AUDUBON, John James (1785-1851). Autograph manuscript, “Plate 60, Carbonated Warbler,” n.p., c.1829

One half page, folio, wove paper with watermark “Fellows 1829, 415 x 264mm (lightly affixed to backing sheet), with additional pencil at bottom by Elliot COUES (1842-1899), who assisted in the editing of Audubon's journals. Custom clamshell box. Provenance: Heirs of Grace Phillips Johnson (Christie's New York, 21 November 1981, lot 440).

Audubon's original manuscript description of the bird he called the “Carbonated Warbler,” one of the five controversial “Birds of Mystery” in his great work. To accompany his ambitious elephant folio edition of the Birds of America, Audubon published the Ornithological Biography with the editorial assistance of William Macgillivray (1796-1852). Although text and plates were planned together, British copyright law compelled Audubon to publish the volumes under a separate title or else he would have had to deposit full sets of the enormously expensive plates to all nine depository libraries within the United Kingdom.

Transcribed in full: “I shot the two little birds here represented here near the village of Henderson, State of Kentucky, in the month of May 1811. They were both busily engaged in searching for insects along the branches and amongst the leaves of a Dog Wood tree. Their movements were those ^belonging^ to the Sylvia Genus. On examination, I found them both males.

“I am of opinion that both these birds were young birds of the preceding year, and not in full plumage, having no portion of their dress seemingly complete, except the head. Having never met with any other birds like these, I am to this present moment unable to say anything more of them. They were drawn, like all the other birds I have portrayed, immediately after being killed; but the branch on which you see them was not added until the following summer.

“The vulgar name of this plant is Service Tree. It seldom grows to a height exceeding 30 or 40 feet, is found on hilly ground of a secondary quality. The berries are agreeable to the taste and are sought after by many species of birds, amongst which the Red headed Woodpecker is very conspicuous.”

Audubon himself never saw another Carbonated Warbler, nor has anyone else. “Sir William Jardine, in his revised edition of Alexander Wilson’s Ornithology,” wrote that he believed the birds to be young Cape May Warblers Dendroica tigrine, and the American Ornithologists’ Union agrees that this might be true” (Low, A Guide to Audubon’s Birds of America, pp.63-64).