238 



Correspondence. I . " 



LApr. 



paper wrappers, probably belonging to Part I. The title as printed on 

 this wrapper differs from the definitive engraved title, and reads as 

 follows: 



"Illustrations ] of the | American Ornithology | of | Alexander Wil- 

 son, I and Charles Lucian Bonaparte ; | with the addition of numerous 

 recently discovered species. ] And including | repiesentatiops of the prin- 

 cipal insects, | forest trees, and fruits of America. | Drawn, engraved, and 

 coloured | under the superintendence of | Captain Thomas Brown, F. L. S. 

 M. W. S. &c. I President of the Royal Physical Society'. | Edinburgh : | 

 published by Henry Constable; | Hurst, Chance, & Co. and Moon, Boys, & 

 Graves, London; | John Cumming, Dublin. | 1831." 



Brown's book is not in any true sense an edition of Wilson and Bona- 

 parte. It is composed partly of original figures, but in a large measure 

 it is compiled from the works of Wilson, Bonaparte, Audubon, Richard- 

 son and Swainson, and Jardine and Selby. As specimens of the 

 engraver's art these plates exemplify the best work of the then leading 

 •engravers of Edinburgh, such as W. H. Lizars (who engraved Selby's 

 plates and the earliest of Audubon's), E. Mitchell, R. Scott, Jas. Johnstone, 

 John Miller, Samuel Milne, etc. In copying, however, the artist often 

 lost the spirit of the originals, and in many of the new figures, which 

 must of necessity have been drawn from stuffed birds, ignorance of the 

 life attitudes of the subjects is often painfully appai'ent. In one of the 

 early plates the perching of an Arctic Owl on a Magnolia tree was proba- 

 bly a bit of unconscious humor on the part of the artist who designed the 

 plate. 



In 1834, a year before the completion of this series of plates, Capt. 

 Brown published the Game Bird plates as a separate work, with a title- 

 page engraved specially for it by Turvey, which reads as follows: 



"Illustrations | of the | Game Birds | of | North America | Chiefly the 

 size of Nature | By | Captain Thomas Brown | F. L. S. M. W. S. 

 M. K. S., M. P. S. i Late President of the Royal Physical Society, | &c. 

 &c. &c. I Edinburgh | Frazer & Co. 54 North Bridge ; | Wm. Curry, Junr. 

 & Co. Dublin ; | John Smith & Son Glasgow ; | & Smith Elder & Co. 65 

 Corn hill. | London | MDCCCXXXIV. Designed and engraved by James 

 Turvey." 16 pll. col., folio {i\\ X i6i in.). 



I found a copy of this book, of which I can find no mention in anv 

 bibliography or library- or sale-catalogue, in a book-shop in Birmingham 

 last year. It consists, as I have said, of the Game Bird plates of the 

 larger work, sixteen plates, unnumbered, being plates 69-83 and 102, of 

 the larger work. In these plates the birds only are colored, whereas in 

 the copies of the larger work that I have seen, the accessories (plants, 

 insects, and backgrounds) are colored also. This set of sixteen plates 

 includes figures of several of our western birds which are interesting as 

 being among the earliest published portraits of those species. From the 

 following account of the Game Bird plates one can form some notion of 

 the character of the more extended work; ex pede Herculem : 



