Adopt-an-Audubon Plate sponsor benefits:

• Credit on the bird label whenever it is exhibited
• Recognition on the Museum’s digital donor board in the main lobby
• Museum individual plus membership for 2 years (maximum of 2 years)
• For adoptions of $6,000 or more, a copy of our 250^th anniversary book, The Charleston Museum: America’s First Museum
• For adoptions of $9,000 or more, an invitation to a private “behind the scenes” tour, for up to 4 people, of the Museum Archives and Collections Storeroom

For tax purposes, The Charleston Museum is recognized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by the Internal revenue Service, and your gift may be tax deductible. Please consult your tax advisor for further information.

Our Adopt-an-Audubon Plate Program is a means to support the Museum’s Archives collections and should in no way be construed as obtaining an ownership interest in these collections.

Plate LXXIX

Tyrant Fly-catcher
Drawn by Nature and Published by John J. Audubon
Engraved, Printed & Coloured by R. Havell

The Tyrant Flycatcher, or, as it is commonly named, the Field Martin, or King-bird, is one of the most interesting visiters of the United States, where it is to be found during spring and summer, and where, were its good qualities appreciated as they deserve to be, it would remain unmolested. But man being generally disposed to consider in his subjects a single fault sufficient to obliterate the remembrance of a thousand good qualites, even when the latter are beneficial to his interest, and tend to promote his comfort, persecutes the King-bird without mercy, and extends his enmity to its whole progeny. This mortal hatred is occasioned by a propensity which the Tyrant Flycatcher now and then shews to eat a honey-bee, which the farmer looks upon as exclusively his own property.

– John J. Audubon