to print in those blank areas the bird figures required 

 from other copperplates. (See illustrations pages 12-13 

 and 14' 15.) To complete the print Havell then did any 

 necessary drawing by hand on each of the prints to bring 

 portions of background or foliage together into a single 

 composition. The coloring of the plates helped to 

 smooth somewhat the rather rough appearance of the 

 composites. The figures added to the composites are not 

 identified in the legends since only the legends of the 

 initial copperplates and not those of the second and 

 third appear on each of the composites. 



Audubon needed only three copies of each of the 

 composites for himself and his two friends but instructed 

 Havell to prepare six copies, probably because he was 

 uncertain just what these special plates would look like. 

 Audubon was not in London at the time Havell was pre- 

 paring the composites, so he was unable to supervise the 

 job. It probably seemed wise to have six copies of each 

 composite from which to select the best three for him- 

 self, Harris, and Phillips. The other three copies of each 

 composite were apparently put back in Havell's stock of 

 remaining plates and were used as normal plates in mak- 

 ing up bound copies of the complete work to be sold in 

 America. Other copies of The Birds of America are 

 known to include one or more — but not all 13 — of the 

 composites in place of the normal plates, and one loose 

 composite is known to be in private hands. The remai- 

 ning copies of the composites are still undiscovered and 

 may be included in yet other bound volumes or they may 

 survive as loose plates. There may well be collectors of 

 Audubon plates who are unaware that they own one of 

 these rare composites. 



It is unfortunate that Edward Harris's copy of The 

 Birds of America seems to have disappeared. It is fairly 

 certain that his copy was sent to him as a set of loose 

 plates. Audubon wrote him on 18 March 1839: 



I will write to Havell to keep your Copy of the Work 

 unbound, and I am glad to hear that we have in America 

 persons who can do such things as binding books as well 

 as in London for one half the price charged in the latter 

 place. 16 



Harris apparently intended to have his copy bound 

 up in this country, but there is no confirmation that he 

 ever did so. Information supplied to Fries by one of Har- 

 ris's descendants confirms that many loose plates are 

 owned by numerous family members, strongly suggesting 

 that the copy was never bound up. " That Harris's library 

 was dispersed, at least in part, is indicated by the pres- 

 ence in Field Museum's Rare Book Collection of his 

 autographed copy of the earliest illustrated bird book: 

 Pierre Belon's L'historie de la nature des oyseaux (Paris, 



1555). For now, the fate of his copy of The Birds of Amer- 

 ica is simply unknown. 



The history of the Phillips copy was a more fortun- 

 ate one. Whether the idea of the "ottoman" originated 

 with Audubon, Gifford, Phillips, or someone else, Phil- 

 lips had such a cabinet built for his set of the folio. The 

 excellent state of preservation of his copy is largely the 

 result of this protective housing. It appears that eight 

 years after Phillips's death in 1862 some or all of his 

 library was sold in London, including his copy of the 

 folio. A brief notice of that sale in an American journal 

 in 1870 made no mention of extra plates or systematic 

 arrangement of the plates, and mistakenly identified the 

 copy as Audubon's own, but the distinctive ottoman is 

 described in detail. The set was apparently purchased at 

 that time by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts and, in turn, 

 sold to J.W. Dearden at an auction of the Baroness's 

 library in London in 1922. It next passed to the Chicago 

 rare book dealer Kenneth Nebenzahl at a Sotheby's, 

 London, auction in 1969, and from him to Mary W. 

 Runnells, who donated the set to Field Museum. In light 

 of what is now known the set should rightly be referred to 

 as the Phillips copy and take its place along with 

 Audubon's copy as one of the two premier sets of The 

 Birds of America. PH 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 



I would like to thank Ms Anna Jean Caffey and Ms Vicki L. Heltunen 

 of the H.J. Lutcher Stark Museum, Orange, Texas, for their hospital- 

 ity and patience during my visit to examine Audubon's copy of The 

 Birds of America; and a special thanks for unremitting assistance of 

 many kinds to Mr. Scott MacKenzie, Audubon enthusiast and friend 

 and correspondent of Waldemar Fries. — B. W. W. 



NOTES 



1. Chicago; American Library Association, 1973 



2. H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation, Audubon- Bakewell 

 Correspondence, Letter No. 2 



3. Audubon-Bakewell Correspondence, Letter No. 4 



4. Houghton Library, Harvard University, bMS Am 1482, 

 No. 245 



5. Fries, p. 307 



6. Fries, p. 259 



7. Houghton Library bMS Am 1482, No. 245 



8. Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 8 (7 May 1833) 



9. Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 21b (25 May 1835) 



10. Quoted in F.H. Herrick, Audubon the Naturalist (New York, 

 1917), Vol. 2, pp. 144-145 



1 1 . Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 38 



12. Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 15, No. 28 



13. Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 39 



14. Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 48 



15. Fries, p. 170. Audubon's "Ledger B" is held by the Audubon 

 Museum, Henderson, Ky. 



16. Houghton Library, pfMS Am 21, No. 47 



17. Fries, p. 155 



21 



