Broad-Winged Buzzard (Buteo Pennsylvanicus), from The Birds of America: from drawings made in the United States and their territories, volume I

John James Audubon published "The Birds of America," his ambitious project to record every birds species then known in the United States, between 1827 and 1838. This massive 'double-elephant' folio was quite expensive, given its unprecedented size and the amount of labor that the printing of the work required. Subscribers paid about $1,000 for the entire publication (about $30,000 in 2021), limiting its circulation to the wealthy and institutions. Audubon wanted to make his masterpiece more widely available to the public and between 1840 and 1844 published the first octavo edition, a smaller version printed using lithography rather than the original book's etching with aquatint. While the original "The Birds of America" had no underlying organizing principle, the octavo edition was arranged in taxonomic groups, demonstrating advances made in the field in the interim. This plate features the Black Winged Buzzard (Hawk).