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 4 contains 76 hand-colored plates, depicting rails, gallinules, coots, phalaropes, snipes, plovers, turnstones, oystercatchers, and jacanas.
Order, Paludicolae: suborder, Ralli; family, Rallidae
RAILS are peculiar for extremely narrow bodies, enabling them to progress easily thru their reedy habitat. They depend upon their legs to escape enemies and are flushed with difficulty. Altho flight is feeble and short they make extensive migrations and evidently are capable of remaining awing for longer than indicated by the uncertain wing power exhibited in these brief excursions. Their calls are loud, harsh and persistent. They are social but evenly distributed over their favorite resorts. They are particularly noisy in Spring and the meadows resound with their clamor. Small crabs, snails, worms, marine insects, seeds and aquatic shoots constitute their food and most of the species are good eating. During a cruise I made from Maine to Florida they frequently and agreeably displaced bacon at many meals.
One or more broods are raised every season and altho many enemies take large toll they seem to be as plentiful as ever. Young are precocial; usually black in the downy stage. Incubation period averages 14 days.
Order, Limicolae: family, Phalaropodidae
Remarkable for sex reversion, females having the brightest plumage and aggressiveness in courting. Long before men admitted that females had any rights in administration of affairs outside the domestic circle PHALAROPES were leaning so far the other way that the poor little males were, and are, mere scrubs in the Phalarope world. He is kept more strictly in his place than housewives of the Puritan period.
Their plumage is dense, affording protection from cold of northern waters. Toes, lobed. Wings long with elongated inner secondaries. Pelagic and circumpolar, they are seldom seen on coasts of the United States.
The four species of AVOCETS are evenly distributed over the world. North and South America, Europe and Australia — each possesses one. They are remarkable for the recurved bill and webbed toes. Food is obtained by a sickle swing of the bill in shallow water, and consists of two-thirds animal and one-third aquatic seeds. Incubation period about four weeks. STILTS differ from AVOCETS in having only one web between inner and middle toe and with longer and more pointed wings.
Order, Limicolae: family, Scolopacidae
Most members of this family are medium or small-sized birds; bills straight or slightly curved; wings long mand pointed, enabling them to cover great distance in migration, most species wintering in South America. Excepting the SOLITARY SANDPIPER they all nest on the ground and breeding descriptions have been omitted as unnecessary repetition.
EGGS are usually 4; pyriform, buff or dull olive with brown specks and spots. Their numbers are rapidly decreasing and only inaccessible breeding grounds have permitted many species to survive. They are all far more valuable to man, alive than dead but Homo sapiens still believes it is sport to kill a dozen or more with one shot as they come in to decoys. —Taking advantage of Birds' social instincts to destroy them is certainly a lowdown trick!
Order, Limicolae: family, Charadriidae
Bill short, enlarged at end; adapted to surface aquatic animal food. Body short, plump, with long, pointed and powerful wings. Feet stout with three short toes. Sexes usually alike with wide variation in seasonal plumage. Nest on ground. Eggs usually 4, pointed at one end and placed with narrow ends meeting.
Precocial. Period of incubation about three weeks.
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.