I recently turned to these two volumes to seek some general information about bird reproduction in order to explore a few comparative ideas emerging from my own work centered around sperm evolution, reproductive strategies and sexual selection. I could not help being drawn in, and ended up reading all (or at least specific sections of nearly all) chapters. Jamieson assembled an impressive team of authors for these volumes, and the result is uniquely complexioned and integrative coverage of bird reproductive biology. Scholarship generally runs high, with both historical and cutting edge coverage of many subjects. Jamieson's own contribution of an avian spermatozoa chapter is superb...virtually exhaustive treatment of a rather vast and (for me) daunting literature. It will serve as the point of departure for all future work on the subject.



The books themselves are high quality productions and richly illustrated. Given the large number of electron micrographs, histological illustrations and colored clades, etc., the care that went into book production really pays off, and leaves me concluding that these books are well worth the price. I easily recommend them as a necessary part of every university library, and encourage any biologist interested in birds - or more generally in comparative reproductive biology - to keep them on their shelf.