Birds of America
By John James Audubon, F. R. SS. L. & E.
B I R D S O F A M E R I C A
By John James Audubon, F. R.
SS. L. & E.
CD-ROM Notes
Preface to the CD ROM Version
Our CD ROM edition of Audubon's Birds of America is from
an 1840 "First Octavo Edition" of James J. Audubon's complete seven volume text.
One of the advantages of the computer format is the ability to look at
other "pages" from anywhere in the text. So that you can take advantage of this, DiscPassage can call up the Family or Genus for each bird
from anywhere in the article. You can also find the color
Plates, the black and white Figures, and the bird calls from anywhere in the
appropriate text.
Our editors have used the following format conventions in the preparation
of this disc:
- Within the text you will see many names in capital
letters. This was the convention that Audubon himself used in his text to set
off proper names. We have preserved this convention in our text.
- Due to the inability of the ASCII character set to
print Greek letters, the Greek words that Audubon used in his Family and Genus
descriptions have been "Latinized": the letters delta-iota-sigma, for example,
have become [dis]; the square brackets indicate that the editors have made
this change.
- The letters sometimes used in Audubon's species
descriptions refer to the specific parts of the Figure for that article. These
letters have been enclosed in square brackets in order to make them more
visible.
At the end of the last volume of his work, Audubon had a section
entitled "New Species Not in my Synopsis" where he included several new
species found after most of the book had been assembled. For convenience in
finding these species, DiscPassage has each of them listed in two separate
places: in the section where Audubon originally placed them, and at the end
of the Genus to which they belong.