The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird

By Joshua Hammer.  Simon & Schuster, 2020, 324 pp. (I read the Kindle edition.)

People have been raiding birds' nests for centuries: for food, for breeding, for scientific inquiry, for mischief,  for profit, and—strangely—for the mysterious allure of the eggs themselves.  "I think that if required on pain of death to name instantly the most perfect thing in the universe," said the minister and abolitioni...