Fauna Boreali-Americana (Part Second: The Birds) by SWAINSON, William; RICHARDSON, John - 1831

London: John Murray, 1831. Hardcover. Very good. lxvi, 523 p. 28 cm. Contains 46 of 50 gorgeous hand-coloured bird plates, lacking # 36, 39, 54 & 68. B&w line drawings in the text. Beautifully bound in half green leather with marbled paper boards. Some thumbing and foxing, tear in p. 93, occasional offsetting of plates to facing pages.

Title continues: "or the Zoology of the Northern Parts of British America: Containing Descriptions of the Objects of Natural History Collected on the Late Northern Land Expeditions Under Command of Captain Sir John Franklin, R.N. Part Second, The Birds." Sir John Richardson accompanied Sir John Franklin on both of his overland expeditions to the Arctic 1819-22 and 1825-27, totalling seven summers and five winters in the region. On both journeys, he devoted himself to collecting natural history specimens from the Arctic. Swainson was responsible for preparing the lithographic plates for this monumental book on the ornithology of the Arctic and his work marks the beginning of the use of lithography in bird book illustration.