AUDUBON’S LETTERPRESS 448 
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’ 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.” 
"Tllustrations 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 
grandiflorus (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- 
