Those who tried the pine siskin link I offered here yesterday have
discovered, or perhaps only rediscovered, the wealth of information
available via A. C. Bent's 21-volume work on N. American birds. Once out
of print, it was reissued in paperback by Dover Publications, where only
a few volumes remain in their catalog, but with time you can still
accumulate a full set by shopping in used-book stores.
        Since then dedicated editors (Biddle, Peterson, & Gordon) had  the
entire work scanned, and Birdzilla hosts it in searchable form. Beware
of typical scanning errors in the text, though. Bookmark it at
http://www.birdzilla.com/sub.asp?strType=omnibus_intro&strTitle=Birdzilla:+Wild+Bird+Omnibus
The commoner species are also at http://www.birdsbybent.com/index.html
  but not always copied in their entirety.
        Based on Bent in many ways, the newer "Birds of North America," with
far, far fewer copies in print, is available in some large libraries,
and is now on line for a hefty subscription fee. Recently endowed with
audio files and color photos and updated bibliographies, it includes
what has been learned since Bent's day (often surprisingly little) about
the life histories of our birds. Its authors are far more likely to be
academics. Each species has its own author(s), and the quality is uneven
because the acknowledged experts on each are far from regularly among
them. The intimate acquaintances of younger authors--and  there are many
of them--with species can be too narrow in scope because of the
limitations of their institutional research topics.
        The BNA accounts rely on the same 300+ years of N. American experience
as does Bent, adding discoveries of the past few decades.  BNA authors
have seldom sought as much data from experienced field observers as Bent
did, and usually only summarize or cite his work for such purposes. The
BNA accounts are *not* a substitute, or even in many ways an improvement
on, the earlier work. If I had access to only one, I'd choose Bent, even
though the BNA is a great reference overall.
        Actually, it's remarkable that having successfully sold all their
printed copies long ago (for far more than the Bent books would cost if
published even today), Cornell and the AOU and the Philadelphia Academy
are still selling the BNA via yearly subscriptions on-line for $42 a
year. This would be more understandable if they'd put the final 2002
texts on line, and charged only for subsequent revisions and new
features.  If you have institutional academic affiliations--even as an
athlete, fund-raiser, or maintenance worker--you can consult it for
free, but if you are a bird enthusiast living far from a quite
substantial library you have few options. Why doesn't Cornell offer Bent
on line, too, if they want to inform birders? Because they couldn't get
away with charging for it? Another example of cashing in on the
popularity of birding, even if it keeps information from some who can
learn from it.
Bill Whan
Columbus

______________________________________________________________________

Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society.
Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list.
Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/.

You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS
Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]