The Registry Of Nature Habitats - Audubon Birds of America - Preface

Birds of America

By John James Audubon, F. R. SS. L. & E.

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.