The Cowbirds: A Study in the Biology of Social Parasitism

Bookplate of American naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author William Beebe on the front pastedown.

Very good copy with slight cocking and wear to spine. Burnt-orange-decorated cloth boards. Upper right corner of half-title page clipped. Interior is clean and unmarked.

From The Auk: Vol. 46: Iss. 3, Article 57:

As many of our readers are aware Dr. Herbert Friedmann has been, for some years, investigating the subject of parasitism in birds, a topic which has brought into print more nonsense and pure theory and fiction than perhaps any other phase of bird life, and which was in need of much scientific investigation.

The work now before us comprises the results of his field work on the Cowbirds--three years intensive study of the Eastern Cowbird at Ithaca, N.Y., one breeding season spent in Argentina and one on the Texas-Mexican border, investigating the Cowbirds found there; also the results of an exhaustive study of the literature of the subiect.

Dr. Friedmann has brought together a most valuable mass of information and has placed his subject on a basis where definite advance in our knowledge should be more easily possible. The book is well printed and the numerous photographs of nests and young add to its interest. Dr. Friedmann is to be congratulated upon his painstaking study of the complicated problem of parasitism.