A complete bird guide for Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, the Gambia and the whole West African region from the Atlantic to Chad and the Central African Republic in the east, and northwards from the Congo River to the Sahara at 18ºN - 20ºN – the border between the Ethiopian and Palaearctic faunal regions. Over 500 species are illustrated and fully described, with notes on identifying characters, measurements, details of voice, distribution, habitat, nests and eggs. A further 200 allied species are dealt with more briefly and the 371 local or uncommon species are included in the Checklist on pages 263-94. The illustrations by Wolfgang Hartwig were painted specially for this book and are arranged on the Peterson pattern with facing caption pages. A special feature is the list on pages 295-336 which gives the scientific and English, Spanish, French and German vernacular names. And there are indexes to scientific names – by family, genus and species – and to English names.