Swainson's Warbler

"Swainson’s Warbler" [Magnolia Warbler]
Sylvicola swainsonia [now Setophaga magnolia]
Folio edition, plate 50

“This little bird was by mistake* engraved, and named after my friend W. Swainson, Esq., during my absence from London, one drawing having been accidentally substituted for another. It is in reality the young of the Black and Yellow Warbler, and was intended to form part of the Plate which will represent the adult male and female of that species.” William Swainson (1789-1855) was the first ornithological illustrator to use lithography, the medium Audubon later adopted for the production of his octavo edition of the Birds of America.

*Initially labeled as Swainson's Warbler, the bird is actually the Magnolia Warbler.

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or An Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America (Edinburgh: A. Black [et al.], 1831), vol. 1, p. 260.

View bird in National Audubon Society Guide to North American Birds.