The Birds of America

His great work which is what he calls it would be to decisively identify name and sketch every single bird species in the parts of North America controlled by the US government.

There would be engraved images of 490 species each drawing the actual size of life of the bird itself.

Most experts agree that even today he has not been surpassed in depicting birds in this manner.

I mean he says that no one could conceive of the numbers of animals of many different varieties that they were seeing day after day after day from the prow of this steam vessel, the Omega, that was pushing up to Fort Union.

It's a pretty book. Birds.

I love this. On the front, there's a beautiful red cardinal. Oh my gosh. I'm going to love this. It's pretty. It's pretty.

Birds are the tea. I'm sorry. They are just life. They are nature's mystery.

It's like a coffee table book. Obviously, you're not going to carry that in your pocketbook.

Every page of that book, birds.

The colors in this piece are a feast for the eyes. It could easily be the most sumptuous book you've ever seen.

The title is Birds of America by John James Audubon.

Audubon had wanted to draw every bird species in North America. This book was a bold effort to show them to scale.