A Review of All Lory Books Ever Published.

1. Batty, Joseph (1991). Lories in Aviculture.
2. Cestero, Emmett (1999). Lories and Lorikeets.
3. Goss, Michael (1990). Lories.
4. Low, Rosemary (1998). Encyclopedia of Lories and Lorikeets.
5. Low, Rosemary (1977). Lories and Lorikeets.
6. Martin, Phyllis (1998).All About Lorys (sic) and Lorikeets.
7. Mivart, St. Geoffrey (1892). A Monograph of the Lories, or Brush-tongued Parrots, Composing the Family Loriidae.
8. Odekerken, Peter (1995). A Guide to Lories & Lorikeets: Their Management, Care & Breeding.
9. Ruggles, Alison (1996). Lories & Lorikeets: The Brush-tongued Parrots and Their Care in Aviculture.
10. Sindel, Stan (1986). Australian Lorikeets.
11. Sweeney, Roger (1993). Handbook of Lories & Lorikeets.
12. Vanderhoof, John (1991). Lories and Lorikeets in Aviculture.
13. Vriends, Matthew (1993). Lories & Lorikeets: A Complete Owner's Manual.
14. Wentworth, William (1997). A Guide to Owning Lories and Lorikeets.

Emmett Cestero. Lories and Lorikeets. Paperback. US $12.50. (Dimefast Limited, 1999, ISBN 1-88841-777-3).

This book review will likely never be written, since the book has never been released, to the best of my knowledge.

I was told that this book was due to be released in August, 1999, and so I ran down to the University bookstore and ordered it. The University bookstore is very good at getting me whatever bird books that my little heart desires -- however, the publisher, Dimefast (Fastdime?) has apparently fallen off the face of the earth. not only does "Fastdime" not ship books to major bookstores in the United States, but they also don't answer their telephones. I also ordered an already existing lory book from this same publisher (by Phyllis Martin), and it has not arrived, either! The good people at the University Bookstore are completely mystified by Fastdime's disappearance.

Michael W. Goss. Lories. 93 pp. Hardcover. $12.95. (TFH Publications, Inc., 1990, ISBN 0-86622-848-9).

This book is poorly-written and badly edited, containing sentences that are so poorly constructed that they simply make no sense at all. The information is poorly organized and the presentation is frequently confusing. Additionally, there are many glaring gramatic and spelling errors in the text. The excessive repetitiveness is quite annoying since it appears as though the author possesses limited facts about lories and, in order to fill up the pages that he was contracted to write for this book, he found it necessary to repeat his few facts four or five times. There are many color photographs in this book -- probably more photos than facts -- but I found many of these photographs to be over-exposed or the birds' colors over-emphasized so as to be inaccurate. Overall, most of the photographs are of very poor quality.
NOT RECOMMENDED.

Rosemary Low. Hancock House Encyclopedia of the Lories . Hancock House Publishers, Blaine, WA (USA) and Surrey, B.C. (Canada), 1998. Hardcover, 432pp, 180 color and 8 black and white photographs, also 3 drawings, 43 maps, and 75 tables and figures. ISBN: 0-88839-413-6. US$70 (pictured); US$300 for the Collector's Edition (available through Cuttlebone Plus, PO Box 305, Fallbrook, CA, 92028, USA, or from the publisher).

The colorful plumage and playful nature of the Loriinae have attracted attention from many aviculturists and birdkeepers throughout the years. For some, lack of knowledge about the lories has given these birds the reputation as being "messy" and "difficult to keep." Yet, there are some aviculturists who not only admire the lories but know how to raise and care for them in captivity. One such aviculturist is Rosemary Low: few people have done as much as Ms. Low to promote and safeguard the welfare of captive lories. Her latest book, The Hancock House Encyclopedia of the Lories, is the most up-to-date and comprehensive overview of lories yet, providing loriculturists, veterinarians, pet owners and interested others a definitive look at the art and science of keeping and breeding lories.

The Encyclopedia, which took ten years to complete, is a 432 page hard cover volume that is printed on high-quality paper. The colorful cover painting, depicting a small family of Red-collared Lorikeets (Trichoglossus haematodus rubritorquis), is by Rachel Lewis. The more expensive collector's edition has a classy forest-green binding emblazoned with the title in gold-colored letters. Each collector's edition is numbered, autographed by the author and includes limited-edition, autographed prints of the Red-chinned Lorikeet (Charmosyna rubrigularis), painted by Gamini Ratnavira. These prints are suitable for framing.

The Encyclopedia is divided into four parts. The "Alphabetical Listing of Topics" includes more than 90 essays on various aspects of lories and lory keeping, such as dietary protein, hand-rearing, breeding problems, ringing (banding), feather plucking and species suitable for beginners. The dietary and feeding sections are especially readable and informative; including some food recipes used by lory breeders in different countries. I also enjoyed the essays about lory tongue structure and the possible relationship between juvenile food-begging calls and lory evolution.

The second part, "Lory Species Accounts," comprises more than half of the book's length. Compelling and interesting to lory breeders and ornithologists alike, these accounts are updated and entirely rewritten from Ms. Low's earlier lory book (the classic Lories and Lorikeets, 1977). Her writing style is familiar but authoritative, skillfully weaving together personal, avicultural, ornithological and scientific observations into interesting essays about each of the 53 lory species. These species accounts include detailed descriptions of adult and immature birds, subspecies and sexual dimorphisms, followed by a treatise of the natural history of the species and up-to-date avicultural accounts. I was especially interested in the reports of two extinct lory species, described from subfossils found in the Marquesas and Society Islands. This section also includes maps showing each species' natural range. Particularly interesting to lory breeders and pet owners, the species accounts are preceded by a general overview of the genus, describing basic characteristics for the entire genus, such as basic plumage patterns, pet qualities and food preferences.

Parts three and four, which comprise a mere six pages each, are limited in their appeal and would have been more appropriate as appendices rather than having the same status as the first two parts of the book. "Lorikeets in Australian Gardens" is a plea to Australians to plant "lorikeet gardens" composed of favored native plants to attract wild lories instead of providing artificial foods in backyard bird feeders. Also included in this section was some survey data that I found to be somewhat confusing. "Gazetteer" lists in alphabetical order the islands where lories are commonly found, so a traveler to the region can more easily locate specific lory species.

Near the middle of the book are 48 pages of high-quality color photographs depicting many species and subspecies of lories at different ages, including some unusual color mutations and a few species that rarely are depicted in photographs. My personal favorites are the lovely portraits of the White-naped Lory (Lorius albidinuchalis, p. 108) and the Blue-streaked Lory (Eos reticulata, p. 115). Other interesting photographs include a Papuan medicine man wearing a colorful headdress containing lory feathers and a series of pictures detailing the growth and development of a red lory chick from hatching through fledging (p. 118). The drawings are nice, especially Rachel Lewis's drawing of the lorikeet sticking its tongue out of its mouth (p. 154); however, I think this drawing would have been more instructive if several detailed studies of the tongue had been included as insets, particularly since the text mentions structural differences of the tongue between some lory genera.

Unfortunately, several formatting and stylistic errors passed unnoticed through the editorial process. The author relies heavily upon tables instead of graphs to display data. Graphical depictions of dynamic data, such as weight gain over time in lory chicks (as shown in the figure on page 61, contrast with the table on p. 273), are appropriate and are much easier for the reader to see. Additionally, the tables were the victims of poor editing: they were often continued from one column to the next (p. 240, for example), making them difficult to understand. Several minor problems included some sources that were not cited and a few referenced page numbers that were in error.

Despite its few faults, The Encyclopedia of the Lories is the most complete book yet published about the aviculture and natural history of the lories, and anyone interested in lories -- as all parrot lovers ought to be -- should buy and read this book.

Sample Chapter.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Rosemary Low. Lories and Lorikeets: The Brush-tongued Parrots 180 pp with a map and color photographs by various photographers. Originally published in 1977 by Paul Elek Limited, London, UK. Variable prices (currently out-of-print but still available in the USA in specialty and used bookstores. Republished in the USA.) Paper (pictured). $17.95 (TFH Publications, Inc., 1990, ISBN 0-86622-142-5). Also, hardcover. $22.50 (Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1977, ISBN 0-422-24898-9).

This is the best book about Loriinae that has been published through 1998. Originally published in 1977, this was the only book about lories that was available to the general public for many years. This book is well-researched, presenting information reported by ornithologists and zoo keepers in addition to many avicultural observations. The writing is well-edited and consistent throughout, and the book contains much useful information about general and specific aspects of lory care. Behavioral accounts are also included and are quite interesting. Physical descriptions of individual species and subspecies plumage variations are skillfully written. Unfortunately, the recipes described in the "feeding" chapter contain ingredients that are mysterious to the average American and therefore, are impossible to duplicate. The other flaw is the variable quality of the photographs and the small number of species that are pictured. The paperback edition has more photographs of various lory species than either of the hardcovered editions. Most of these photographs are of good quality, although several are over-exposed or under-exposed, and at least one photograph shows highly exaggerated plumage coloring. This book can be difficult to find at times, but it is well-worth the search. Despite these flaws, I highly recommend this book.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Phyllis Martin. All about Lorys and Lorikeets. 80 pp. Paperback. US $9.50. (Dimefast, 1998, ISBN: 1-88841-786-2).

La, la-la-la, la-la ... I am still waiting for this book to make its appearance in my mailbox. I ordered it in 1998 from the publisher, Dimefast, who doesn't even know how to pick up their telephone so they can collect money from customers in exchange for a stupid book. I guess I can be grateful to know that no trees were killed to produce this terrible lory book!

St. Geoffrey Mivart. A Monograph of the Lories, or Brush-tongued Parrots, Composing the Family Loriidae. 197 pp. with 61 color plates, 19 figs, and 4 maps by JG Keulemans. Hardcover. US$225. (Originally published in 1892 by Porter, London, UK. Facsimile of the original 1892 edition, includes a new introduction and an appendix of current scientific and vernacular names. Published in 1995 by Seibersbach: FUNDACEF Verlag, Germany.)

I would like to publically thank the many listmembers who secretly organized and contributed to the purchase of a beautiful facsimile of Mivart's book for me, the owner of the lories email list. Their kindness and tremendous generosity is appreciated and certainly will never be forgotten.

Since I received this very large book shortly before I will review Rosemary Low's new lory book, my review of Mivart will be not be complete for awhile, probably. However, I can tell you that the pictures are very good, although some are a little bit fanciful in places, the maps are wonderful, and the parts of the text that I have read so far are quite charming.

Peter Odekerken. A Guide to Lories & Lorikeets: Their Management, Care & Breeding. 96 pp. 91 color photgraphs by various photographers, 4 maps and 1 table. Paper. US$23.95 (Australian Birdkeeper, New South Wales, Australia, 1995, ISBN 0-9587445-9-5).

An informative and fairly well-written book. This book does contain some new and interesting information about loriculture, especially Australian loriculture. However, the monographs of individual species are quite short and not very interesting. The color photographs are generally of high quality, although there are several photographs -- particularly of the rainbow lories -- that are over-exposed. Of special note are the photographs of color mutations that have arisen in Australian loriculture, some of which are quite beautiful, such as the blue mutation of the Rainbow lory and the yellow (lutino?) mutation of the Chattering lory. Even though this book was published in Australia, it is occasionally available in American bookstores and petshops. This is one of the best books about lories that is still in-print.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Alison Ruggles. Lories & Lorikeets: The Brush-tongued Parrots and Their Care in Aviculture. 272 pp. Hardcover. $24.95. (Blandford Press, 1996, ISBN 0-7137-2268-1).

This book is a nice "first try" but it suffers greatly from a complete lack of editing and fact-checking. Ruggles presents a fair amount of information but it tends to be very poorly organized and the writing is excessively wordy. The book contains many pointless sentences that should have been removed or rewritten by a good editor, for example;
"The avoidance of draught is one of the most important considerations of the accomodation. If you live in a particularly windy situation, or you keep some semi-delicate species with no heat laid on [sic], it is a good idea to have panels of clear Perspex or PVC cut to size which can be screwed into position for the worst months." (p. 33).

If I was editing this, I would remove the first sentence entirely because not only is it awkward, but it does not convey any new information to the average, intelligent reader. The second sentence is similarly awkward; excessively wordy and grammatically incorrect, but it can be rewritten into a more concise and informative sentence. At least some of this awkward writing is due to the author's apparent fondness for using "Britishisms," such as "draught" (makes me think of beer instead of drafts), "probiotics" (vitamins or beneficial bacteria, depending upon the context) and "transparancies" (slide photographs), that alienate and temporarily confuse most of her intended audience. If the author's primary purpose for writing this book is to convey information, then why does she insist upon using such strange spellings and terminology? The author's peculiar grammatical errors add awkwardness that should have been easily corrected by any editor prior to publication.

Other peculiarities of this book include strange text formatting: the text in the first half of the book has one column per page, while the text in the second half of the book is arranged into two columns per page, which are much more difficult to read. Another, more serious, problem with this book is inconsistent citation of references. In fact, at least some references that should have been cited properly are not even mentioned (but more about that later). These many errors and inconsistencies many me wonder if this book was ever read by an editor? I think that this book was excessively long: an editor could easily have cut the total length of this book by half, resulting in a better written and more useful book.

I also found that some information in the book is incorrect or contradictory, or both. A good example of this can be found on page 36, where the author states that "if you are going to touch anything in a nest -- eggs, chicks, etc. -- be sure to roll your fingers in the occupants' nesting material first; in this way you convey their smell, not yours." Of course, the nesting material is also located in the nest box, so this practice would cause problems if the author's assertions are correct. But, the author's statement is incorrect because, in fact, it is known almost all bird species do NOT have a good sense of smell and do not reject chicks or abandon nests due to strange smells.

It is most unfortunate that the "Forward," was written by convicted parrot smuggler, Tony Silva. However, Silva says absolutely nothing of value in the Forward, thereby making his essay is entirely forgettable, so I suppose that the damage from this association is minimal.

The photographs, most of which are very good, and the maps are primarily the work of Dennis Avon. Some of the maps were difficult to read and thus not very useful (see p. 219, where one arrow points to ... nothing? apparently). There are two nice color plates (plates 52 and 53) by Trevor Buckell that are reminiscent of bird-watching field guides and, in fact, are very similar to what I would do if I was writing a lory book. These plates are fairly accurate illustrations of some plumage differences between the subspecies of the black-capped lories (Lorius lory) and some of the rainbow lories (Trichoglossus haematodus) subspecies. In contrast, I wish I could say nice things about the drawings by Pippa Mayell. These line drawings are really terrible: poorly rendered, childish but completely lacking in any child-like charm, and at least some are completely unnecessary or inaccurate. One of my favorite examples of the poor quality of these drawings is the illustration showing a six-fingered hand (page 32). Another drawing that is just plain inaccurate can be found on page 67 (Fig 15. This drawing will make any molecular biologist cringe). Additionally, and more seriously, Figure 1 (p. 14) looked so familiar that I finally searched my bird books and found that this picture originally appeared on page 48 of Parrots: A Natural History, by John Sparks and Tony Roper, and illustrated by Robert Gillmor (1990). I photocopied both illustrations and comparisons showed that these two pictures are almost identical, yet nowehere in Ruggles' book did I find any mention of the artist.

Stan Sindel. Australian Lorikeets. 94 pp. Hardcover. US$35.00 (Singel Press, Surrey Beatty & Sons Limited, New South Wales, Australia, 1986, ISBN 0-9587727-0-3).

A fairly well-written book that focuses exclusively on the aviculture of Australian lories. Sources are usually properly cited in the text, although they are not listed in the references list at the end of the book. The color photographs are generally of good quality and some depict rare color mutations that arose in certain Australian lory species that are captive-bred. The line drawings are not very useful since specific information, such as measurements, is usually not provided. Even though the book is of fair quality, I do have major reservations about one chapter that was written by a guest author. This chapter, entitled "Diseases of Lories" was written by James Gill, is a very brief overview of the various diseases that can affect lories. Due to this brief treatment, its usefulness is very limited, as one should expect. However, I have a real problem with some of the rather fantastic claims made in this chapter: specifically, the author claims that 40% of all symptomatic lories infected with the dreaded psittacine feather and beak syndrome will recover after several moults, provided that they receive "proper care." This potentially important information is cited only as "Ross Perry, Personal Communication." Given the fact that this disease is known to have a very high mortality rate among old world psittacines, I am very skeptical about this factoid, because it does not have any scientific validity. [The fact that Mr. Gill cites a specific rate of recovery as being "40%" implies that there is some scientific data to support this fantastic claim. If this data exists, then it must be published in a peer-reviewed journal and the author has an obligation to tell his readers where this article is located. If this data is not published in a peer-reviewed journal, then there is no basis in fact for claiming that "40%" of all symptomatic lories will recover with "proper care." Thus, this factoid amounts to anecdotal information, which should not be confused as being factual information until it has been scientifically proven as such. Additionally, I also find it very annoying that Mr. Gill does not define "proper care" for lories infected with this virus, either, further increasing my skepticism.] Published in Australia, this book can be difficult to obtain in the United States.
Recommended WITH RESERVATIONS.

Roger Sweeney. Handbook of Lories & Lorikeets. 160 pp. Hardcover. $23.95. (TFH Publications, Inc., 1993, ISBN 0-86622-565-X).

This book is quite terrible. It is poorly written, the information is poorly organized and it contains many gramatic and spelling errors in the text. (I doubt that this book was ever read, even once, by an editor). The photographs are numerous throughout the book but they are generally of very poor quality since most of them are out-of-focus. Additionally, several photographs of common lory species are mis-identified. [Does TFH Publications have even ONE fact-checker in their employ? I wonder....]. This book is not worth the trees that it was printed on.
NOT RECOMMENDED.

John Vanderhoof. Lories and Lorikeets in Aviculture. 90 pp. Hardcover. $49.95 (original price $79.95). (Lory Production Network, Woodlake, Ca. 1991, Library of Congress Number 91-90831).

Basically, this is a "coffee table book" that contains little substance. Everything about this book is inconsistent. The writing, at times, is clear and coherent but it rapidly deteriorates (usually within the same paragraph) into stilted and excessively wordy sentences. There are occasional misspellings that I can't forgive since every computer known to god and man has at least a rudimentary spell-checker that would catch such misspellings. In fact, I spent some time musing over all the different spellings of the word "moluccan" which the author has used or invented, two of which appear within mere centimeters of each other (p. 42)! The only excuse for using three different spellings for the same word in a published work is sheer, unadulterated laziness and a complete absence of editing. Besides this easily-solved problem with basic spelling errors, there are other problems with the text. For example, the transitions between the paragraphs are so awkward as to be downright painful. This makes the information difficult to follow and (frequently) confusing. This problem has such a simple solution: these awkward paragraph transitions could have easily been avoided if the author had written a clear and detailed outline of the entire book BEFORE he started to write. Another -- more fundamental -- problem is that the book does not present any new information to the reader. Additionally, the overall information content is very minimal, particularly when one considers the outrageous price of this book. Furthermore, some of the information that the author presents is of very questionable validity. For example, he quotes the factoid presented in Stan Sindel's book Australian Lorikeets, that lories have a "recovery rate that appears to be as high as 40%" from an active infection with Psittacine Feather and Beak Disease. [Please refer to my rant regarding this misinformation in my review of Sindel's book]. This factoid is merely myth since it has never been tested, proven and published in any scientific or veterinary journals. I think it is clearly irresponsible for the author, who represents himself as a "lory expert," to repeat this piece of information without making any apparent attempt to validate it first.

The illustrations -- paintings by Gamini Ratnavira -- are likewise of poor quality. Almost all of the lories depicted by the artist have inaccurately-rendered beaks and bulging foreheads, and most of them have strangely exaggerated colors as well. When I met and spoke with the artist about the illustrations, I learned that he had absolutely no control over the quality of the reproduced illustrations in the finished book. In fact, Gamini doesn't even like this book! It is my opinion that Gamini's current work is certainly much better than the illustrations in this book led me to believe. It is certainly most unfortunate for the artist that his own paintings ended up looking so inaccurate in this book.

Overall, this book is poorly written, inconsistent in its accuracy and quality, and it is incredibly overpriced.


NOT RECOMMENDED.

Matthew Vriends. Lories & Lorikeets: A Complete Owner's Manual. 80 pp. Paper. $5.95 (Barron's Educational Series, Inc. 1993, ISBN 0-8120-1567-3).

This book is inconsistent in its overall quality; generally, the writing is fairly good and the lore is reasonably accurate. The photographs are of variable quality; some are very good, while others have poor background contrast, are out-of-focus or are over-exposed. The line drawings are quite nice, but tend to be redundant. I do disagree with the author on several points, for example, it is not true that ALL lory species can be fed a daily diet consisting of 70% of the "dry diet" as he claims. My own experiences and those of other lory breeders have convinced me that at least several lory species cannot maintain their overall health and feather condition when primarily fed the "dry diet" for long periods of time. Despite my reservations about this book, I do think this is the best basic lory book that is currently available.
Recommended WITH RESERVATIONS.

William Wentworth. A Guide to Owning Lories and Lorikeets. 64 pages with 63 full-color photos. Paper. (TFH Publications, 1997, ISBN 0-7938-2005-7) $6.95.

Well, as I often say, "TFH is the publisher that I love to hate." I have tried and tried to read this book and have made it about halfway before giving up in sheer disgust. This book review will be written someday (I promise) -- probably while I am snowed-in for a few days by a blizzard, and I have only this book and several bottles of good red wine for entertainment. Since this winter is rumored to be particularly nasty, I think I should be making my preparations now.