Preface
There has long been a need, not only among the motoring public, but also with an ever increasing number of bird watchers in this country, for a compact pictorial guide to the identification of ornithological dejecta. It is hoped that this book will go some way towards meeting that need and spawn other guides of a similar nature in the future.
Actual color photographs and paintings of splays play a vital part in this work and we were indeed fortunate as authors that the many birdsplay collectors who sent in their specimens for analysis (usually presented on good quality plastic kitchen wrap), allowed us to record their most typical and significant dejecta for inclusion in this guide.
We are aware there are those who claim an ability to read more into bird splays, and have followed with interest a growing trend to use them to try and predict future events. However, recent cliams that the general collapse of communism, and the Gulf crisis, were accurately foretold by the analysis of Greylag Goose droppings over Greenland, are not well supported.
Berkeley, Calif. 1991