This is the second volume of a series intended to present, in accurate
colored portraiture, and in popular and juvenile biographical text, a
very considerable portion of the common birds of North America, and many
of the more interesting and attractive specimens of other countries, in
many respects superior to all other publications which have attempted
the representation of birds, and at infinitely less expense. The
appreciative reception by the public of Vol. I deserves our grateful
acknowledgement. Appearing in monthly parts, it has been read and
admired by thousands of people, who, through the life-like pictures
presented, have made the acquaintance of many birds, and have since
become enthusiastic observers of them. It has been introduced into
the public schools, and is now in use as a text book by hundreds of
teachers, who have expressed enthusiastic approval of the work and of
its general extension. The faithfulness to nature of the pictures, in
color and pose, have been commended by such ornithologists and authors
as Dr. Elliott Coues, Mr. John Burroughs, Mr. J. W. Allen, editor of
_The Auk_, Mr. Frank M. Chapman, Mr. J. W. Baskett, and others.
The general text of BIRDS--the biographies--has been conscientiously
prepared from the best authorities by a careful observer of the
feather-growing denizens of the field, the forest, and the shore, while
the juvenile autobiographies have received the approval of the highest
ornithological authority.
The publishers take pleasure in the announcement that the general
excellence of BIRDS will be maintained in subsequent volumes. The
subjects selected for the third and fourth volumes--many of them--will
be of the rare beauty in which the great Audubon, the limner _par
excellence_ of birds, would have found "the joy of imitation."