There's a moral in here somewhere. I'm just not sure where.

I have been reading with great enthusiasm David Quammen's new book, The Song
of the Dodo, Biogeography in an Age of Extinction.I was fortunate enough to
find an advance copy at Half-Price Books and I'm 400 pages through the 600 of
text. Its an excellent survey of biogeography, evolution, extinction etc.
During lunch today I was reading about his conversation with E. O. Wilson as
Wilson told about working with Robert MacArthur (one of my heros). This long
lead-in is to say that I have great respect for Quammen's work. This book
will be published in April.

At work I do have access to Alta Vista Web Browser through which I have
discovered many interesting Web pages. I was checking under David Quammen's
name today and I got a page I hadn't seen before of some letters to Outside
Magazine, for whom he has written a monthly column for 15 years. One of the
letters gently takes him to task for a column in which he implied that
magpies were specific to North America. The writer mentioned that indeed the
corvidae family has many relatives in europe. David responds with good nature
saying that indeed he had been sloppy because he forgot to mention that he
was talking about the magpie Pica pica, the Black-billed Magpie which the
Audubon Master Birding Series assures him is restricted to western US.

Well I don't have a copy of the Master Guide to birds but I doubt very much
that it says that. I'm very surprised that David didn't check maybe a second
source. Both my Peterson's say that Pica pica is also Eurasian in
distribution. There is a fine volume (T & AD Poyser) that I want to purchase
some day which discusses the Black-billed Magpie that lives in both North
America and Europe. (As a side bar how many species aside from the Herring
Gull, can claim dual citzenship, so to speak?)

Now of course I have spent the last two months at work as a science editor
checking lots of sources for each article I read and consequently I'm finding
lots of mistakes. Some rather glorious mistakes from professional writers.
But I must say I was surprised to see this from Quammen. The issue this
letter appeared in is a year old. I'm curious to go back and check if
somebody else in a future issue set him straight about the widespread magpie.


It reminds me how dangerous it is to write in the field of science. Reminds
me that I also found a 40 page rebuttal from the Environmental Defense Fund
to Gregg Easterbrook's book A Moment on the Earth. Excellent rebuttal.


Jim Rosso
Issaquah