Happy Cinco de Mayo! In honor of the day, we thought we’d pick a book for our Book of the Week that highlights Mexican wildlife. While sorting through our selection of titles with Mexico as a subject, we came across A Selection of the Birds of Brazil and Mexico: The Drawings (1841), by William Swainson, which is packed full of beautiful illustrations of some of the birds of Mexico (not to mention Brazil as well). Of particular interest to us were the illustrations of the various hummingbirds of Mexico, as our species of the day post today on Twitter (@BioDivLibrary) featured hummingbirds and the recent discovery related to the way hummingbirds drink. So, for our post, we’re featuring the Mexican hummingbirds pictured in this work. Enjoy, both the book and your celebrations of Cinco de Mayo!
Our book of the week, A Selection of the Birds of Brazil and Mexico: The Drawings (1841), by William Swainson, was contributed by Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.
