As well as the Little Owl or glaux, so often seen accompanying the goddess Athena, many other birds played an important role in Greek art and symbolism. This booklet describes the ways in which the Greeks viewed birds, from useful hawks and fowl to exotic parakeets and peacocks. Some of the birds most often depicted are imaginary, from the griffin to the phallos bird, whose head and neck consisted of an erect penis. The book ends with a field guide to species likely to be seen on a visit to the Agora archaeological park today.

Alice Lindsay Price, a devoted naturalist, has for the past twenty years joined the scientific pursuit of avian scholarship to her lifelong passions of painting, writing, and literature. In her new work,Cranes--The Noblest Flyers, she brings into focus the wealth of human lore, both scientific and cultural, to portray the survival into the twenty-first century of the two North American Crane species, the Sandhill and the Whooping Crane. Her comprehensive display of facts and lore interwoven into her own observations in the field--as well as those of scientists and naturalists working to save the species from extinction--remind us how essential is our awareness of the natural world. Cranes--The Noblest Flyersis illuminated with illustrations and photographs by the author, and with a wide assortment of historical images from Cretan bird goddess to petroglyphs to Audubon. >br> "I think of all the hope these birds represent and of the many scientists and birders who gave so much to their survival. 'Hope,' in the words of poet Emily Dickinson, 'is the thing with feathers.'"