A forerunner to the Book of Indian Birds

Before the Book of Indian Birds (1941) was a series of bird charts published by the Bombay Natural History Society. More than a decade before the book, in 1928, a series of 5 wall charts were prepared to cover 200 species of birds for use in Indian schools. Salim Ali writes about them in the preface to the first edition of the Book of Indian Birds: 

"It was part of their plan that the plates prepared for these charts should be subsequently used to illustrate a book on the common birds of India containing simple descriptions and short life-histories of every species depicted, together with a few general chapters on bird-life calculated to interest the beginner and the layman, and stimulate a desire for deeper study. Unfortunately, the publication of the book has been delayed beyond expectation. The unforeseen economic depression that intervened obliged many institutions to cancel or greatly reduce their orders for the Bird Charts placed prior to publication. This retarded the liquidation of the very considerable expenditure the Society had incurred on the charts and held up the publication of the book, since it was beyond their means to undertake this additional liability simultaneously. The issue of this book with its large number of coloured plates at a price that should bring it within the means of the average purse, has now become possible entirely due to the recoupment by the Society of their initial outlay on the preparation of the colour-blocks for the charts, thus minimising the cost of the present illustrations."

Very few have seen these charts and the BNHS archives are largely opaque to researchers. Fortunately for us, there a review of these charts by David Seth-Smith was published in the Avicultural Magazine with black and white copy of one of the charts. And more importantly, copies of that magazine have been made available via the Biodiversity Heritage Library.

Perching Birds, Climbing Birds, Birds of Prey, Game Birds, Wading, and Swimming Birds. Each chart was 40 x 36 inches, printed in colour, mounted on canvas, and varnished. It was sold at 45 rupees for the whole set of 5 charts (being then 3 pounds 7 shillings and 6 dimes). A book version of the pictures measuring 12 x 9.5 inches was also sold at 5 pounds 7 shillings and 6 dimes. The distribution in the UK was by Vitty & Seaborne publishers.

Note: This was posted following interest shown to a picture of this chart on Instagram. It would be amazing if the BNHS could locate a set of these five charts and reproduce them in colour for historic documentation.