Life Histories of North American Birds by Arthur Cleveland Bent

The complete unabridged 23 volume masterpiece of American ornithology

• This collection is a scanned to PDF copy of each individual volume from the original Smithsonian Institution series.  The set contains dozens of color plates and over 1000 black & white plates unlike the Dover reprints most people are familiar with that removed most of the plates.  There are 13,000 pages total.

• A.C. Bent's monumental work is the most oft-cited reference in North American ornithology, valued both for its extensive detail and anecdotal charm. It is as necessary to a birder's library as a Peterson field guide.

• Bent’s extraordinary Life Histories of North American Birds, published in a 23 volume series (1919-1968), provided behavioral information not available in the standard field guides. These pioneering studies are the durable foundation on which almost all other compilations of North American bird biology (including the contemporary Birds of North America) rest. In them Bent and his collaborators present, in enthusiastic, readable prose, comprehensive information about courtship, nesting, eggs, young, plumages, food, behavior, voice, enemies, and more. Readers who supplement their field guides with these delightful accounts acquire a deeper understanding of both the birds and their observers (as well as an interesting cultural history lesson).

• Read personal accounts of rare and extinct North American birds like the Labrador Duck, Great Auk, Passenger Pigeon, Bachman's Warbler, Carolina Parakeet, Ivory-billed Woodpecker,  Heath Hen, and California Condor.

• These volumes are packed with detailed information on current subspecies, many of which were deemed full species at the time and many are now being returned to that status.  Examples are 6 species of Blue Grouse including the re-split Dusky and Sooty, 5 species of Spruce Grouse, 26 species and subspecies of Chickadees, and an amazing 35 types of jays including the recently re-split Woodhouse's Scrub Jay.

Free Bonus Material

Index to Bent's 'Life Histories of  North American Birds' by Oesher (1971). Each of Bent’s volumes contains an index but no index to the entire series was published with the set until National Geographic Society published its own in 1971. It  is quite scarce now days.

Your Life Histories disk also includes free the book Life Histories Of North American Birds (1892) by Charles Bendire. 

Bendire’s book was the predecessor of Bent’s series.  Other extras included are brief biographies of AC Bent, contemporary reviews of the series, and a few other PDFs with interesting info about Bent and the series.

e-Library is committed to quality.

• Each ebook is an exact copy of the original book scanned to PDF format which is viewable on all main stream eBook readers and tablets such as Kindle, Nook, iPad, and Android based tablets as well as many smart phones.

• A computer with a DVD drive is required to open the DVD. Once opened the  books can be read on your computer or transferred to your e-reader, tablet or smart phone.

            This collection will come on a DVD due to its large size (~ 1GB).  If you do not

             have a DVD drive let us know and we’ll put the collection on 2 CDs instead.

• All the books in the series have all the original plates and illustrations and every word as originally printed.  Any and all pages including artwork can be copied or printed.  The pages and artwork can be saved to photo files such as JPEG on your computer if you want. The text is all searchable and can be copied and pasted into any word processing software. 

• 'Read Out Loud' is a Text-to-Speech tool that is built into most PDF readers today and these ebooks fully support that technology.  Any of the volumes can be listened to if you desire.

• The DVD comes custom printed as shown. It does not have one of those cheap stick-on paper labels that can often degrade the quality of the DVD or even worse, damage your DVD player.   It comes in a full size DVD case with attractive cover art and the title clearly printed on the spine. We designed our e-Libraries to be shelved with your other books and to be easily findable.

• This is not some cheap DVD with a single PDF file packed with multiple titles that is shipped to you in a paper sleeve. It won’t get lost among all your other disks or get tossed in a drawer and scratched up. e-Library collections are meant to last a lifetime.

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