The Stanislaus Audubon Society, which raised $4,500 to purchase a copy of the rare “Birds of the Pacific Slope,” has donated the two-volume set to Stanislaus State’s Vasche Library, where it will be housed in the special collections area.
The book is a collection of the works, mostly color drawings of regional birds, and writings of Andrew Jackson Grayson, whose fascinating and tragic story was told in a 2015 column by Jeff Jardine of the Modesto Bee. Grayson, the namesake of the small town in Stanislaus County, died in 1869. The book, which includes 156 color prints, was published in 1986, with only 450 copies produced. The book also includes a biography of Grayson written in the 1950s by Lois Chambers Stone, a staff artist at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology in Berkeley.
The book can be seen only by making an appointment with the library’s reference department at (209) 667-3232. The library requests that appointments be made at least 24 hours in advance, and viewers must be able to present a photo ID.