This entirely new and authoritative work of reference has been planned to take account of the great advances that have been made in ornithological knowledge since the publication of the Handbook of British Birds (1938-41), which for many years provided the basis on which ornithological research in the UK was built. Ornithologists now work on a wider geographical basis, and this new Handbook covers the whole of the Western Palearctic, which includes all Europe together with the Middle East to Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan, and Africa south to about 19 degrees N