AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 443 



oughly legitimate enterprise, but the climax was reached 

 when Captain Thomas Brown began to publish an 

 "Audubonized edition" of Wilson's and Bonaparte's 

 plates, or an attempt to present their plates of American 

 birds in the Audubonian manner, to the extent at least 

 of showing the characteristic flowers, trees, and insects 

 of the American continent, a plan to which some of 

 Audubon's earlier critics in Philadelphia had offered 

 strenuous objection. Brown's large atlas of plates 7 was 



noticing the work, October 29, 1831, said: "It must be highly gratifying to 

 the friends and connections of poor Sandy Wilson to see such honor, at 

 last, paid to his memory in his native land." 



''Illustrations of the American Ornithology of Alexander Wilson and 

 Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano. With the addition of 

 numerous Recently Discovered Species, and Representations of the Whole 

 Sylva of North America. By Captain Thomas Brown [etc., etc.]. Folio, 

 with engraved title, engraved dedication, index, and 124 engraved and 

 hand-colored plates. Edinburgh, Frazer & Co., 54 North Bridge, William 

 Curry, Jun'r & Co., Dublin & Smith, Elder & Co., 65 Cornhill, London, 

 MDCCCXXXV. 



It is stated by the editor of this extraordinary work that he had 

 added 161 birds, and that 87 have been considerably enlarged. There 

 are 167 representations of American trees and shrubs, said to have been 

 copied for the most part from Michaux' Silva. The striking Hibiscus 

 grandiftorus (plate xli) was taken without acknowledgment from Audu- 

 bon's drawing of the Blue-winged Warbler (The Birds of America, plate 

 xx). For the most part the figures of birds are redrawn from Wilson 

 and Bonaparte and given new positions and backgrounds. A few of the 

 plates, as that of the California Vulture (no. 1), bear the legend, "Drawn 

 by Captn. Tho. Brown;" all are uneven, and many extremely poor in 

 execution, the fourteen by W. H. Lizars being the best. J. B. Kidd, for 

 a time associated with Audubon (see Vol. I, p. 446) is credited with four 

 plates; other engravers employed on the work were James Turvey, who exe- 

 cuted the elaborate title, Samuel Milne, James Mayson, R. Scott, J. & J. 

 Johnstone, E. Mitchell, William Davie, S. A. Miller, John Miller, Audw. 

 Kilgour, Wm. Warwick, and W. McGregor. Plate xiv, the Snowy Owl, 

 Strix nyctea, engraved by the editor, has the interest of a caricature. 

 Some plates show as many as fourteen birds in a medley of brilliant 

 foliage, flowers and fruits. The violence of the coloring is often such 

 as to destroy the effect of the best plates, and gaudy butterflies flit 

 through the pages as if they were the common food of every species, 

 not excluding the American grouse (see Note, Vol. I, p. 359). 



Captain Brown's Illustrations were said by a writer in the Edinburgh 

 Literary Journal for April 9, 1831, "to form a companion to the letterpress 

 in Constable's Miscellany (see Note, Vol. I, p. 442) ; price, colored, 15 shil- 

 lings; plain, 10s. 6d. A few in elephant folio (same size as Selby's British 

 Ornithology); colored, 1 guinea. To be completed in 10 parts, each con- 



