My Tropical Air Castle: Nature Studies in Panama

1929, First Edition. Hardcover in fair condition.

Ex-library, Label on spine, stamp on front endpaper. Shelf wear to front and back covers, spine. Foxing on top edge of pages and first few pages.

Frank M. Chapman was well known as an ornithologist, and as the Curator of Birds at the American Museum of Natural History. He studied wildlife throughout Tropical America, and prepared a report of the birds of Panama Canal Zone as early as 1918. My Tropical Air Castle is his account of staying in his casa mia on Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in the late 1920s, run by the Institute for Research in Tropical America. His personal accounts of living at the jungle’s edge parallels the early history of the beginning of what would become the Canal Zone Biological Area, and eventually the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). This is an extremely important work for the history of STRI, which at the time was a lively read for the American public, and a must read for any visitors of BCI!

Black and white photographs by author. Illustrated with drawings by Francis L. Jaques.