A Gorgeous–and Affordable–Introduction to the Hummingbirds

A review by Grant McCreary

Hummingbirds, by John C. Arvin

Gorgas Science Foundation, 2016

216 pages, $60—hardcover

One of the great milestones in the history of natural history books is John Gould’s Monograph of the Trochilidae, or Family of Humming- Birds. Published in 25 parts between 1849 and 1861, the five original volumes contain an amazing 360 hand-colored lithographs; a posthumous supplement, published between 1880 and 1887, added another 58 plates to the total. These plates were—they still are are—something special. In order to better convey hummingbirds’ iridescence, Gould devised a new method of coloring the plates with gold and other metallic pigments, literally making the birds sparkle. The challenge of reproducing the hummingbirds’ colors may be a reason why no one has undertaken a similarly ambitious monograph in the more than 150 years since. The family Trochilidae remains overwhelming popular, though, and so does Gould’s art: A single plate fetches $1,000 or more today, and complete sets regularly bring more than $200,000 at auction.

Now, the Gorgas Science Foundation is taking on Gould’s mantle by publishing its own two-volume, large-format monograph of the Trochilidae. The first volume of Hummingbirds covers 127 species that regularly occur anywhere in North or Central America or the Caribbean, or slightly less than half of the family. A number of those birds are essentially South American species that also occur just over “the line”: The White-chested Emerald, for example, ranges along the northern coast of South America, but it also occurs on Trinidad, and thus is included. It’s unclear whether these same birds will also appear in the forthcoming Volume 2, but it seems unlikely, given how substantially the duplication would increase that book’s size.

Like its distinguished nineteenth-century predecessor, Hummingbirds features large plates, measuring 12×16 inches; there are 97 all told, each portraying one or two species with the birds posed naturally in typical habitat. It’s almost impossible to do these dazzling birds justice on the page, as Gould’s artists discovered, but the plates here come as close as I’ve seen. Still, some don’t quite work. Take, for example, the Blue-headed Hummingbird. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the plate, but it just doesn’t come close to capturing the spectacular bird as I remember it. Perhaps that’s attributable more to my sensitivities than to the art itself, but I imagine most readers will feel that way about one or more of these plates.

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