Egrets

Egrets 

Plate 92 in Illustrations of the American Ornithology of Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte, by Captain Thomas Brown, published by Frazer and Co, Edinburgh, 1835. 

Alexander Wilson (1766 – 1813) was a Scottish-American poet, ornithologist, naturalist, and illustrator. Born in Paisley, Wilson is thought to be the greatest American ornithologist prior to Audubon. 

The egrets in the print are a great egret, a snowy egret and a blue egret, pictured against a downy lime. 

A copy of the Illustrations of the American Ornithology is held in the National Library of Scotland’s collections.