Cassin’s Names in Italics.

John Cassin (September 6, 1813 - January 10, 1869) was an American ornithologist. He is considered to be one of the giants of American ornithology, describing 198 birds not previously mentioned by Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon. Fifty hand-colored lithographed plates, including frontispiece, after George G. White by Wm. E. Hitchcock, printed and colored by J.T. Bowen. Originally issued in ten parts between 1853 and 1855 Cassin intended his work to supplement that of Audubon. He had originally suggested to Audubon's sons a plan for extending the octavo edition of Audubon's The Birds of America, but difficulty concerning credit on the title page sank the scheme, and Cassin proceeded with his own publication. Cassin used the same lithographer as the Audubons, J.T. Bowen of Philadelphia, to produce the beautiful plates of American birds, consisting entirely of western species that Audubon had never observed. Cassin was a trained scientist as well as careful artist and observer, and his work took American ornithology to a new level of technical competence, becoming the first American bird book to use trinomial nomenclature. Hitchcock, who transferred White’s drawings to stone, and Bowen, who printed and colored them, had both worked extensively on that earlier work, as well as on the octavo edition of Audubon and Bachman's Quadrupeds of North America. Ayer/Zimmer, pp. 124-125 (first edition). Copenhagen/Anker 92 (first edition). Fine Bird Books, p. 64 (first edition). McGill/Wood, p. 281. Nissen, IVB, 173

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