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Cover of The Birds of America by John James Audubon

The Birds of America

  • 435 pages ยท about 7 hours
  • First published 1827
  • 83 editions
  • Free to read

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1 About this book

The Audubon Society Baby Elephant Folio differs in a number of ways -- besides its dimensions -- from earlier editions of The Birds of America and from John James Audubon's original, massive Double-Elephant Folio, the heaviest volume of which weighs 56 pounds.

These plates are organized not in the order that Audubon produced them for his subscribers but phylogenetically; that is, in a modern scientific classification sequence that somewhat parallels the evolutionary history of a genetically related group of organisms -- from the most primitive living examples to the most recently evolved -- in this case going from loons to sparrows and buntings.

The numbering of our plates follows the taxonomical sequence of orders, families, and species in the Check-List of North American Birds prepared by the American Ornithologists' Union, as adapted and up-dated by the American Birding Association.

Good for readers who want: a true life story and a book they can read free online.

  • Biography
  • Birds & Birdwatching
  • Ornithology
  • Artists, biography
  • Classification
  • Miniature books
  • Artists
  • Birds

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3 About John James Audubon

1785โ€“1851

John James Audubon (born Jean-Jacques Rabin, April 26, 1785 โ€“ January 27, 1851) was a French-American artist, entrepreneur, naturalist, explorer, and ornithologist. His combined interests in painting and ornithology turned into a plan to make a complete pictorial record of all the bird species of North America.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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