The Handbook of British Birds was a pioneering bird guide by H.F. Witherby

Henry Witherby

Henry Forbes Witherby, M.B.E., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. was a noted British ornithologist, author, publisher and founding editor of British Birds magazine....

, Rev. F.C.R. Jourdain

Francis Charles Robert Jourdain

The Reverend Francis Charles Robert Jourdain , M.A., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U., was a notable British amateur ornithologist and oologist...

, Norman F. Ticehurst and Bernard W. Tucker

Bernard Tucker

Bernard William Tucker was an English ornithologist. He was lecturer in zoology at Oxford University, a long-time editor of British Birds and one of the authors of The Handbook of British Birds...

, published in five volumes by H. F. & G. Witherby between 1938-1941.

The Handbook

The Handbook, as it was often cited, was itself a much enlarged and revised version of H.F. Witherby's Practical Handbook of British Birds (published between 1919 and 1924 as two volumes in three parts).

Some of the plates were by Marinus Adrianus Koekkoek and were licensed after they were painted for Ornithologia Neerlandica, de vogels van Nederland by Eduard Daniel van Oort

Eduard Daniel van Oort

Eduard Daniel van Oort was a Dutch ornithologist.Oort was in charge of the bird collections at the Rijksmuseum of Natural History in Leiden; in 1915 he was made Director of this museum, a position which he held until his death...

 (published 1922-1935).

The Handbook was reprinted a number of times, until at least the eight impression in 1958. The later printings (they were not described as new editions

First edition

The bibliographical definition of an edition includes all copies of a book printed “from substantially the same setting of type,” including all minor typographical variants.- First edition :...

) having a few pages devoted to "additions and corrections" to previous "impressions", but few of these are of great significance. In only a few cases was the main text correspondingly corrected.

Eventually, it was superseded by The Birds of the Western Palearctic

The Birds of the Western Palearctic

The Birds of the Western Palearctic is a nine-volume ornithological handbook covering the birds of the western portion of the Palearctic zoogeographical region.BWP is a comprehensive regional avifauna for...

.

Popular Handbook

A single-volume concise edition, The Popular Handbook of British Birds was produced by Philip Hollom

Philip Hollom

Philip Arthur Dominic Hollom is a British ornithologist.In 1951, he became a member of the editorial board of British Birds magazine under the senior editorship of Max Nicholson, whom he succeeded in 1960...

 in 1952. It used descriptions drawn from the Handbook and updated accounts of their status and distribution. Revised editions appeared in 1955, 1962, 1968 and 1988. These editions were far more heavily revised than those of the original Handbook, not least to take account of changes in bird taxonomy, as described in each edition's new forward.

Fourth edition

(SBN 85493 002 7)

The 1968 edition complied with the then-new British Ornithologists' Union

British Ornithologists' Union

The British Ornithologists' Union aims to encourage the study of birds in Britain, Europe and elsewhere, in order to understand their biology and to aid their conservation....

 checklist, and incorporated further research by J.L.F. Parslow. Its 511 numbered pages described 330 species. The eggs of all breeding species were illustrated, at life size, mostly in colour

Fifth edition

(ISBN 0-85493-169-4)

Produced in 1988, this was the first edition not to include the forwards from preceding editions. The entire test was reset, the status and distribution accounts were again revised, and the species sorted into the then-current taxonomic order, ending with the buntings

Bunting (bird)

Buntings are a group of Eurasian and African passerine birds of the family Emberizidae.They are seed-eating birds with stubby, conical bills, and are the Old World equivalents of the species known in North America as sparrows...

. The jacket illustration showed Blue Tit

Blue Tit

The Blue Tit is a 10.5 to 12 cm long passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common resident breeder throughout temperate and subarctic Europe and western Asia in deciduous or mixed woodlands...

, Coal Tit

Coal Tit

The Coal Tit, Periparus ater, is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a widespread and common resident breeder throughout temperate to subtropical Eurasia and northern Africa. The Spot-winged Tit The Coal Tit, Periparus ater, is a passerine bird in the tit family Paridae. It is a...

 and Long-tailed Tit

Long-tailed Tit

The Long-tailed Tit or Long-tailed Bushtit is a common bird found throughout Europe and Asia. There are several extensive accounts of this species, most notably Cramp and Perrins, 1993; Gaston, 1973; and Harrap and Quinn, 1996...

, with a Great Spotted Woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker

The Great Spotted Woodpecker , Dendrocopos major, is a bird species of the woodpecker family . It is distributed throughout Europe and northern Asia, and usually resident year-round except in the colder parts of its range...

 on the spine, and was by Norman Arlott. 350 species were described. It ran to 486 numbered pages.

Popular Handbook of Rarer British birds

Hollom also produced the supplemental The Popular Handbook of Rarer British Birds, in 1960. It described over 100 species omitted, on the grounds of their scarcity in Britain, from the Popular Handbook, about 30 of which had not occurred there at the time of the original Handbook.

New plates were specially commissioned from David Reid-Henry

David Morrison Reid Henry

David Morrison Reid Henry ), of British origin, was an illustrator of birds. He signed his pictures DM Henry or D.M.H.....

 (and one, of a Baikal Teal

Baikal Teal

The Baikal Teal , also called the Bimaculate Duck or Squawk Duck, is a dabbling duck that breeds in eastern Russia and winters in East Asia.- Description :...

, by Peter Scott

Peter Scott

Sir Peter Markham Scott, CH, CBE, DSC and Bar, MID, FRS, FZS, was a British ornithologist, conservationist, painter, naval officer and sportsman....

), to add to those re-used from the Handbook.