The Birds of California (Dawson/Brooks)
/The Birds of California was published in 4 volumes in 1923. The author was William Leon Dawson with illustrations by Allan Brooks. There are some of Dawson’s photographs used as illustrations as well. Follow these links to see the eBooks: V1, V2, V3, V4. I selected a sample image from each book below.
Two aspects to keep in mind with a work of this vintage:
A lot has happened to California in the almost 100 years since the volumes were published. The habitat for some of the birds has probably succumbed to development or is degraded by pollution. Undoubtedly some of the birds are endangered…maybe a few are gone entirely.
Classification of birds is always changing. Some of these older books have birds as separate species that are now considered single species. The advent of DNA analysis for classification is the most recent perturbation.
But these don’t detract at all from enjoying the illustrations!
