The Birds of Golden Gate Park

San Francisco: California Academy of Sciences, 1930. First edition. Hardcover. Very good. Handbook written by the curator emeritus of the department of ornithology at the California Academy of Sciences. Features ink drawings for each bird by Frank Tose and his son, Cecil. Concise descriptions and illustrations of around 100 birds frequently observed in the Park make this a charming and still useful booklet.

Bound in beige pictorial cloth, with bottom bumped corner and some staining on the spine. "Since its development from the sand dune stage, Golden Gate Park has become a well known visiting ground for bird lovers of all ages, for students of our vicinal bird life and for many others who might, with a little encouragement, become bird lovers. Extending from the ocean beach for three miles straight into the city of San Francisco and covering a thousand acres of hill and dale, wood and meadowland, it is a great outdoor aviary, where wild birds are free to come and go.

From time to time records and partial lists of the birds of the Park have appeared, all of limited scope. In recent years, however, there has been a growing demand for a handbook of convenient size that would contain a comprehensive list of the Park birds, accompanied by sufficient description as to enable students and interested visitors readily to determine their species. The present writer was repeatedly asked to undertake this work and finally was prevailed upon to do so, as time and circumstance might permit." -Joseph Mailliard, 1930.