While the sale of the Athenaeum copy of the large "double elephant" version of The Birds of America is a major loss, it's not the end of Audubon in Providence.

First, the Athenaeum still owns a copy of the smaller "royal octavo" edition.

Meanwhile, the Athenaeum's College Hill neighbor, the John Hay Library, owns original copies of both the double elephant and royal octavo folios, as well as several other Audubon works.

According to Samuel L. Streit, head of scholarly resources for Brown University, the Hay not only welcomes visitors, but always has at least one of Audubon's double elephant engravings on display at all times.

It also allows visitors to look at -- but not remove -- copies of Audubon's smaller editions of Birds.