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A field guide is a book
Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side....
 designed to help the reader identify wildlife
Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals, and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
 (plant
Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s or animal
Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
s) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. mineral
Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid formed through Geology processes that has a characteristic chemical composition, a highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties....
s). It is generally designed to be brought into the 'field' or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects.






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Encyclopedia


Fieldguide
A field guide is a book
Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side....
 designed to help the reader identify wildlife
Wildlife

Wildlife includes all non-domesticated plants, animals, and other organisms. Domesticating wild plant and animal species for human benefit has occurred many times all over the planet, and has a major impact on the environment, both positive and negative....
 (plant
Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
s or animal
Animal

Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the Kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life....
s) or other objects of natural occurrence (e.g. mineral
Mineral

A mineral is a naturally occurring solid formed through Geology processes that has a characteristic chemical composition, a highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties....
s). It is generally designed to be brought into the 'field' or local area where such objects exist to help distinguish between similar objects. Field guides are often designed to help users distinguish animals and plants that may be similar in appearance but are not necessarily closely related.

It will typically include a description of the objects covered, together with painting
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
s or photograph
Photograph

A photograph is an created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a Charge-coupled device or a Complementary metal?oxide?semiconductor chip....
s and an index. More serious and scientific field identification books, including those intended for students, will probably include identification key
Identification key

An identification key is a printed or computer-aided device that aids the identification of biological organisms or other type of entity . Traditionally identification keys have most commonly taken the form of single-access keys ....
s to assist with identification, but the publicly-accessible field guide is more often a browsable picture guide organized by family, color, shape, location or other descriptors.

History

Popular interests in identifying things in nature probably were strongest in bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
 and plant
Plant

Plants are Life organisms belonging to the Kingdom Plantae. They include familiar organisms such as trees, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae....
 guides. Perhaps the first popular field guide to plants in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 was the 1893 How to Know the Wildflowers by "Mrs. William Starr Dana" (Frances Theodora Parsons
Frances Theodora Parsons

Frances Theodora Parsons , usually writing as Mrs. William Starr Dana was an American botanist and author active in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries....
). In 1902, Florence Merriam Bailey, wife of well-known zoologist Vernon Bailey wrote a Handbook of Birds of the Western United States which was arranged by taxonomic order
Taxonomic order

Taxonomic sequence is an order followed in listing of taxa which aids ease of use and roughly reflects the phylogenys among the taxa. Taxonomic sequences can exist for taxa within any rank , that is, a list of families, genera, species can each have a sequence....
 and had clear descriptions of species
Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring....
 size, distribution, feeding and nesting habits, resembling the modern field guide. From this point to the 1930s, many much more modern parts of field guides were tried out by Chester A. Reed and others such as changing the size of the book to fit the pocket, including color plates, and different subjects such as garden
Garden

A garden is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the display, cultivation, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The garden can incorporate both natural and man-made materials....
 and woodland
Woodland

Ecologically, a woodland is an area covered in trees, usually at low density, forming an open habitat, allowing sunlight to penetrate between the trees, and limiting shade....
 flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s, insect
Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s and dog
Dog

The dog is a domesticated subspecies of the Gray Wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties....
s.

In 1934, Roger Tory Peterson
Roger Tory Peterson

Roger Tory Peterson , was an American natural history, ornithology, artist, and educator, and held to be one of the founding inspirations for the 20th century environmental movement....
, using his fine skill as an artis
Artis

Natura Artis Magistra , commonly known simply as Artis, is a zoo in the centre of Amsterdam. It is the oldest zoo of the Netherlands, founded in 1838 by Gerardus Frederik Westerman, J.W.H....
t, changed the way modern field guides approached identification. Using color plates with painting
Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting....
s of similar species together - and marked with arrows showing the differences - people could use his bird guide in the field to compare species quickly to make identification easier. This technique, the "Peterson Identification System
Peterson Identification System

The Peterson Identification System is a practical method for the field identification of animals, plants and other natural phenomena. It was devised by ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson in 1934 for the first of his series of Field Guides Peterson devised his system "so that live birds could be identified readily at a distance by their 'f...
", was used in most of Peterson's Field Guides from animal tracks
Animal tracks

Animal tracks are the imprints left behind in soil, snow, mud, or other ground surfaces that an animal walk across. Animal tracks are used by hunters in Tracking their prey and by natural history to identify animals living in a given area....
 to seashell
Seashell

A seashell, also known as a sea shell, or simply as a shell, is the common name for a hard, protective outer layer, a shell, or in some cases a "test", that was created by a sea creature, a Marine organism....
s and has been widely adopted by other publishers and authors as well.

Also popular in the 1960s were the Golden Guide
Golden Guide

The Golden Guides, originally Golden Nature Guides, are a series of pocket-sized books that were created by Western Publishing and published under their "Golden Press" line beginning in 1949....
s which expanded the range of subjects of what a field guide could address, including antique glass
Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
, wine
Wine

Wine is an alcoholic beverage often made of fermentation grape juice. The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they can ferment without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients....
, photography
Photography

Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an ....
 and hallucinogenic plants (often written by experts in their respective field - the latter was written by Schultes
Richard Evans Schultes

Richard Evans Schultes may be considered the father of modern ethnobotany, for his studies of Indigenous peoples' uses of plants, including especially Entheogen or Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants plants , for his lifelong collaborations with chemists, and for his charismatic influence as an educator at Harvard University on a num...
, a respected name in ethnobotany
Ethnobotany

Ethnobotany is the Scientific method of the relationships that exist between person and plants.Ethnobotanists aim to reliably document, describe and explain complex relationships between cultures and plants: focusing, primarily, on how plants are used, managed and perceived across human societies ...
). This series was mostly edited by Herbert Zim
Herbert Zim

Herbert Spencer Zim was a Natural history, author, editor and educator best known as the founder and editor in chief of the Golden Guides series of nature books....
 for Golden Press.

Today, each field guide has its own range, focus and organization. Specialist publishers such as Croom Helm, along with organisations like the Audubon Society, the RSPB, the Field Studies Council
Field Studies Council

The Field Studies Council is an educational Charitable organization based in the United Kingdom. It opened its first Field Centre in 1947 at Flatford Mill, and now operates 17 Field Centres in various locations in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland offering both residential and non-residential field courses....
, National Geographic, HarperCollins
HarperCollins

HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company....
, and many others all produce quality field guides.

How field guides work


It is somewhat difficult to generalise about how field guides are intended to be used, because this varies from one guide to another, partly depending on how expert the targeted reader is expected to be.

For general public use, the main function of a field guide is to help the reader identify a bird, plant, rock, butterfly or other natural object down to at least to the popular naming level. To this end some field guides employ simple keys and other techniques: the reader is usually encouraged to scan illustrations looking for a match, and to compare similar-looking choices using information on their differences. Guides are often designed to first lead readers to the appropriate section of the book, where the choices are not so overwhelming in number.

Guides for students often introduce the concept of identification key
Identification key

An identification key is a printed or computer-aided device that aids the identification of biological organisms or other type of entity . Traditionally identification keys have most commonly taken the form of single-access keys ....
s. Plant field guides such as Newcombs frequently have an abbreviated key that helps limit the search. Insect guides tend to limit identification to Order or Family levels rather than individual species, due to their diversity.

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