Audubon Bird Research Articles

Review: Piranesi Unbound

Review: <i>Piranesi Unbound</i>

Audubon's Bird of Washington: unravelling the fraud that launched The birds of America

The Bird of Washington Falco washingtoniiAudubon, 1827, was a new species of eagle published in the opening plates of John James Audubon's influential work, The birds of America (1827–38). It was the first plate engraved by Robert Havell Jr. and the first new species Audubon described in his career. However, the Bird of Washington was published without specimen evidence and, to this day, no specimen with the anatomical characters in Audubon's descriptions and plate has ever been found. To shed light on the case, I conducted an exhaustive search for primary (non-print) sources in multiple archives in the USA and transcripts in the literature. Here, I demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that Audubon's painting of the Bird of Washington was not ‘faithfully figured from a fresh-killed specimen’, as he claimed, but was the product of both plagiarism and invention. The preponderance of evidence suggests that the Bird of Washington was an elaborate lie that Audubon concocted to convince members of the English nobility who were sympathetic to American affairs, to subscribe to and promote his work. Audubon rode his Bird of Washington to widespread fame and then actively maintained the ruse for more than 20 years, until his death, fuelling decades of confusion among scientists and the general public. The broad implications for Audubon-related scholarship and ornithology are discussed.

Christiane VadnaisFauna by Pablo Strauss

Mesa’s prose is unusual and deceptively complex . Katie Whittemore had done impressive work, but it is clear that some sacrifices were made between Mesa’s haunting narration and certain linguistic nuances. Certain customs may be lost on non-Spanish readers as well. However, some readers may barely notice. The features of Mesa’s writing and timelessness of the novel’s setting mean that the novel holds together well. In the end, Four by Four is a mystery among mysteries. Things are deeply wrong at Wybrany College, but it’s not clear-cut how to fix them. Each character must fight both their innate human tendencies and the forces acting against them, and as in the real world, the solutions are personal. T. Patrick Ortez University of Oklahoma Christiane Vadnais Fauna Trans. Pablo Strauss. Toronto. Coach House Books. 2020. 144 pages. FAUNA, A COLLECTION OF dreamily surreal linked stories, is a recent contribution to the growing corpus of “cli-fi” (climate fiction) texts from around the world. Whether they optimistically depict human efforts to confront future climate catastrophe (Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World) or warn readers about the myriad ways in which the environment will degrade/fight back (The End of the Ocean), these stories interrogate an often near-future world where nature forces humanity to renegotiate our relationship: the bee population collapse portends the end of human civilization , humans struggle to adapt in a watery world, or new predators rise up to threaten cities and towns. Quebecois author Christiane Vadnais takes the middle road in Fauna, delicately tracing the decline of humanity’s dominion over nature near the aptly named town of Shivering Heights (near the Arctic Circle) while pointing ahead to new strides in human evolution. Each section carries a Latin title (“In Vivo,” “Ursus Maritimus,” “Fauna”), in keeping with Vadnais’s point that humans are obsessed with naming and categorizing everything around us. As the characters in these stories die or transform, these Latin titles become ironic signposts of a bygone time, when evolution moved too slowly to be seen with the naked eye. Sprinkled throughout this collection are short interludes about dreams—specifically, musings on how dreams have evolved as humans have grown more comfortable in the environment that we have shaped for ourselves. These overt references to dreams increase our sensitivity to the dreamlike, uncanny stories about, for instance, a biologist giving birth during a snowstorm just after discovering a new and strange species of fish, or a group of people in quarantine from a virus that systematically kills them all (except for two, who turn into birds and fly away). While the stories in the first half of the book are uncertain and seem to have little relation to one another, those in the latter half are much more confident, tangible, and even, at times, inspired. Vadnais’s portrait of a world reshaping people in its own image may not be particularly unique, but it has an ethereal quality all its own. Rachel S. Cordasco Madison, Wisconsin Fióna Bolger A Compound of Words New Delhi. Yoda Press. 2019. 106 pages. THE IRISH HELD A distinctive position in the British Empire. They were colonized by Britain but were also its accessory to empire in India—to the extent that they produced the Viceroy of India, Lord Dufferin, as well as Brigadier John Nicholson, alias “the butcher of Delhi.” Fióna Bolger has written a collection of poems that soars from this position to occupy a unique hybridity, which expands Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of in-betweenness with consummate ease. She fashions herself as a writer between borders and so explores the multiplicity of impressing upon the reader the everpresence of racism and its very personal implications. Her own story of the shame put on her by a schoolteacher in Phoenix is in conversation with a later essay entitled “Questions While Searching for Birds with my Half-White Sons, Aged Six and Nine, National Audubon Bird Count Day, Oxford, MS.” Both touch on primary experiences for American children while highlighting that none of us— regardless of the color of our skin— can deny our proximity to race and its implications...

Fuglene. Audubons "Birds of America"

NB: Artiklen er på dansk, kun resuméet er på engelsk. The Royal Library owns one of the most exceptional works in book history, an original edition of John James Audubon Birds of America. This edition, in a format called “double elephant folio” was published from 1827 to 1838. On basis of existing literature, this article briefly describes the work’s genesis, including Audubon’s technique, printing, the letterpress, conservation history as well as the pricing of the book when it was published. The work was originally acquired for The Classen’s Library (Det Classenske Bibliotek), a private research library, which, although considerably smaller than the Royal Library and the University Library, joined the library cooperation of the 1800’s on an equal standing with the other two libraries. The Classen’s Library and the library’s founder, industrialist JF Classen are described briefly in this article. Due to two library mergers the Birds of America is now owned by the Royal Library. The acquisition of the Danish set by the Classen’s Library is examined by analyzing previously unpublished letters and is described for the first time, although not comprehensively, in this article. The provenance of this work, as described by Waldemar Fries in 1973, is reexamined in this article. Using newly discovered archival material and a review of available literature, this article concludes that the Danish set was assembled in 1857/58 from loose sheets, and was most likely created simultaneously with three other sets, two of which are believed to be the Mill Grove, Pennsylvania, USA and Library of Parliament, Ottawa, Canada sets.

Make a Bid for Bird Biodiversity

On 7 December 2010, the hammer dropped at London auction House Sotheby's auction of James Audubon's Birds of America . The final bid: 7,321,250 pounds (US$11.6 million), making this work the most expensive book ever sold ([ 1 ][1]). The book of life-size bird illustrations, painted between 1827 and

Discovered! The First Engraving of an Audubon Bird

In 1824 the eminent bird artist John James Audubon (1785–1851) created a drawing for use in the design of a New Jersey bank note. Although the artist mentions the drawing and the resulting paper currency in two separate diary entries, no one has ever been able to locate a bank note with an illustration that can be confidently attributed to Audubon. By tracing the graphic offerings of the bank note engraver Gideon Fairman (1774–1827) and his successors, this paper identifies the lost Audubon image and offers two possible explanations for why the physical evidence of Audubon’s first published bird illustration has proven so illusive to Audubon scholars.

Audubon's Birds of America at the University of Pittsburgh

Audubon's Birds of America at the University of Pittsburgh

A guide to Audubon's Birds of America: a concordance containing current names of the birds, plate names ... and corresponding indexes

A guide to Audubon's Birds of America: a concordance containing current names of the birds, plate names ... and corresponding indexes

A wrongly identified Audubon bird painting: Brewer's Sparrow mistaken for Clay-colored Sparrow

A wrongly identified Audubon bird painting: Brewer's Sparrow mistaken for Clay-colored Sparrow

Audubon's birds of America

Audubon's birds of America

Audubon's Birds of America

Audubon's Birds of America

Audubon's Birds of America

Audubon's Birds of America

Audubon's Birds of America. Popular Edition [Review

Audubon's Birds of America. Popular Edition [Review

Audubon's Birds of America

Audubon's Birds of America

Audubon Birds from the Original Water Colors in the New-York Historical Society. Donald A. Shelley

<i>Audubon Birds from the Original Water Colors in the New-York Historical Society</i>. Donald A. Shelley

Audubon Bird Guide: Eastern Land Birds. Richard H. Pough

Previous articleNext article No AccessNew Biological BooksAudubon Bird Guide: Eastern Land Birds. Richard H. Pough A. H. SchultzA. H. Schultz Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Quarterly Review of Biology Volume 22, Number 4Dec., 1947 Published in association with Stony Brook University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/395958 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Audubon Bird Guide

ORNITHOLOGICALLY speaking, North America is divided into four areas-western, eastern, middle America and the West Indies, the largest being the eastern one that includes the Atlantic seaboard. Mr. Pough writes of the birds of this area under the title of “Audubon Bird Guide-Eastern Land Birds”. He deals with the 275 species of land birds found in eastern North America in a concise manner, most helpful to the recent recruit to ornithology. His remarks under the heading of “Identification” are excellent, for he seizes on the outstanding characteristics of each species and tells the field worker what to look for. The colour portraits are also good and helpful, though it is to be regretted that no indication of scale accompanies them. If one did not know otherwise, one might imagine that the snowy owl is no bigger than the English sparrow4, the picture of which is most life-like ; however, in most cases all birds on a plate are drawn to the same scale. Audubon Bird Guide Eastern Land Birds. By Richard H. Pough. (Sponsored by National Audubon Society.) Pp. xxxvii + 312 + 48 plates. (New York : Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1946.) 3 dollars.

Birds of Eastern United States Audubon Bird Guide. Eastern Land Birds Richard H. Pough

Birds of Eastern United States Audubon Bird Guide. Eastern Land Birds Richard H. Pough

Review: Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds, by Richard H. Pough

Review: <i>Audubon Bird Guide, Eastern Land Birds</i>, by Richard H. Pough

Audubon Bird Cards Audubon Bird Cards, Set No. 3. 50 Summer Birds of Eastern North America Allan Brooks

Audubon Bird Cards Audubon Bird Cards, Set No. 3. 50 Summer Birds of Eastern North America Allan Brooks