The noisy, aggressive, and colorful Blue Jay resides
year-round throughout New York City, not only in parks and wild
areas, but wherever there are trees and a patch of green. Its bright
colors are especially welcome during wintertime.
This native American bird was included, together with
birds of paradise and other flamboyantly colored species, in one
of the most colorful natural history publications of the Napoleonic
era. In his lavishly illustrated books, Levaillant (1753–1824) described
birds from around the world, but he had no qualms about appropriating
text written by others, or lying about the lands he had supposedly
visited to collect specimens. Barraband (1768–1809), France’s outstanding
painter of birds of this period, also illustrated Levaillant’s Histoire
naturelle des perroquets (1801–1805) and Histoire naturelle
des promerops … (1806–1818?).
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