Birds of prey were a natural subject for the golden age of natural history illustration, when ornithologists and publishers collaborated on hand-colored plates meant to document species with scientific precision and visual drama in equal measure. The chromolithography and wood-engraved work that came out of that period, roughly the mid-19th century through the early 20th, treated hawks, eagles, falcons, and vultures as worthy of the same careful rendering given to any museum specimen. The period originals here come from that tradition.