AND NATURE BIRDS IN NATURAL COLORS ^y A NEW EDITION PAGE PLATES OF FORTY -EIGHT COMMON BIRDS BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY A GUIDE IN THE STUDY OF VOLUME COMPLETE IN AND THEIR HABITS BIRDS I FIVE VOLUMES WITH 240 PAGE PLATES IN COLORS A SCIENTIFIC AND POPULAR TREATISE ON FOUR HUNDRED BIRDS OF THE UNITED BEING STATES AND CANADA CHICAGO A W MUMFORD 536 S CLARK Publisher ST COPYRIGHT, 191 3, BY A W MUMFORD PREFACE The first of the 82 parts of the original edition of Birds and Nature 1897, and at once took first place among the works was published January, on Nature Study Volume I reached a In December, 1904, sale of more than fifty thousand copies 16 volumes with 648 color plates had appeared and twenty-five thousand complete sets sold The text plates were destroyed and the work has been out of print for several years So this is not a revised edition, but a new edition, by writers of authority on birds, their foods, habits, their economic value; also the little good and much harm the very few birds The color plates are the best that can be made; they were awarded the Grand Prize at the Paris Exposition in 1900 and the Gold Medal at the World's Fair, St Louis, 1904 The 240 plates in Birds and Nature, together with 408 others of birds, animals, plants and flowers, insects, shells, minerals, fish, etc., cost over sixty thousand dollars ($60,000), and they are likely to remain for at least another 17 years the largest and best collection of color plates of Natural History in the world The color plates are so natural as to enable one to identify birds No effort of expense or pains has been spared to achieve the at a glance highest possible excellence in this work It is the fruit of twenty years of labor While 648 plates were used in the first edition of 16 volumes, the pub- lisher believes that five volumes with the best 240 plates of the 240 most common birds of the United States and Canada will meet with more favor, and it is not very likely that 240 such exquisite color plates will appear in a similar work for a good many years to come Many features commend this edition the type, print and paper are good, right size of page and the ; volumes of 192 pages of text and 48 pages of color plates to each volume make books that are easy to handle and a joy to possess Not since Audubon's Birds of America, published in 1830-39, eighty-three years ago, has there been published a work on Ornithology to at all compare with Birds and Nature, which has stood and remains a monument to the study of Birds and the debt we owe them Audubon's Birds of America have sold as high as $3,000 He used the gun and drawing material Birds and Nature used the color-photograph process photographing each color made plates of each color and printed each color separately so as to blend and make all colors true to life The color plates are not reproduced from paintings, but from the real — — — birds in nature hence the exact colors In addition to the 240 birds illustrated in colors 160 others are described, making 400 of the best known and most important birds of the Ignited States and Canada Chicago, May 26, 1913 A W Mumford LIST OF COLORED PLATES 7x9 inches Two hundred and •67 64 130 193 649