''Birds of the West Indies'' () is a book containing exhaustive coverage of the 400+ species of birds found in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea ( es, Mar Caribe; french: Mer des Caraïbes; ht, Lanmè Karayib; jam, Kiaribiyan Sii; nl, Caraïbische Zee; pap, Laman Karibe) is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. It is bounded by Mexico ...

, excluding the ABC islands, and

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

, which are considered bio-geographically as part of

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

. Written by ornithologist

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

, the book was first published in

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – George V of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India, dies at his Sandringham Estate. The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King E ...

by the

Academy of Natural Sciences The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, formerly the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, is the oldest natural science research institution and museum in the Americas. It was founded in 1812, by many of the leading natura ...

as part of the ''International Series''. It was reprinted in 1947 by Macmillan as ''Field Guide of Birds of the West Indies'' and has been reprinted several times since then, including as one of the

Peterson Field Guides The Peterson Field Guides (PFG) are a popular and influential series of American field guides intended to assist the layman in identification of birds, plants, insects and other natural phenomena. The series was created and edited by renowned ornith ...

series (PFG 18), a September 1, 1999, edition from

Houghton Mifflin The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...

and a March 4, 2002 edition from Collins. The book contains approximately 256 pages. The book was the only text exclusively devoted to the avifauna of the region for many decades until '' A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies'' (), by Herbert Raffaele et al., was published in 1998.

Inspiration for Ian Fleming

''Birds of the West Indies'' was a book owned by novelist Ian Fleming, who used the ornithologist's name for his own fictional British secret agent character, Commander

.* Fleming, a keen bird watcher while living at his estate in

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

, owned this book. He later explained that the author's name was "brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon, and yet very masculine – just what I needed." Fleming once said in a ''

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wif ...

'' interview: "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest-sounding name I could find, and 'James Bond' was much better than something more interesting, like 'Peregrine Carruthers.' Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral figure — an anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department." The book has since become a collector's item amongst Bond fans and was featured as an homage in the twentieth James Bond film, ''

Die Another Day ''Die Another Day'' is a 2002 spy film and the twentieth film in the ''James Bond'' series produced by Eon Productions. It was produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and directed by Lee Tamahori. The fourth and final film st ...

'', when Bond poses as an ornithologist while in

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

. The final shot of the miniseries '' Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond'' is of a copy of ''Birds of the West Indies'' next to Ian Fleming's typewriter.

References

{{Reflist

External links

A Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies by James Bond, published by HMCo Field Guides, 1999
(Limited view) 1936 non-fiction books 1999 non-fiction books 2002 non-fiction books Bird field guides Books about the Caribbean Ornithological handbooks

Inspiration for Ian Fleming

See also

References

External links