Re: national audubon society bashing

[Joshua Stuart Rose <jsr6@duke.edu>]

Hi again,

In defense of the NAS "Field Guides", I have to point out that they 
probably have the most useful and informative text of any guide I have 
read. I've always had the habit of sitting down and reading guides at 
home, not just in the field right after seeing some little yellow or 
brown thing or big white thing. The NAS guides don't begin to compare to 
NGS or Peterson for identification purposes, but for a quick reference on 
the range, habitat, food preferences, and other background information, 
they are probably the best thing this side of the internet. Granted, I 
have not seen the recent editions, but when I was a teenager ('80s) they 
were really useful and interesting. The non-bird guides - of which NAS 
has published many - were equally useful, and equally flawed, for pretty 
much the same reasons.

Joshua S. Rose
Duke University
Department of Zoology

jsr6@acpub.duke.edu
http://www.duke.edu/~jsr6/