Audubon Aquatint, Black-throated Diver

AUDUBON, John James (1785 - 1851).
Black-throated Diver, Plate 346.
Aquatint engraving with original hand color.
London: Robert Havell, 1827-1838.
38 1/4" x 26 1/4" sheet.

Comparables: Sotheby's, 2007 - $20,400; Christie's, 2004 - $17,925.

"One of the most remarkable circumstances relative to this beautiful bird, which is intermediate between the Red-throated Diver and the Loon, is the extraordinary extent to which the wanderings of the young are carried in autumn and winter. It breeds in the remote regions of the north, from which many of the old birds, it would seem, do not remove far, while the young, as soon as they are able to travel, take to wing and disperse, spreading not only over the greater part of the United States, but beyond their south-western limits. In Texas I saw individuals of this species as late as the middle of April 1837; and I find it enumerated in a list of the birds observed by Mr. J. K. TOWNSEND on the Columbia river, where he also met with Colymbus glacialis. Its ramblings over a considerable portion of northern and eastern Europe have equally been noted, and it has been found breeding in the extreme north of Scotland." - (Audubon's Ornithological Biography, 1831).