arrangement found in the Synopsis: Dr. Phillips appar- 

 ently had a few ideas of his own about ornithological 

 systematics. 



The extra, or "composite," plates, as Fries appropri- 

 ately calls them, were a natural outcome of the plan to 

 bind all the plates of The Birds of America in systematic 

 order. The composites serve as a corrective for a number 

 of discrepancies that had accumulated over the 12 years 

 of publication. Audubon had sought, in depicting all 

 known species of American birds, to provide illustra- 

 tions of the male, female, and young of each. For the 

 larger birds this could not be accomplished in a single 

 life-size illustration, but for smaller species all three fig- 

 ures could be easily accommodated on a single plate. In 

 13 instances, however, one or another of the required 

 figures had been separated from its companion pieces 

 and engraved on a different copperplate. Unable some- 

 times to find all three specimens (of male, female, and 

 young) in time to meet his self-imposed deadlines, Au- 



dubon was forced by the pressures of publication to let 

 Havell engrave the figures he had available, and add the 

 other figures to later copperplates whenever he managed 

 to find and draw them. In a few plates Audubon had 

 incorrectly identified the figures; and in the case of plate 

 230 Havell had simply misplaced Audubon's drawing of 

 one of the figures, and engraved it later on plate 285 

 when the mistake was noticed. 



The purpose of the composites was to reunite these 

 separated figures on single plates which Audubon, Har- 

 ris, and Phillips could insert in their systematically 

 arranged copies, creating what could rightly be called 

 "ideal" copies of The Birds of America. No reengraving of 

 the copperplates was done. Each composite was prepared 

 by printing the necessary portions of two or — for two of 

 the composites — three copperplates on a single sheet of 

 paper. Each composite print went through Havell's press 

 at least twice, the first time to print an entire plate with 

 appropriate areas left blank, the second (and third) time 



20 



 '/"// ■///// f <'f' 



'/•////// f >/'///// f///// 

 lii.M.Aciujrujtvx ruOtUDAtWM. 



The Florida cormorant (or double-crested cormorant), plate CCLIJ (252). This southern form of the double'Crested cormorant is no 

 longer regarded as a species separate from the northern form. 



