Peterson Field Guides

A Field Guide to Western Birds

North America west of the 100th meridian, with a section on the birds of the Hawaiian Islands

Plot

The Peterson Field Guides (PFG) are a popular and influential series of American field guides intended to assist the layman in identification of birds, plants, insects and other natural phenomena. The series was created and edited by renowned ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson (1908-1996). His inaugural volume was the classic 1934 book A Field Guide to the Birds, published (as were all subsequent volumes) by the Houghton Mifflin Company. The PFG series utilized what became known as the Peterson Identification System, a practical method for field identification which highlights readily noticed visual features rather than focusing on the technical features of interest to scientists. The series both reflected and contributed to awareness of the emerging environmental movement. Most books in this series use a section of plates of drawings (usually reduced from commissioned paintings) rather than photographs of the subject species, grouped at the center of the book. This allows for idealized portraits that highlight the identifying "field marks" of each species; such field marks are often indicated by arrows or straight lines in the plate illustrations.