This was the text for Aububon's The birds of America. Audubon wrote it with the assistance of William Macgillivray, though he did not credit him on the title page. The text included Audubon's accounts of his travels and adventures in America scattered through the volumes in the bird descriptions, and as separate anecdotes. Audubon recounted his experiences in the Florida Keys, along the Mississippi, and in Louisiana and Kentucky in the 1820s and 1830s.

Audubon published the text separately from the double elephant folio plates in order to avoid a stricture of the British Copyright Act of 1709 which would have required him to deposit a set of the very expensive double elephant folio plates with each of nine depository libraries in the United Kingdom.

Digital facsimile from Biodiversity Heritage Library at this link.