PREFACE 



The first of the 82 parts of the original edition of Birds and Nature 

 was published January, 1897, and at once took first place among the works 

 on Nature Study. 



Volume I reached a sale of more than fifty thousand copies. 



In December, 1904, 16 volumes with 648 color plates had appeared and 

 twenty-five thousand complete sets sold. 



The text plates were destroyed and the work has been out of print for 

 several years. So this is not a revised edition, but a new edition, by writers 

 of authority on birds, their foods, habits, their economic value; also the 

 little good and much harm the very few birds do. 



The color plates are the best that can be made; they were awarded the 

 Grand Prize at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the Gold Medal at the 

 World's Fair, St. Louis, 1904. 



The 240 plates in Birds and Nature, together with 408 others of birds, 

 animals, plants and flowers, insects, shells, minerals, fish, etc., cost over sixty 

 thousand dollars ($60,000), and they are likely to remain for at least another 

 17 years the largest and best collection of color plates of Natural History in 

 the world. The color plates are so natural as to enable one to identify birds 

 at a glance. No effort of expense or pains has been spared to achieve the 

 highest possible excellence in this work. It is the fruit of twenty years of 

 labor. 



While 648 plates were used in the first edition of 16 volumes, the pub- 

 lisher believes that five volumes with the best 240 plates of the 240 most 

 common birds of the United States and Canada will meet with more favor, 

 and it is not very likely that 240 such exquisite color plates will appear in a 

 similar work for a good many years to come. Many features commend this 

 edition ; the type, print and paper are good, right size of page and the 

 volumes of 192 pages of text and 48 pages of color plates to each volume 

 make books that are easy to handle and a joy to possess. 



Not since Audubon's Birds of America, published in 1830-39, eighty-three 

 years ago, has there been published a work on Ornithology to at all compare 

 with Birds and Nature, which has stood and remains a monument to the 

 study of Birds and the debt we owe them. 



Audubon's Birds of America have sold as high as $3,000. He used the 

 gun and drawing material. 



Birds and Nature used the color-photograph process — photographing 

 each color — made plates of each color and printed each color separately so 

 as to blend and make all colors true to life. 



The color plates are not reproduced from paintings, but from the real 

 birds in nature — hence the exact colors. 



In addition to the 240 birds illustrated in colors. 160 others are described, 

 making 400 of the best known and most important birds of the Ignited 

 States and Canada. 



Chicago, May 26, 1913. A. W. Mumford. 



