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This is a short but fascinating account of a birdwatching trip made up the River Tigris by soldier-ornithologist Richard Meinertzhagen.
It took place shortly before the outbreak of the First World War when he was a 35-year-old captain in the British Army.
At the time, what is now Iraq was part of a land known by its Biblical name of Mesopotamia - home of the Garden of Eden.
The survey is limited because, as he is modest enough to admit, Meinertzhagen was insufficiently experienced to identify all the pipits, waders and terns that came into view.
However, given how challenging now it might prove for a non-Arab birder to visit such places such as Basra, Baghdad, Mosul and Tikrit, his work provides important insights on the species to be seen - from great bustards to cream-coloured coursers.
He was intrigued, for instance, at the facility of cormorants and kingfishers to locate fish in the Tigris which is a dark brown in colour and, he tells us, contains "five times as much silt as the Nile".
Highlights included watching kestrels uttering their shrill cries from great hall of Nebuchadnezzar at Babylon and watching an eagle owl blinking at him from the ruins of the Tower of Babel.
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