xxii HISTORICAL PREFACE. 
Audubon’s first publication, perhaps, was in 1826,—an account of the Turkey- 
buzzard, in the “ Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,” and some other minor notices 
came from his pen. But his energies were already focused on his life-work, with that 
intense and perfect absorption of self which only genius knows. The first volume of 
the magnificent folio plates, an hundred in number, appeared in 1827-30, in five parts ; 
the second, in 1831-34, of the same number of plates; the third, in 1834-35, likewise 
of the same number of plates; the whole series of 4 volumes, 87 parts, 435 plates and 
1065 figures of birds, being completed in June, 1839. Meanwhile, the text of the 
“ Birds of America,” entitled “ Ornithological Biography,” was steadily progressing, the 
first of these royal octavo volumes appearing in 1831, the fifth and last in 1839. In 
this latter year also appeared the “Synopsis of the Birds of North America,” a single 
handy volume serving as a systematic index to the whole work. In 1840-44 appeared 
the standard octavo edition in seven volumes, with the plates reduced to octavo size 
and the text rearranged systematically ; with a later and better nomenclature than that 
given in the “ Ornithological Biography,” and some other changes, including an appendix 
describing various new species procured during the author's journey to the upper Mis- 
souri in 1843. In the original elephant folios there were 435 plates ; with the reduction 
in size the number was raised to 483, by the separation of various figures which had 
previously occupied the same plate; and to these 17 new ones were added, making 500 
in all. The species of birds treated in the “ Synopsis” are 491 in number; those in the 
work, as it finally left the illustrious author’s hands, are 506 in number, nearly all of 
them splendidly figured in colors. 
In estimating the influence of so grand an accomplishment as this, we must not 
leave Audubon ‘alone in his glory.” Vivid and ardent was his genius; matchless 
he was both with pen and pencil in giving life and spirit to the beautiful objects he 
delineated with passionate love ; but there was a strong and patient worker by his side, — 
William Macgillivray, the countryman of Wilson, destined to lend the sturdy Scotch 
fibre to an Audubonian epoch. The brilliant French-American naturalist was little of 
a *‘scientist.” Of his work, the magical beauties of form and color and movement are 
all his; his page is redolent of Nature’s fragrance: but Macgillivray’s are the bone and 
sinew, the hidden anatomical parts beneath the lovely face, the nomenclature, the 
classification, — in a word, the technicalities of the science. Not that Macgillivray was 
only a closet-naturalist ; he was a naturalist in the best sense—-in every sense —of the 
word, and the ‘vital spark” is gleaming all through his works upon British birds, 
showing his intense and loyal love of Nature in all her moods. But his place in the 
Audubonian epoch in American ornithology is as has been said. The anatomical strue- 
ture of American birds was first disclosed in any systematic manner, and to any consider- 
able extent, by him. But only to-day, as it were, is this most important department 
of ornithology assuming its rightful place; and have we a modern Macgillivray to 
come ? 
The sensuous beauty with which Audubon endowed the object of his life was long 
in acquiring, with loss of no comeliness, the aspect more strict and severe of a later and 
maturer epoch. Audubon was practically accomplished in 1844, the year which saw 
his completed work ; but I note no special or material change in the course of events, — 
no name of assured prominence, till 1853, when a new régime, that had meanwhile been 
. 
