#pittas

Western Hooded Pitta Pitta sordida

A Pitta Feathursday

Yesterday I visited UW-Madison Special Collections to view some of their extensive natural history materials, including this wonderful folio titled A Monograph of the Pittidae, or, Family of Ant Thrushes by Daniel Giraud Elliot. I looked at the first edition, published in 1863 in New York by D. Appleton & Company. UW-Madison Special Collections has three different editions: 1863, 1867, and 1893-95. The hand-colored lithographs were produced by Bowen & Co. in Philadelphia. Most of the illustrations are by Daniel Giraud Elliot because his artist Paul Ourdart of Paris passed away after only completing three of the plates.

Daniel Giraud Elliot (1835-1915) was an American zoologist and naturalist who had a long and varied career. Elliot was one of the founders of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and helped secure the ornithological collection. He was also one of the founding members of the American Ornithological Society. Elliot used his wealth to produce a large number of luxuriously printed ornithological books with hand-colored lithographs in the style of John James Audubon and John Gould.

Daniel Giraud Elliot wrote the preface of A Monograph of the Pittidae, or, Family of Ant Thrushes:

“The limited knowledge possessed by Ornithologists generally of the family constituting this monograph – the beautiful and varied plumage of the different species, together with a desire to contribute something to a branch of science which is so rapidly increasing in number of its followers, and which related to one of the most pleasing of the Almighty’s creations, are my reasons, if any are needed, for producing this work.”

Nowadays it seems that Pitta (Pittidae) and Ant Thrushes (Formicariidae) are in two distinct families. All the birds were are featuring today are Pittas in the family Pittidae.

From top to bottom, they are:

Happy Feathursday!