This beautiful
poster was inspired by the stamps issued by the United States Postal Service in
1982, which quickly became the best-selling ones in American history.
You would expect the state bird of Maryland to be the Baltimore oriole and you
can understand New Mexico being represented by the road-runner, but why did dry,
land-locked Utah choose the California seagull? It was because in 1848, the
gulls saved the early settlers from starvation by eating up the Rocky Mountain
locusts that were destroying their crops. The fifty states are listed
alphabetically. Each bird and flower is identified by both its common and its
scientific name.
