Annotated Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand

[First paragraph(s)...]
This slim book of % pages fills a longstanding need. Such was the demand for the first Checklist of New Zealand Birds published by the Ornithological Society of New Zealand in 1953 that it was out of print within a few years. The many ornithologists who have expectantly awaited publication of the present revised version, and ecologists, who are often not taxonomists, can rely on a checklist prepared by a committee of this calibre.
The scope, arrangement and format of the new Annotated Checklist closely follow the original and deal with the birds of the New Zealand geographic region, comprising the three main islands and the outlying Kermadec, Chatham, Snares, Antipodes, Bounty, Auckland, Campbell and Macquarie Islands. The birds of the Ross Dependency, Antarctica, now included in the main list, might have been better treated as an appendix as are the fossil and subfossil birds. There is also a short suspense list of insufficiently substantiated sight records. Exactly what credentials a bird needs to get onto the New Zealand list are nowhere defined. Native birds still extant and those that have become extinct since European settlement are included, as are migrants and event single stragglers from other lands. Apparently, introduced birds are admitted only if they are currently breeding in the wild (except for the Red-vented Bulbul which is believed to have been exterminated in 1955).