The Birds of North America, drawn and colored from nature

Pp. (4), 16, 182 (10, index), 119 color plates (chromolithographs).  One quarter dark wine-red morocco leather, spine with five raised bands, lettered in gilt in three compartments over maroon-red cloth boards with beveled edges, with a large ornate gilt title on the from cover, brown floral endpapers, top page edge in gilt, folio (15 inches x 12.5 inches).  The 119 chromolithographs plates are from drawings by Theodore Jasper.  This classic work, first published 1878, contains descriptions of 2500 North American birds – 700 of which are illustrated here.  Jacob Henry Studer was a printer, lithographer, painter, and popular ornithologist active in Columbus, Ohio from the 1860s to the 1880s.  As Studer was a member of the American Ornithologists' Union, he arranged the birds in this book according to that group's classification scheme parts of which are still in use today.  This work was the first large format illustrated bird identification book that was affordable for a wider audience; it thus became known as the "the poor man's Audubon."  No ownership marks.