Audubon bird prints: What DO those numbers mean?

John James Audubon's BIRDS OF AMERICA consists of 435 different

prints. When Audubon first undertook to sell his monumental work,

he did so by selling subscriptions to institutions and individuals.

While he originally thought he could provide life-sized pictures of all

North American Species of birds in 400 pages, he ended up running over,

so to speak, to 435.





Audubon reasoned that he would need to deliver the hand-colored

engravings over time and, like a writer of serials, he recognized

that he would need to keep interest high or subscribers might stop

paying before he had delivered a complete set. In order to do

this, he devised a system of "numbers" or editions much like a monthly

magazine edition, each number or installment being a set of five

pictures. Each Audubon image includes the Number designation in the

upper left hand corner. Meanwhile, each image also has a

catalogue or print number, (usually rendered as a Roman Numeral,)

in the upper right hand corner. Of the 5 engravings in each

installment number, the first is always a large subject, usually a

large bird like the Wild Turkey or Flamingo, but sometimes it is a

large image of several birds, as in the Carolina Parrot. This engraving

will have a catalogue number ending in either a 1 or a 6. The

next subject is usually a slightly smaller bird, such as a duck, or

maybe a small hawk, numbered as either a 2 or a 7. The final

three images will be small birds, such as songbirds or

shorebirds, ending in 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, or 0.





If you know this numbering system, you can usually predict the size of

the bird based on its catalogue number. Thus, number 1, the Wild Turkey

Cock, is a tremendous bird, while number 435, the Columbian Water

Ouzel, is about the size of your hand. With some notable

exceptions, a print of a #1 or #6 bird will cost much more than a print

of a "3,4,5" bird.





Some bound editions of the Birds Of America are rearranged in

scientific order, but many of us prefer the parade that Audubon

prepared, mixing in the large and exotic, next to the tiny and the

commonplace.

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