Before Audubon, there was Buffon's Histoire naturelle, generale et particuliire, originally published in thirty-six volumes between 1749 and 1778. All the World's Birds comprises selections from Buffon's original seminal Enlightenment text paired with the beautiful full color reproductions of period engravings by Francois-Nicolas Martinet.<BR>Buffon is credited as the first modern naturalist who noted that despite similar environments, different regions have distinct plants and animals, a concept that became known as Buffon's Law, widely considered the first principle of biogeography. He made the radical conclusion that species must have both "improved" after dispersing away from a center of creation, and he asserted that climate change must have facilitated the worldwide spread of species. Buffon noted the similarities between humans and apes, and was the first to speculate about the possibility of a common ancestry.<BR>This handsome, slipcased edition marks the first publication of Buffon's writings in one volume with Martinet's beautiful yet scientifically precise engravings, originally published separately. These wondrous eighteenth-century depictions of birds are among the earliest scientific attempts to depict birds in all their detail, and these plates are a milestone in the development of ornithological art. Anyone interested in birds or ornithological art will surely want this book.