Wood Warbler in Yellow and Green, Hand Colored Morris Bird Plate, 1896

This is an original wood engraved bird plate, colored by hand, captioned "WOOD WARBLER." A single bird perches on a gray brown branch, facing left, its body set on a diagonal with the head raised and the long wings and tail trailing down to the lower right. It is yellow green above, with a bright yellow face, throat and breast, a yellow stripe over the eye, a white lower belly and dark wing feathers edged yellow green. Its pale feet grip the branch. A bare forked twig rises above the bird, and two toothed blue green leaves hang at the left.

The caption "WOOD WARBLER." is engraved in capitals in the lower margin. There is no number or other lettering above the picture, and no engraver's credit can be read within it. The Wood Warbler is Phylloscopus sibilatrix.

A History of British Birds was written by the Reverend Francis Orpen Morris (1810 to 1893), rector of Nunburnholme in Yorkshire. The wood blocks for the plates of the work were engraved by Benjamin Fawcett (1808 to 1893) of Driffield in Yorkshire. This plate comes from the fourth edition, issued in six volumes by John C. Nimmo of London, and belongs to the third volume, whose title page is dated 1896 and states that the plates are colored by hand. Each plate combines an engraved black key block with a printed gray tint, finished by hand in watercolor.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.