The great white heron, plate CCLXXX1 (281) , one of Audubon's most dramatic images. The great white is now regarded as a variant form 

 of the great blue heron. In the background is a view of Key West. 



Gifford's volume V (plates 101-200, completed 1834); 

 and a letter of 26 September 1838 from Victor Audubon, 

 the artist's son, to the engraver Havell, requests Havell 

 to expedite delivery to Gifford and other English sub- 

 scribers receiving bound copies of volume 4 4 (plates 301- 

 435, completed June, 1838). The Gifford copy then was 

 bound up in the normal fashion: 



Vol. 1 plates 1-100 1827-1830 



Vol. 2 plates 101-200 1831-1834 



Vol. 3 plates 201-300 1834-1835 



Vol.4 plates 301-435 1836-1838 



There is only one way such a copy of the folio could 



end up in species order like the Field Museum copy: the 



four volumes would have to be taken apart, the plates 



rearranged in species order and the whole bound up 



anew. Clearly ruling out the possibility that the Field 



Museum set is a rebound Gifford copy is the evidence of 



the watermarks. 



Even if the Field Museum copy were bound up in 



normal plate number order it could still be easily distin- 



16 guished from the Gifford subscription copy by the fact 



that most of its plates were printed and colored much 

 later than those in the Gifford copy. Gifford's copy of 

 volume 1, for example, bound up by Audubon and sent 

 to her in mid-1831, could not possibly contain plates 

 printed on paper with watermarks dated later than 1831. 

 Of the same plates in the Field Museum copy (i. e. , plates 

 1-100) one bears the watermark 1830, one shows 1838, 

 and 98 plates have the watermark 1833. When Gifford 

 received her copy of volume 1 in 1831, 99 of the same 

 plates in the Field Museum copy had not even been 

 printed. The same is true of the bulk of the plates for 

 volumes 2 and 3 (plates 101-300). Most copies of the 

 folio will have similar dates for the final volume of plates 

 (plates 301-435), since few new subscriptions were 

 obtained during the final period of publication and 

 printing proceeded in a fairly regular manner. The fol- 

 lowing table summarizes the watermark data from the 

 Field Museum copy. Again, in a copy such as Gifford's 

 which was subscribed for at an early stage in the publica- 

 tion of the work, the watermark dates will closely par- 

 allel the dates of engraving of the copperplates. 



