Plate 24. Double Elephant Folio.
For Audubon, this bird was a new species, which he named Roscoe’s Yellow Throat in honor of William Roscoe, a Member of Parliament and well-known poet, historian, and naturalist. Some years later, it was determined that the bird was not a new species but the Common Yellow Throat, which Audubon had already illustrated in an earlier plate.
Roscoe was one of Audubon’s early champions in England. As the president of the Liverpool Royal Institution, he provided valuable contacts to Audubon as the latter sought support for his book. Roscoe was also the father of Margaret Roscoe, a floral illustrator connected to Robert Havell, Jr. Her work is represented in this Gallery (numbers 107-114). See the entry under her name in OTHER ARTISTS above.
