The Great Naturalists

Thames & Hudson continue to impress with their art books, and out in time for Christmas is this marvellous collection of biography and illustration of the great naturalists from Theophrastus to Darwin and Russell Wallace. My only complaint is that they chose to illustrate the cover with an Audubon instead of a less well known image (from, say, Catesby). Interestingly, the image used, Audubon's Flamingo, is actually inaccurate in that the Flamingo's pose would be impossible to achieve in real life. Audubon's aim to paint all his bird's life size meant that he had to squeeze his flamingo into this odd position. It has also been pointed out that no flamingo in the wild would ever achieve such a flaming pink as this individual (although it's colleague in the background is a healthier hue).