5. BAIRD, Spencer Fullerton (1823-1887), John CASSIN (1813-1869) and George Newbold LAWRENCE (1806-1895) The Birds of North America; the descriptions of species based chiefly on the collections in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1860. 2 volumes (including an atlas volume of plates), large 4to (292 x 230 mm). 100 hand-colored lithographic plates after H.L. Stephens and others (numbered I-XXXVIII, I-XXIV, LXIII-C), 76 with the imprint of Bowen & Co. of Philadelphia, 24 unsigned. 20th-century brown morocco-backed marbled paper-covered boards, spine lettered in gilt.
Condition: library ink and blindstamps to both titles, very occasional light spotting or browning to plates, browning to margins of text volume; light scuffing to extremities. Provenance: Birch Wathen School (New York City, stamps); Lynn Abbott Trust.
a fine set, with the suite of plates in excellent condition. The “work of Mr. Audubon contains somewhat less than five hundred species of North American birds; that of Mr. Cassin contains fifty species. In the present volume will be found one hundred and forty-eight species, nearly all of which are now represented for the first time in any work on American ornithology. The three works together include illustrations of very nearly all the known birds of North America” (preface p.II, in the plate volume). Anker 24; Fine Bird Books (1990) p.75; Nissen IVB 62; Zimmer, p.33. (2)
est. $700 – £1000