Special thanks go to Noah Burg for his generous help with my questions on ornithology and to Bill Markley for sending me valuable information on the western forts. I would also like to thank the New-York Historical Society for its magnificent and inspiring exhibition of Audubon’s watercolors. And many thanks go to the following museums and galleries that made this book possible by kindly granting me permission to use images from their collections: the New-York Historical Society; the American Museum of Natural History; the John James Audubon Museum in Henderson, Kentucky; the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University; the Montana Historical Society; Godel and Company Fine Art in New York, New York; and the Joel Oppenheimer Gallery in Chicago, Illinois.
I have long wanted to write a book about the roving bird artist, so I am grateful beyond words to everyone at the University of Nebraska Press. Alicia Christensen, Tom Swanson, Sabrina Ehmke Sergeant, Rosemary Vestal, Kathryn Owens, Vicki Chamlee, Nathan Putens, and many others at the press have been with me every step of the way.