Ruff-necked Humming-bird

Ruff-necked Humming-bird was included in the original edition of The Birds of America which was printed on handmade paper. The principal printing technique was copperplate etching, but engraving and aquatint were also used. Colorists applied each color in assembly-line fashion (over fifty were hired for the work). Audubon funded the costly printing project through a pay-as-you-go subscription. From 1826 to 1829, he travelled around the UK and to Paris, lecturing on ornithology and frontier American life in an effort to entice wealthy patrons to subscribe to the series of prints. Subscribers included the French king Charles X, the British queen Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, Lord Spencer, and, later, the Americans Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Prints were issued in sets of five every month or two in tin cases and each set usually included one very large bird, one medium-sized bird, and three small birds. The plates were published unbound and without any text to avoid having to furnish free copies to the public libraries in England. It is estimated that not more than 200 complete sets were ever compiled.