#offset lithographs

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Feathursday Magpies

Those pesky Magpies always ruining everyone’s day! This four-color offset lithograph of Magpies scavenging the nest of an American Black Duck is reproduced from a painting by American wildlife artist James Lockhart from his folio volume Portraits of Nature, published in New York by Crown Publishers in 1967. We are drawn to the drama of the scene and Lockhart’s expert rendering, but we’re wondering if maybe Lockhart is a bit confused in his depiction.

Portraits of Nature depicts only North American birds, but Lockhart identifies the Magpie as Pica pica, which is the Eurasian Magpie. There are two species of North American magpies (and both are known to raid nests), and it appears that Lockhart is depicting the Yellow-billed Magpie (Pica nutalli), which is only found in California's Central Valley. Even if he was trying to depict the more wide-ranging Black-billed Magpie  (Pica hudsonia), the American Black Duck (Anas rubripes) is mainly an eastern North American bird, and their ranges would only have a narrow overlap in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. Perhaps that’s what we’re seeing here.

Anyway, it’s enough for us that it is a James Lockhart dramatic rendering. For more Lockhart drama, view other images from this volume.  

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It’s a 4th of July Feathursday!!

And what better way to celebrate than with an image of our national avian avatar, the American Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), represented here by a four-color offset lithographic reproduction of a painting by American wildlife artist James Lockhart from his folio volume Portraits of Nature, published in New York by Crown Publishers in 1967. The Bald Eagle made its first appearance as our national symbol on the official seal of the United States. Being at war with Great Britain at the time, this fierce-looking bird seemed a fitting representation of a young, steadfast nation, and so on June 20, 1782, Congress approved the seal’s design with the Bald Eagle that we recognize today.

However, Benjamin Franklin, one of the committee members tasked with selecting a design for the national seal, frowned on the choice, much preferring the Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) as a more suitable emblem (represented here by another Lockhart image from the same volume). In a letter to his daughter Sarah Franklin Bache, that he drafted on January 26, 1784, but never sent, Franklin wrote:

For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country. He is a bird of bad moral character. He does not get his living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead tree, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the labour of the fishing hawk; and when that diligent bird has at length taken a fish, and is bearing it to his nest for the support of his mate and young ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him, and takes it from him. With all this injustice, he is never in good case, but like those among men who live by sharping and robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: the little King Bird not bigger than a sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America, who have driven all the King Birds from our country. . . . For in truth, the Turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and withal a true original native of America. . . . He is besides, (though a little vain and silly tis true, but not the worse emblem for that) a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.

Congress clearly did not agree. Still, although both birds are indeed native only to the Americas, the United States cannot make an exclusive claim to either, as the ranges of both extend to Canada and Mexico as well.

View other images from this volume.

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