three of the birds are from the Himalayas, and one from Ceylon - all the rest inhabit the peninsula of India."

A Century Of Birds From The Himalaya Mountains

John Gould

From the preface:

"The acquisition of a small but valuable collection of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains by Mr. John Gould, F.L.S., Superintendent of the Ornithological Collection of the Zoological Society, afforded an opportunity, in the course of last year, of giving a sample of the Ornithology of that interesting range. The opportunity also occurring of employing the well-known abilities of Mrs. Gould in delineating these birds, it was considered expedient to make a selection of a hundred of the most important for publication, with the assurance of the execution of the Plates being equal to the interest of the subjects. The specimens were occasionally exhibited at the evening meetings of the Committee of Science and Correspondence of the Zoological Society, and descriptions given from time to time of the new species, which were subsequently published in the Proceedings of the Committee. In the course of the exhibition of the original collection, a few subjects were added from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, from the Museums at Glasgow and Liverpool, and that of the Hon. C. J. Shore, figures of which were incorporated in the Work. The Century is now completed: and the following detailed descriptions of the species are intended to accompany the Plates. The whole of the original specimens from which the Plates were taken, amounting to ninety, are deposited in the Museum of the Zoological Society, to which they were most liberally presented by Mr. Gould. A reference to the collections to which the remaining ten belong, will be added to the description of the respective species."

Indian Zoology

Thomas Pennant

1790

Advertisement:

"This work, or rather fragment, was begun in the year 1769. The descriptive part fell to my share: the expence of the plates was divided between Mr. Banks, now Sir Joseph Banks, Baronet; John Gideon Loten, Esq; a governor in Ceylon; and myself. Twelve only were engraved and published: soon after which, the undertaking appeared so arduous that the design was given over. It would be injustice to Mr. Loten not to say, that the etchings are taken from his fine collection of drawings made in India: for he alleviated the cares of life with the delicious pursuits of the study of Nature. I prevaled on my two friends to unite with me in presenting the learned John Reinhold Forster with the plates. I also bestowed on him three others, engraven at my own expence, before the work was dropped. These were never published in England; but when Dr. Forster left our island, he took the whole with him, and in 1781 printed, at Halle, in Saxony, an edition very highly improved, and translated into Latin and German. He prefixed to it a most elaborate lucubration de Finibus et Indole Aeris, Soli, Marifque Indici; described the subjects of the three additional plates; and inserted, after the description of the fifteenth plate, a most learned dissertation on the genus of the Birds of Paradise, and on the Phoenix. He added several notes; and at the end presented his readers with a Faunula of the quadrupeds and birds of the extensive region of India and its islands."