Francois Levaillant (1753-1824) was born in Surinam, South Amer. Between 1781-85 he visited South Africa where he collected African birds for study & illustrating. His most important book is Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets et des Perruches,Ó Paris (1801-1805), from which the beautiful color plates used in this concise volume were compiled. Based in Paris, Levaillant employed Jacques Barraband as an artist. Barraband developed an extraordinary technique of painting these specimens in watercolor engraving & then etching each image into the plate. It would then be print it in color; the image would then be retouched by hand. There are 125 plates in Levaillant's original parrot collection, many of which are reproduced here. Unique!.