"Field Guide To Birds Of The West Indies" 1947 BOND, James (SOLD)

"Field Guide To Birds Of The West Indies" 1947 BOND, James (SOLD)A Guide to All the Species of Birds Known From the Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles and Bahama Islands BOND, James James Bond was born in Philadelphia and worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences in the same city as the curator of the local bird collection. He became an expert in the field of Caribbean birds and in 1936 published the first edition of his book "Birds of the West Indies", which today is still considered a standard work. Until the

A Guide to All the Species of Birds Known From the Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles and Bahama Islands

BOND, James

James Bond was born in Philadelphia and worked at the Academy of Natural Sciences in the same city as the curator of the local bird collection. He became an expert in the field of Caribbean birds and in 1936 published the first edition of his book "Birds of the West Indies", which today is still considered a standard work. Until the publication of "A Guide to the Birds of the West Indies" in 1998, Bond's was the only book that dealt with Caribbean birds. Bond was awarded the Musgrave Medal of the Institute of Jamaica (1952), the William Brewster Medal from the American Ornithological Union (1954) for his magnum opus "Field Guide to the Birds of the West Indies: A Guide to All the Species of Birds Known From the Greater Antilles, Lesser Antilles and Bahama Islands", and the Leidy Medal from the Academy of Natural Sciences (1975). 

The Macmillan Company

1947

Line Drawings by Earl Poole

VG/ VG

Ian Fleming, creator of 007, was an avid bird watcher and knew James Bond when they both lived in Jamaica. He chose the name for the protagonist of his first book, "Casino Royale", and a legend was born!

Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond's guide and he later explained to the ornithologist's wife that "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born." In a Reader's Digest interview, Fleming noted, "I wanted the simplest, dullest, plainest sounding name I could find, and James Bond, was something more interesting, like Peregrine Carruthers. Exotic things would happen to and around him, but he would be a neutral anonymous, blunt instrument wielded by a government department."