Birds and Trees of North America is Rex Brasher's seminal work, comprised of 862 watercolor paintings bound in an encyclopedic set. Between 1929 and 1932, he created 100 twelve-volume sets—1,200 individual books—and sent them to patrons across North America. Volume 2 contains 65 hand-colored plates, depicting terns, shearwaters, petrels, tropicbirds, gannets, cormorants, and pelicans.
Order, Longipennes: family, Laridae; subfamily, Sterninae
Stream-lined from pointed bill to long tail, TERNS are supreme among maritime birds in grace and power of flight. Altho some species are coastal, all wander widely over the oceans, resting and sleeping on the moving waters with unconcern of chickens roosting on their perches.
When feeding, bills are pointed down and food caught by swift plunges. They are singularly alike in coloration, excepting the Black Tern — gray, white and black.
NEST: usually a mere depression in sand, formed in a few minutes by body twisting and feet scooping.
EGGS: from 1 to 5, variable in some shade of buff or olive with blotches of browns. Incubation period averages three weeks and one brood a year, reared by both parents.
Order, Tubinares: family, Diomedeidae
Nostrils enclosed in separate tube; bill stout, upper mandible hooked. Wings linear, pointed and longer than any other bird's — sometimes 14 feet in extent. Three front toes webbed, hind toe small or absent. Pelagic and unequaled in flight power. They seek land only for reproduction, following the seas of the world thru storm, sunshine, heat or cold with a devotion unapproached by any other form of feathered life. The single egg is laid on remote and lonely shores. Incubation and time to maturity about 8 months.
Members of this and the following family are dully colored in grays, browns and white. Sex and seasonal variations are wanting or slight.
Order, Tubinares: family, Procellaridae
Bill of laminated plates, strong, hooked, with nostrils enclosed in tubes. Wings long, pointed. Tail, short, usually square. Hind toe absent or minute. Plumage quite dull and uniform in coloration but remarkably dense and oily.
Altho only one egg is laid each season, members of the order are numerous. Factors of survival are isolation, few enemies, strong bodies and plentiful food. Primary points which will increase any form of life. FULMARS and SHEARWATERS lay their single white egg in crevices of rocky islands. PETRELS, a white egg more or less specked with brown, in small burrows. Both sexes share the five week period of incubation. Shearwaters and most of the Petrels breed in the southern hemisphere. The regurgitated oily fluid fed the young is a most unappetizing food both in odor and appearance. If there is any truth in transmigration I hope my return will not be among the Tubinares.
Order, Steganopedes: family, Phaethontidae
TROPIC BIRDS in plumage, color and flight resemble Terns. Wings long and slim, tail of 12 or 16 feathers the central pair elongated and narrow. Graceful in flight but awkward on land. They are spectacular air performers often diving into the sea from a great height. They breed in colonies, laying in shore crevices without any nesting material a single buffy or white egg splotched with browns and purple.
Hind toe reversed and all four toes connected by webs, giving unequaled pelagic prowess. All other members of the order are totipalmated.
Order, Steganopodes: family, Sulidae
Members of this family are gregarious, coastal maritime, of warm oceans and expert fishers. Their food is almost exclusively fish, which they secure by diving directly into the sea from the air. Their aim is so accurate that they seldom rise from the water without the target. The nests are rude structures of seaweed and grass located on isolated islands, rocky and high or low and sandy. Eggs one or two, dull white. Incubation period from 5 to 6 weeks by both sexes. One brood yearly.
Order, Steganopodes: family, Anhingidae
Refined Cormorants describes this select family of four species. The bill is not hooked and the muscular neck is bent at the eighth vertebra. They fly swiftly, diving from the wing, if necessary, and are shy, watchful frequenters of tropical swamps. There is something prehistoric about these singular birds and I have often experienced a sense of reversion to some long past existence while watching them.
Order, Steganopodes: family, Phalacrocoracidae
In a beauty contest CORMORANTS would fare poorly but the palm is theirs for strength and swimming. Legs are short, powerfully muscled and fully webbed. The narrow head and linear body are perfectly formed for natatorial prowess and use of the wings under water gives them speed to overtake all but the swiftest fish. Their appetite is enormous and they are effective agents in keeping the fish population down. Adults are without nostrils, breathing thru the mouth.
Flight is sustained and in any formation that suits their whim. Some species frequent swamps, building in trees, others are pelagic, constructing nests of seaweed and coastal debris usually on the ground. Incubation period about four weeks. Young hatched naked and thrust their heads down parent’s throat for predigested food.
EGGS from 3–5, green or blue; lime crusted.
Order, Steganopodes: family, Pelecanidae
PELICANS are the most grotesque and singular in structure of our North American birds.
The normal shape of the neck is crooked articulation of the vertebra and that renders straightening difficult. The great pouch excrescence on bill in Spring and clumsy feet, are other characteristics. Altho heavy, they fly well, once underway, and are at their best in strong winds. They build nests of sticks on top of an earthmound and lay two chalky-white eggs. Incubation period about 30 days.
Order, Steganopodes: family, Fregatidae
FRIGATE BIRDS are among the most remarkable developed forms for continued flight. With long wings and tail and lightweight bodies, they hold a preeminent place among sustained flyers. A curious physical feature is the air sac of the male which when fully distended gives the bird the appearance of being held aloft by a red balloon. They breed in colonies on isolated islands, building careless nests of sticks in low bushes and lay one or two thin shell white eggs.
Birds and Trees of North America is a vivid record of taxonomy in motion. The scientific and common names within these volumes do not always align with modern standards, nor do they always align with historical standards. While Rex followed the 1910 checklist of the American Ornithologists’ Union (AOU), he occasionally deviated from it according to his own observations and convictions. He disagreed with the “hair-splitting fad” of systematists and the possessive form of bird names, yet maintained the necessity of a standard language for understanding the avian world. Where Rex intentionally diverged from standard classification, we have preserved his work in its original form.