Special bulletin
A Smithsonian Institution and United States National Museum publication issued in Washington, D.C. in 1892 by the Government Printing Office, a scientific record aimed at museum scientists and naturalists. Its plates show rows of bird eggs, each shown whole on a cream ground with the plate number at top, in colour ranging from pale blue-green and buff to heavily speckled and blotched brown, which a designer could draw on for natural palettes and pattern.
