And Orchids

Birds Of Paradise

Deluxe Editions

Birds of paradise and orchids are the subjects of two magnifi cent, and expensive, books this month.

The more magnificent, and expen sive, is Orchids of Australia, the complete edition, by W. H. Nicholls, just published by Nelsons, Australia and selling for $3O. A deluxe edition limited to 150 numbered copies is also available, selling for $7O each.

This regular edition is luxurious enough. It comprises 476 colour plates on orchids, and 130 pages of information on each plant in turn.

There are more than 400 species illustrated in this extraordinarily beautiful book, which is more than half the total of species in Australia.

The plates were drawn by W. H.

Nicholls, who died in 1951, shortly after a publishing programme had been launched to produce all his work in parts over a decade. With his death the scheme lapsed, al though some parts were published.

This book now brings all of his work together for the first time, with con siderable editing by D. L, Jones and T. B. Muir.

It’s a book that serious orchid fanciers will have to have.

Birds of Paradise and Bower Birds is also the work of an expert now dead—the celebrated E. Thomas Gilliard, who will always be remem bered warmly in New Guinea be cause of the contacts he made over many years of research there.

He was in New Guinea with the US Army during the war and be tween 1948 and 1964 he led seven separate expeditions there, collecting and observing. He died in New York in 1965, shortly after the manuscript of this volume was put into the hands of the editor.

The book is part of Weidenfeld and Nicholson’s “World Naturalist” series, and Australian retail price is $lB. Our copy came through the Australian agents, Hicks Smith and Sons Pty. Ltd.

In more than 500 pages he explains in detail these birds—where they are to be found, their habits and an extraordinary amount of other infor mation of interest. He has much to say, for instance about the early plume collectors.

This is a book the layman can enjoy.