Field guide
Encyclopedia
A field guide is a book
designed to help the reader identify wildlife
(plant
s or animal
s) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. mineral
s). It is generally designed to be brought into the 'field' or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects. Field guides are often designed to help users distinguish animals and plants that may be similar in appearance but are not necessarily closely related.
It will typically include a description of the objects covered, together with painting
s or photograph
s and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification key
s to assist with identification, but the publicly-accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, color, shape, location or other descriptors.
and plant
guides. Perhaps the first popular field guide to plants in the United States
was the 1893 How to Know the Wildflowers by "Mrs. William Starr Dana" (Frances Theodora Parsons
). In 1902, Florence Merriam Bailey
, wife of well-known zoologist Vernon Bailey
wrote a Handbook of Birds of the Western United States which was arranged by taxonomic order
and had clear descriptions of species
size, distribution, feeding and nesting habits, resembling the modern field guide. From this point to the 1930s, many much more modern parts of field guides were tried out by Chester A. Reed and others such as changing the size of the book to fit the pocket, including color plates, and different subjects such as garden
and woodland
flower
s, insect
s and dog
s.
In 1934, Roger Tory Peterson
, using his fine skill as an artis
t, changed the way modern field guides approached identification. Using color plates with painting
s of similar species together - and marked with arrows showing the differences - people could use his bird guide in the field to compare species quickly to make identification easier. This technique, the "Peterson Identification System
", was used in most of Peterson's Field Guides from animal tracks
to seashell
s and has been widely adopted by other publishers and authors as well.
Also popular in the 1960s were the Golden Guide
s which expanded the range of subjects of what a field guide could address, including antique glass
, wine
, photography
and hallucinogenic plants (often written by experts in their respective field - the latter was written by Schultes
, a respected name in ethnobotany
). This series was mostly edited by Herbert Zim
for Golden Press.
Today, each field guide has its own range, focus and organization. Specialist publishers such as Croom Helm, along with organisations like the Audubon Society, the RSPB, the Field Studies Council
, National Geographic, HarperCollins
, and many others all produce quality field guides.
For general public use, the main function of a field guide is to help the reader identify a bird, plant, rock, butterfly or other natural object down to at least the popular naming level. To this end some field guides employ simple keys and other techniques: the reader is usually encouraged to scan illustrations looking for a match, and to compare similar-looking choices using information on their differences. Guides are often designed to first lead readers to the appropriate section of the book, where the choices are not so overwhelming in number.
Guides for students often introduce the concept of identification key
s. Plant field guides such as Newcombs frequently have an abbreviated key that helps limit the search. Insect guides tend to limit identification to Order or Family levels rather than individual species, due to their diversity.
Many taxa show variability and it is often difficult to capture the constant features using a small number of photographs. Illustrations by artists or post processing of photographs help in emphasising specific features needed to for reliable identification. Peterson introduced the idea of lines to point to these key features. He also noted the advantages of illustrations over photographs:
Field guides aid in improving the state of knowledge of various taxa. By making the knowledge of experienced museum specialists available to amateurs, they increase the gathering of information by amateurs from a wider geographic area and increasing the communication of these findings to the specialists.
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
designed to help the reader identify wildlife
Wildlife
Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
(plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s or animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
s). It is generally designed to be brought into the 'field' or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects. Field guides are often designed to help users distinguish animals and plants that may be similar in appearance but are not necessarily closely related.
It will typically include a description of the objects covered, together with painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s or photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...
s and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification key
Identification key
In biology, an identification key is a printed or computer-aided device that aids the identification of biological entities, such as plants, animals, fossils, microorganisms, and pollen grains...
s to assist with identification, but the publicly-accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, color, shape, location or other descriptors.
History
Popular interests in identifying things in nature probably were strongest in birdBird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
and plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
guides. Perhaps the first popular field guide to plants in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
was the 1893 How to Know the Wildflowers by "Mrs. William Starr Dana" (Frances Theodora Parsons
Frances Theodora Parsons
Frances Theodora Parsons , usually writing as Mrs. William Starr Dana was an American botanist and author active in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Her first husband, William Starr Dana , was a naval officer...
). In 1902, Florence Merriam Bailey
Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey
Florence Augusta Merriam Bailey was an American ornithologist and nature writer. She was born in Locust Grove, New York. The third child in her family, she was the younger sister of Clinton Hart Merriam.-Life and work:...
, wife of well-known zoologist Vernon Bailey
Vernon Orlando Bailey
Vernon Orlando Bailey was an American naturalist who specialist in mammalogy. He was employed by the Bureau of Biological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture . His contributions to the Bureau of Biological Survey numbered roughly 13,000 specimens including many new species...
wrote a Handbook of Birds of the Western United States which was arranged by taxonomic order
Taxonomic order
Taxonomic sequence is a sequence followed in listing of taxa which aids ease of use and roughly reflects the evolutionary relationships among the taxa...
and had clear descriptions of species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
size, distribution, feeding and nesting habits, resembling the modern field guide. From this point to the 1930s, many much more modern parts of field guides were tried out by Chester A. Reed and others such as changing the size of the book to fit the pocket, including color plates, and different subjects such as garden
Garden
A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials. The most common form today is known as a residential garden, but the term garden has...
and woodland
Woodland
Ecologically, a woodland is a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade. Woodlands may support an understory of shrubs and herbaceous plants including grasses. Woodland may form a transition to shrubland under drier conditions or during early stages of...
flower
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s, insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s and dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
s.
In 1934, Roger Tory Peterson
Roger Tory Peterson
Roger Tory Peterson , was an American naturalist, ornithologist, artist, and educator, and held to be one of the founding inspirations for the 20th century environmental movement.-Background:...
, using his fine skill as an artis
Artis
Artis, short for Natura Artis Magistra , is a zoo in the centre of Amsterdam. It is the oldest zoo in the Netherlands...
t, changed the way modern field guides approached identification. Using color plates with painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
s of similar species together - and marked with arrows showing the differences - people could use his bird guide in the field to compare species quickly to make identification easier. This technique, the "Peterson Identification System
Peterson Identification System
The Peterson Identification System is a practical method for the field identification of animals, plants and other natural phenomena. It was devised by ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson in 1934 for the first of his series of Field Guides Peterson devised his system "so that live birds could be...
", was used in most of Peterson's Field Guides from animal tracks
Animal tracks
Animal tracks are the imprints left behind in soil, snow, mud, or other ground surfaces that an animal walk across. Animal tracks are used by hunters in tracking their prey and by naturalists to identify animals living in a given area....
to seashell
Seashell
A seashell or sea shell, also known simply as a shell, is a hard, protective outer layer created by an animal that lives in the sea. The shell is part of the body of the animal. Empty seashells are often found washed up on beaches by beachcombers...
s and has been widely adopted by other publishers and authors as well.
Also popular in the 1960s were the Golden Guide
Golden Guide
The Golden Guides, originally Golden Nature Guides, are a series of pocket-sized books that were created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line, primarily a children's book imprint, beginning in 1949...
s which expanded the range of subjects of what a field guide could address, including antique glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
, wine
Wine
Wine is an alcoholic beverage, made of fermented fruit juice, usually from grapes. The natural chemical balance of grapes lets them ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes, or other nutrients. Grape wine is produced by fermenting crushed grapes using various types of yeast. Yeast...
, photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
and hallucinogenic plants (often written by experts in their respective field - the latter was written by Schultes
Richard Evans Schultes
Richard Evans Schultes may be considered the father of modern ethnobotany, for his studies of indigenous peoples' uses of plants, including especially entheogenic or hallucinogenic plants , for his lifelong collaborations with chemists, and...
, a respected name in ethnobotany
Ethnobotany
Ethnobotany is the scientific study of the relationships that exist between people and plants....
). This series was mostly edited by Herbert Zim
Herbert Zim
Herbert Spencer Zim was a naturalist, author, editor and educator best known as the founder and editor in chief of the Golden Guides series of nature books.-Biography:...
for Golden Press.
Today, each field guide has its own range, focus and organization. Specialist publishers such as Croom Helm, along with organisations like the Audubon Society, the RSPB, the Field Studies Council
Field Studies Council
The Field Studies Council is an educational charity based in the UK. It opened its first Field Centre in 1947 at Flatford Mill, and now operates 17 Field Centres in various locations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland offering both residential and non-residential field courses...
, National Geographic, HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
, and many others all produce quality field guides.
Principles
It is somewhat difficult to generalise about how field guides are intended to be used, because this varies from one guide to another, partly depending on how expert the targeted reader is expected to be.For general public use, the main function of a field guide is to help the reader identify a bird, plant, rock, butterfly or other natural object down to at least the popular naming level. To this end some field guides employ simple keys and other techniques: the reader is usually encouraged to scan illustrations looking for a match, and to compare similar-looking choices using information on their differences. Guides are often designed to first lead readers to the appropriate section of the book, where the choices are not so overwhelming in number.
Guides for students often introduce the concept of identification key
Identification key
In biology, an identification key is a printed or computer-aided device that aids the identification of biological entities, such as plants, animals, fossils, microorganisms, and pollen grains...
s. Plant field guides such as Newcombs frequently have an abbreviated key that helps limit the search. Insect guides tend to limit identification to Order or Family levels rather than individual species, due to their diversity.
Many taxa show variability and it is often difficult to capture the constant features using a small number of photographs. Illustrations by artists or post processing of photographs help in emphasising specific features needed to for reliable identification. Peterson introduced the idea of lines to point to these key features. He also noted the advantages of illustrations over photographs:
Field guides aid in improving the state of knowledge of various taxa. By making the knowledge of experienced museum specialists available to amateurs, they increase the gathering of information by amateurs from a wider geographic area and increasing the communication of these findings to the specialists.
External links
- The International Field Guides database, by Diane Schmidt. From the site's introduction: "This site merges the book A Guide to Field Guides: Identifying the Natural History of North America by Diane Schmidt, Biology Librarian at the University of Illinois, and its companion Web site International Field Guides."
- A Guide to Golden Guides