mm

AUDUBON

THE

NATURALIST

AFTER THE RARE ENGRAVING BY C. TURNER, A. R. A., OF THE MINIATURE

PAINTED BY FREDERICK CRUICKSHANK. ABOUT 18?1 ; PUBLISHED FOR

THE ENGRAVER BY ROBERT HAVELL. LONDON. 18?5.

AUDUBON

THE

NATURALIST

A History of his Life and Time

By
FRANCIS HOBART HERRICK, Ph.D., Sc.D.

Professor Emeritus of Biology in Western Reserve University
Author of "The American Eagle," "Wild Birds at Home," etc.

ILLUSTRATED

SECOND EDITION
TWO VOLUMES IN ONE

D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY

INCORPORATED

NEW YORK LONDON

1938

Copyright, 1938, by
D. APPLETON-CENTURY COMPANY, INC.

All rights reserved. This book, or parts
thereof, must not be reproduced in any
form without permission of the publisher.

Copyright, 1917, by D. Appleton and Company

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO

ELIZABETH

MY

SISTER

£

■&

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

The origin of the gifted ornithologist, animal painter, and
writer, known to the world as John James Audubon, has re-
mained a mystery up to the present time. In now lifting the
veil which was cast over his early existence, I feel that I serve
the cause of historical truth ; at the same time it is possible
to do fuller justice to all most intimately concerned with the
stcry of his life and accomplishments.

The present work is in reality the outcome of what was first
undertaken as a holiday recreation in the summer of 1903.
While engaged upon a research of quite a different character,
I reread, with grenter care, Audubon's Ornithological Biog-
raphy, and after turning the leaves of his extraordinary illus-
trations, it seemed to me most strange that but little should be
known of the making of so original and masterful a character.
As I was in England at the time some investigations were
undertaken in London, but, as might have been expected, with
rather barren results. After my return to America in the
following year the search was continued, but as it proved
equally fruitless here, the subject was set aside. Not until
1913, when this investigation was resumed in France, did I
meet with success.

Every man, however poor or inconsequential he may ap-
pear or be, is supposed to possess an estate, and every man
of affairs is almost certain to leave behind him domestic, pro-
fessional, or commercial papers, which are, in some degree, a
mark of his attainments and an indication of his character
and tastes. In the summer of 1913 I went to France in
search of the personal records of the naturalist's father, Lieu-
tenant Jean Audubon, whose home had been at Nantes and in
the little commune of Coueron, nine miles below that city, on

vii

viii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

the right bank of the Loire. The part which Lieutenant
Audubon played in the French Revolution was fully revealed
in his letters, his reports to the Central Committee, and nu-
merous other documents which are preserved in the archives
of the Prefecture at Nantes ; while complete records of his
naval career both in the merchant marine and governmental ser-
vice (service pour VEtat) were subsequently obtained at Paris;
but at Nantes his name had all but vanished, and little could
be learned of his immediate family, which had been nearly
extinct in France for over thirty years.

Again the quest seemed likely to prove futile until a let-
ter, which I received through the kindness of Mr. Louis Gold-
schmidt, then American Consul at Nantes, to M. Giraud
Gangie, comervateur of the public library in that city,
brought a response, under date of December 29, 1913, in-
forming me that two years before that time, he had met by
chance in the streets of Coueron a retired notary who assured
him that he held in possession numerous exact records of Jean
Audubon and his family. The sage Henry Thoreau once re-
marked that you might search long and diligently for a rare
bird, and then of a sudden surprise the whole family at dinner.
So it happened in this case, and since these manuscript records,
sought by many in vain on this side of the Atlantic, are so
important for this history, the reader is entitled to an account
of them.

Upon corresponding with the gentleman in question, M. L.
Lavigne, I was informed that the documents in his possession
were of the most varied description, comprising letters, wills,
deeds, certificates of births, baptisms, adoptions, marriages
and deaths, to the number, it is believed, of several hundred
pieces. This unique and extraordinary collection of Audubon-
ian records had been slumbering in a house in the commune of
Coueron called "Les Tourterelles" ("The Turtle Doves") for
nearly a hundred years, or since the death of the naturalist's
stepmother in 1821.

Since I was unable to judge of the authenticity of the
documents or to visit France at that time, my friend, Pro-

PREFACE ix

fessor Gustav G. Laubscher, who happened to be in Paris,
engaged in investigating Romance literary subjects, kindly
consented to go to Coueron for the purpose of inspecting them.
Monsieur Lavigne had already prepared for me, and still held,
a number of photographs of the most important manuscripts,
which are now for the first time reproduced, and, with the
aid of a stenographer, in the course of two or three days they
were able to transcribe the most essential and interesting parts
of this voluminous material. But at that very moment sinister
clouds were blackening the skies of Europe, and my friend
was obliged to leave his task unfinished and hasten to Paris ;
when he arrived in that city, on the memorable Saturday of
August 1, 1914, orders for the mobilization of troops had
been posted ; it was some time before copies of the manuscripts
were received from Coueron, and he left the French capital
to return to America.

These documents came into the hands of Monsieur La-
vigne through his wife, who was a daughter and legatee of Ga-
briel Loyen du Puigaudeau, the second, son of Gabriel Loyen du
Puigaudeau, the son-in-law of Lieutenant and Mme. Jean Audu-
bon. Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, the second, who died at
Coueron in 1892, is thought to have destroyed all letters of the
naturalist which had been in possession of the family and
which were written previous to 1820, when his relations with
the elder Du Puigaudeau were broken off; not a line in the
handwriting of John James Audubon has been preserved at
Coueron.

In June and July, 1914, Dr. Laubscher had repeatedly
applied to the French Foreign Office, through the American
Embassy at Paris, for permission to examine the dossier of
Jean Audubon in the archives of the Department of the
Marine, in order to verify certain dates in his naval career
and to obtain the personal reports which he submitted upon
his numerous battles at sea, but at that period of strain it
was impossible to gain further access to the papers sought.

Having told the story of the way in which these unique
and important records came into my possession, I wish to ex-

x AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

press my gratitude to Professor Laubscher for his able co-
operation in securing transcriptions and photographs, and to
Monsieur Lavigne for his kind permission to use them, as well
as for his careful response to numerous questions which arose
in the course of the investigation.

In dealing with letters and documents, of whatever kind,
in manuscript, I have made it my invariable rule to reproduce
the form and substance of the record as it exists as exactly
as possible; in translations, however, no attempt has been
made to preserve any minor idiosyncrasies of the writer. The
source of all scientific, literary or historical material previously
published is indicated in footnotes, and the reader will find
copious references to hitherto unpublished documents, which
in their complete and original form, with or without transla-
tions, together with an annotated Bibliography, have been
gathered in Appendices at the end of Volume II. For con-
venience of reference each chapter has been treated as a unit
so far as the footnotes are concerned, and the quoted author's
name, with the title of his work in addition to the bibliographic
number, has been given in nearly every instance.

Besides the many coadjutors whose friendly aid has been
gladly ajknowledged in the body of this work, I now wish to
offer my sincere thanks, in particular, to the Misses Maria
R. and Florence Audubon, granddaughters of the naturalist,
who have shown me many courtesies, and to the Hon. Myron
T. Herrick, late American Ambassador to France, for his
kindly assistance in obtaining documentary transcripts from
the Department of the Marine at Paris. I am under special
obligations also to the librarians of the British Museum and Ox-
ford University, the Linnaean and Zoological Societies of Lon-
don, the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, the Public Libraries of
Boston and New York, and the libraries of the Historical So-
cieties of New York, Philadelphia, Boston and Louisiana, as
well as to the Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology
of Harvard University, and to the American Museum of
Natural History in New York City, for photographs of paint-
ings and other objects, for permission to read or copy manu-

PREFACE xi

scripts, and for favors of various sorts. Furthermore, I am
indebted to the good offices of Mr. Ferdinand Lathrop Mayer,
Secretary of Legation, Port-au-Prince, and of M. Fontaine,
American Consular Agent at Les Cayes, Haiti, for a series
of photographs made expressly to represent Les Cayes as it
appears today. I would also acknowledge the courtesy of the
Corporation of Trinity Parish, New York, through Mr.
Pendleton Dudley, for an excellent photograph of the Audu-
bon Monument.

I cannot express too fully my appreciation of the hearty
response which the publishers of these volumes have given to
every question concerned with their presentation in an ade-
quate and attractive form, and particularly to Mr. Francis
G. Wickware, of D. Appleton and Company, to whose knowl-
edge, skill, and unabated interest the reader, like myself, is in-
debted in manifold ways.

My friend, Mr. Ruthven Deane, well known for his inves-
tigations in Auduboniana and American ornithological litera-
ture, has not only read the proofs of the text, but has gener-
ously placed at my disposal many valuable notes, references,
pictures, letters and other documents, drawn from his own
researches and valuable personal collections. I wish to
express in the most particular manner also my ap-
preciation of the generous spirit in which Mr. Joseph
Y. Jeanes has opened the treasures in his possession,
embracing not only large numbers of hitherto unpublished
letters, but an unrivaled collection of early unpublished Au-
dubonian drawings, for the enrichment and embellishment of
these pages. For the loan or transcription of other original
manuscript material, or for supplying much needed data of
every description, I am further most indebted to Mr. Welton
H. Rozier, of St. Louis ; Mr. Tom J. Rozier, of Ste. Genevieve ;
Mr. C. A. Rozier, of St. Louis ; the Secretary of the Linnaean
Society of London, through my friend, Mr. George E. Bullen,
of St. Albans; Mr. Henry R. Howland of the Buffalo So-
ciety of Natural Sciences, of Buffalo; Mr. William Beer, of
the Howard Memorial Library, of New Orleans ; and Mr. W.

xii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

H. Wetherill, of Philadelphia. For the use of new photo-
graphic and other illustrative material, I am further indebted
to Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur, of the Conservation Commis-
sion of Louisiana, and to Cassinia, the medium of publication
of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club.

Through the kindness of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons
I have been permitted to draw rather freely from Audubon
and His Journals, by Miss Maria R. Audubon and Elliott
Coues, and to reproduce three portraits therefrom; original
photographs of two of these have been kindly supplied by Dr.
R. W. Shufeldt. I also owe to the courtesy of the Girard
Trust Company, of Philadelphia, the privilege of quoting cer-
tain letters contained in William Healey DalFs Spencer Ful-

lerton Baird.

To my esteemed colleague, Professor Benjamin P, Bour-
land, I am under particular obligations for his invaluable aid
in revising translations from the French and in the translitera-
tion of manuscripts, as well as for his kindly assistance in
correspondence on related subjects. I have derived much
benefit also from my sister, Miss Elizabeth A. Herrick, who
has made many valuable suggestions. To all others who have
aided me by will or deed in the course of this work I wish to
express my cordial thanks.

Francis H. Herrick.

Western Reserve University,

Cleveland.

July 2, 1917.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

No less than ten volumes about, or by, Audubon have ap-
peared during the past twenty years, or since the publication
of Audubon the Naturalist in 1917, and three of these are more
or less extended biographies. Certainly this is remarkable
evidence of the curiosity that his adventurous and romantic
life has aroused in the reading public, as well as of the engaging
beauty of his delineations of animal and plant life.

Recent years (1929-1930) have seen the publication of the
journal of Audubon's famous journey down the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers in 1820-1821, and also of his journal of
1840-1843, made while obtaining subscriptions to his Birds of
America in America, as well as two volumes of letters, written
in 1826-1840, the most fruitful period of his life's labors.

As a climax to this, all of Audubon's great and lesser bird
plates, some five hundred in number, a century after their
original publication in England and America, have now been
reproduced in full color, though in reduced form, with a brief
text, while the value of the original 435 hand-colored copper-
plate engravings of the double elephant folio edition of 1826-
1838 has risen to fifteen times their original cost of one thou-
sand dollars in America.

Audubon's "Book of Nature," as he often called his Birds of
America, should be judged not alone by its fidelity or scientific
accuracy, but also by the force of its example in sending direct
to Nature, the fountainhead, all who would depict life and
action. As an inspirer of youth, who can estimate the extent
of its influence?

The late Louis Agassiz Fuertes, who was certainly one of

the greatest delineators of bird life that has ever lived, wrote

xiii

xiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

me in 1917 that he owed his great desire to represent the beauty
of birds to Audubon's Birds of America, a copy of which was
given by Ezra Cornell to the institution that he founded and
that bears his name. Those resplendent plates of birds and
flowers enthralled the youthful Fuertes, who had free access
to them in the library of Cornell University, and they de-
termined the direction of his whole after life. Fuertes was no
imitator, but it should be remembered that he had the advantage
of following after a great pioneer.

The legitimate curiosity about the life and accomplishments
of this singular genius has doubtless been whetted by the fan-
tastic theory that Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon was the real
"lost Dauphin," son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, in
name the veritable King Louis XVII of France.

Although the authoritative historians of the world long ago
may have rejected the idea that the Dauphin was "lost," except
in the sense that he had died, and may consider the question of
his survival after imprisonment in the Temple as too obsolete
an issue to even merit refutation, the recent attempts to place
John James Audubon at the end of a long line of false pre-
tenders have made it necessary for me to deal with the question
somewhat at length in the "Foreword and Postscript" to this
edition.

In a case such as this, no honest writer can stoop to equivo-
cation, or attempt to carry water on both shoulders, whether
from a tender feeling for his subject, through domestic par-
tiality, or by playing with enigma or mystery in order to
heighten interest in his narrative.

The subject is of such historical importance that it must
be treated with the strictest impartiality, by relying upon the
preponderance of evidence, without personal animosity, and
with the sole desire of uncovering the truth. The arguments
that the proponents of the Dauphin-Audubon alliance have ad-
vanced were known to me twenty years ago, and were rejected
then, as now, as wholly devoid of any proper and necessary
documentary support. It should be remembered that Audubon

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xv

made public no statement bearing upon his being the Dauphin
of France.

Audubon was quite human, with plenty of faults, which may
not always be excused, but with versatile talents which few
could match. He showed that dogged perseverance in attaining
his heart's desire which no poverty, no discords among family
or friends, no lack of education, and no handicaps or mis-
fortune could for more than a moment defeat or keep from
eventual success. With all his lacks and all his faults Audubon
was one of the most industrious and self-reliant among the
successful men of his age. No longer can John James Audubon
be called the "Melchizcdek of Natural History," for to-day
few men of his period are better known. Audubon was a man
of great personal charm with a gift for friendship. A man who
made and kept such friends as Edward Harris, William Mac-
Gillivray, the Reverend Dr. John Bachman, Dr. George Park-
man, and Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck must have had a good
heart.

Textual errors in the plates of the first edition have been
corrected, and the bibliography has been extended to the present
time. Those who are interested in the octavo editions of The
Birds of America and of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North
America should consult an article in The Auk (see Bibliogra-
phy, No. 245) for a more complete list of their perplexing issues.
The "Foreword and Postscript" of the present edition is repro-
duced in substance from a paper in The Auk for October, 1937.

Francis H. Herrick.
Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
November 4, 1937.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I

PAGE

Preface to the First Edition vii

Preface to the Second Edition XU1

Chronology xxxix

Foreword and Postscript: Audubon and the Dauphin . . . lv

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Audubon's growing fame — Experience in Paris in 1838 — Cuvier's patron-
age— -Audubon's publications — His critics — His talents and accom-
plishments— His Americanism arid honesty of purpose — His foibles
and faults — Appreciations and monuments — The Audubon Societies
— Biographies and autobiography — Robert Buchanan and the true
history of his Life of Audubon 1

CHAPTER II

Jean Audubon and His Family

Extraordinary career of the naturalist's father — Wounded at fourteen
and prisoner of war for five years in England — Service in the
French merchant marine and navy — Voyages to Newfoundland and
Santo Domingo — His marriage in France — His sea fights, capture
and imprisonment in New York — His command at the Battle of
Yorktown — Service in America and encounters with British priva-
teers 24

CHAPTER III

Jean Audubon as Santo Domingo Planter and Merchant

Captain Audubon at Les Cayes— As planter, sugar refiner, general
merchant and slave dealer, amasses a fortune — His return to
France with his children — History of the Santo Domingo revolt —
Baron de Wimpffen's experience— Revolution of the whites — Op-
position of the abolitionists — Effect of the Declaration of Rights
on the mulattoes — The General Assembly drafts a new constitution
— First blood drawn between revolutionists and loyalists at Port-

xvii

52844

xviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

PAGE

au-Prince — Oge's futile attempt to liberate the mulattoes — Les
Cayes first touched by revolution in 1790, four years after the death
of Audubon's mother — Emancipation of the mulattoes — Resistance
of the whites — General revolt of blacks against whites and the
ruin of the colony 36

CHAPTER IV

Audubon's Birth, Nationality, and Parentage

Les Cayes — Audubon's French Creole mother — His early names — Discov-
ery of the Sanson bill with the only record of his birth — Medical
practice of an early day — Birth of Muguet, Audubon's sister —
Fougere and Muguet taken to France — Audubon's adoption and
baptism — His assumed name — Dual personality in legal documents
— Source of published errors — Autobiographic records — Rise of
enigma and tradition — The Marigny myth 52

CHAPTER V

Lieutenant Audubon as Revolutionist

Background of Audubon's youth — Nantes in Revolution — Revolt in La
Vendee— Siege of Nantes— Reign of terror under Carrier— Plague
robbing the guillotine — Flight of the population — Execution of
Charette— The Chouan raid— Citizen Audubon's service— He re-
enters the navy and takes a prize from the English — His subse-
quent naval career — His losses in Santo Domingo — His service and
rank — Retires on a pension — His death— His character and appear-
ance

73

CHAPTER VI
School Days in France

Molding of Audubon's character— Factor of environment— Turning fail-
ure into success — An indulgent step-mother — The truant — His love
of nature— Early drawings and discipline — Experience at Roche-
fort — Baptized in the Roman Catholic Church

CHAPTER VII

First Visit to the United States, and Life at

"Mill Grove"

Audubon is sent to the United States to learn English and enter trade
—Taken ill— Befriended by the Quakers— Settles at "Mill Grove"

90

CONTENTS xix

PAGE

98

farm —Its history and attractions — Studies of American birds be-
gun— Engagement to Lucy Bakewell — Sports and festivities .

CHAPTER VIII

Dacosta and the "Mill Grove" Mine

Advent of a new agent at "Mill Grove"— Dacosta becomes guardian
to young Audubon and exploits a neglected lead mine on the farm
— Correspondence of Lieutenant Audubon and Dacosta — Quarrel
with Dacosta — Audubon's return to France 113

CHAPTER IX

Audubon's Last Visit to his Home in France

Life at Coueron— Friendship of D'Orbigny— Drawings of French birds
— D'Orbigny's troubles — Marriage of Rosa Audubon — The du Pui-
gaudeaus — Partnership with Ferdinand Rozier — Their Articles of
Association — They sail from Nantes, are overhauled by British
privateers, but land safely at New York— Settle at "Mill Grove" . 127

CHAPTER X

"La Gerbetiere" of Yesterday and Today

Home of Audubon's youth at Coueron — Its situation on the Loire —

History of the villa and commune — Changes of a century . . . 136

CHAPTER XI

First Ventures in Business at New York, and Sequel to

the "Mill Grove" Mine

Audubon and Rozier at "Mill Grove"— Their partnership rules— At-
tempts to form a mining company lead to disappointment — Deci-
sion to sell their remaining interests in "Mill Grove" to Dacosta—
Division of the property and legal entanglements — Audubon as a
clerk in New York — Business correspondence and letters to his
father — Later history of the lead mine and Dacosta — Audubon
continues his drawings in New York and works for Dr. Mitchell's
Museum — Forsakes the counting-room for the fields — Personal
sketch I46

xx AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

CHAPTER XII

Early Drawings in France and America

PAGE

Child and man — His ideals, perseverance and progress — Study under
David at Paris — David's pupils and studios — David at Nantes
arouses the enthusiasm of its citizens — His part in the Revolution
—His art and influence over Audubon — Audubon's drawings of
French birds — Story of the Edward Harris collection — The Birds
of America in the bud — Audubon's originality, style, methods, and
mastery of materials and technique— His problem and how he
solved it — His artistic defects 173

CHAPTER XIII

Audubon's Marriage and Settlement in the West

Audubon and Rozier decide to start a pioneer store at Louisville,
Kentucky— Their purchase of goods in New York— "Westward
Ho" with Rozier— Rozier' s diary of the journey— An unfortunate
investment in indigo — Effect of the Embargo Act — Marriage to
Lucy Bakewell— Return to Louisville— Life on the Ohio — Depres-
sion of trade— William Bakewell's assistance— Audubon's eldest son
born at the "Indian Queen"— The Bakewells— Life at Louisville . 186

CHAPTER XIV

A Meeting of Rivals, and Sketch of Another Pioneer

Alexander Wilson and his American Ornithology— His canvassing tour
of 1810— His retort to a Solomon of the bench— Descriptions of
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Louisville— Meeting with Audubon—
Journey to New Orleans— Youth in Scotland— Weaver, itinerant
peddler, poet and socialist— Sent to jail for libel— Emigrates to the
United States— Finally settles as a school teacher near Philadel-
phia—His friendships with Bartram and Lawson— Disappoint-
ments in love— Early studies of American birds— His drawings,
thrift, talents and genius— Publication of his Ornithology— His
travels, discouragements and success— His premature death— Con-
flicting accounts of the visit to Audubon given by the two natural-
ists—Rivalry between the friends of Wilson, dead, and those of
Audubon, living— The controversy which followed— An evasive
"Flycatcher"— Singular history of the Mississippi Kite plate . . 20?

CONTENTS xxi

CHAPTER XV

Experiments in Trade on the Frontier

PAGE

The Ohio a hundred years ago— Hardships of the pioneer trader—
Audubon's long journeys by overland trail or river to buy goods—
The "ark" and keelboat— Chief pleasures of the naturalist at Louis-
ville—The partners move their goods by flatboat to Henderson,
Kentucky, and then to Ste. Genevieve (Missouri)— Held up by the
ice — Adventures with the Indians — Mississippi in flood — Camp at
the Great Bend— Abundance of game— Breaking up of the ice-
Settle at Ste. Genevieve — The partnership dissolved — Audubon's
return to Henderson — Rozier's successful career — His old store at
Ste. Genevieve 233

CHAPTER XVI

Audubon's Mill and Final Reverses in Business

Dr. Rankin's "Meadow Brook Farm"— Birth of John Woodhouse Audu-
bon—The Audubon-Bakewell partnership— Meeting with Nolte—
Failure of the commission business— Visit to Rozier— Storekeeping
at Henderson— Purchases of land— Habits of frontier tradesmen
—Steamboats on the Ohio— Popular pastimes— Audubon-Bakewell-
Pears partnership — Their famous steam mill — Mechanical and finan-
cial troubles— Business reorganization— Bankruptcy general— Fail-
ure of the mill— Personal encounter— Audubon goes to jail for
debt 247

CHAPTER XVII

The Enigma of Audubon's Life and the History of His

Family in France

Death of Lieutenant Audubon— Contest over his will— Disposition of
his estate— The fictitious $17,000— Unsettled claims of Formon and
Ross— Illusions of biographers— Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau—
Audubon's relations with the family in France broken— Death of
the naturalist's stepmother— The du Puigaudeaus— Sources of
"enigma." 262

CHAPTER XVIII

Early Episodes of Western Life

Methods of composition— "A Wild Horse"— Henderson to Philadelphia
in 1811— Records of Audubon and Nolte, fellow travelers, com-

xxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

PAGE

pared — The great earthquakes — The hurricane — The outlaw — Char-
acterization of Daniel Boone — Desperate plight on the prairie —
Regulator law in action — Frontier necessities — The ax married to
the grindstone 273

CHAPTER XIX

Audubon and Rafinesque

The "Eccentric Naturalist" at Henderson — Bats and new species — The
demolished violin — "M. de T.": Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
(Schmaltz) — His precocity, linguistic acquirements and peripatetic
habits — First visit to America and botanical studies — Residence in
Sicily, and fortune made in the drug trade — Association with
Swainson — Marriage and embitterment — His second journey to
America ends in shipwreck — Befriended — Descends Ohio in a flat-
boat — Visit with Audubon, who gives him many strange "new
species" — Cost to zoology — His unique work on Ohio fishes — Profes-
sorship in Transylvania University — Quarrel with its president and
trustees — Return to Philadelphia — His ardent love of nature; his
writings, and fatal versatility — His singular will — His sad end and
the ruthless disposition of his estate 285

CHAPTER XX

Audubon's ./Eneid, 1819-1824: Wanderings Through the

West and South

Pivotal period in Audubon's career — His spur and balance wheel —
Resort to portraiture — Taxidermist in the Western Museum — Set-
tles in Cincinnati — History of his relations with Dr. Drake — De-
cides to make his avocation his business — Journey down the Ohio
and Mississippi with Mason and Cummings — Experiences of travel
without a cent of capital— Life in New Orleans— Vanderlyn's rec-
ommendation— Original drawings — Chance meeting with Mrs. Pir-
rie and engagement as tutor at "Oakley"— Enchantments of West
Feliciana— "My lovely Miss Pirrie"— The jealous doctor— Famous
drawing of the rattlesnake— Leaves St. Francisville and is adrift
again in New Orleans— Obtains pupils in drawing and is joined
by his family— Impoverished, moves to Natchez, and Mrs. Audu-
bon becomes a governess — Injuries to his drawings — The labors of
years destroyed by rats — Teaching in Tennessee — Parting with
Mason — First lessons in oils— Mrs. Audubon's school at "Beech-
woods"— Painting tour fails— Stricken at Natchez— At the Percys'
plantation — Walk to Louisville — Settles at Shippingport . . .301

CONTENTS xxiii

CHAPTER XXI

Debut as a Naturalist

PAGE

Makes his bow at Philadelphia — Is greeted with plaudits and cold water
—Friendship of Harlan, Sully, Bonaparte and Harris— Hostility of
Ord, Lawson and other friends of Alexander Wilson— A meeting
of academicians— Visit to "Mill Grove" — Exhibits drawings in
New York and becomes a member of the Lyceum — At the Falls
of Niagara— In a gale on Lake Erie— Episode at Meadville— Walk
to Pittsburgh — Tour of Lakes Ontario and Champlain — Decides to
take his drawings to Europe — Descends the Ohio in a skiff —
Stranded at Cincinnati — Teaching at St. Francisville .... 327

CHAPTER XXII

To Europe and Success

Audubon sails from New Orleans — Life at sea — Liverpool — The Rath-
bones — Exhibition of drawings an immediate success — Personal ap-
pearance—Painting habits resumed — His pictures and methods-
Manchester visited — Plans for publication — The Birds of America
— Welcome at Edinburgh — Lizars engraves the Turkey Cock — In
the role of society's lion — His exhibition described by a French
critic — Honors of science and the arts — Contributions to journals
excite criticism — Aristocratic patrons — Visit to Scott — The Wild
Pigeon and the rattlesnake— Letter to his wife— Prospectus— Jour-
ney to London 347

CHAPTER XXIII

Audubon in London

Impressions of the metropolis— A trunk full of letters— Friendship of
Children— Sir Thomas Lawrence— Lizars stops work— A family of
artists— Robert Havell, Junior— The Birds of America fly to Lon-
don—The Zoological Gallery— Crisis in the naturalist's affairs-
Royal patronage— Interview with Gallatin— Interesting the Queen-
Desertion of patrons — Painting to independence — Personal habits
and tastes— Enters the Linnaean Society — The white-headed Eagle
—Visit to the great universities— Declines to write for magazines
— Audubon-Swainson correspondence — "Highfield Hall" near Tyt-
tenhanger — In Paris with Swainson — Glimpses of Cuvier— His re-
port on The Birds of America— Patronage of the French Govern-
ment and the Duke of Orleans — Bonaparte the naturalist . . .377

xxiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

CHAPTER XXIV

First Visit to America in Search of New Birds

PAtiK

Settles for a time in Camden — Paints in a fisherman's cottage by the
sea— With the lumbermen in the Great Pine Woods — Work done —
Visits his sons — Joins his wife at St. Francisville — Record of jour-
ney south — Life at "Beechgrove" — Mrs. Audubon retires from
teaching — Their plans to return to England — Meeting with Presi-
dent Jackson and Edward Everett 4*20

CHAPTER XXV

Audubon's Letterpress and Its Rivals

Settlement in London — Starts on canvassing tour with his wife —
Change of plans — In Edinburgh — Discovery of MaeGillivray — His
hand in the Ornithological Biography — Rival editions of Wilson
and Bonaparte — Brown's extraordinary Atlas — Reception of the
Biography— Joseph Bartholomew Kidd and the Ornithological Gal-
lery— In London again 437

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II

CHAPTER XXVI

Explorations in Florida and the South Atlantic

PAGE

Obituary published in London on day of his arrival in New York — As-
sistance from the Government — John Bachman becomes his friend
— Winter in Charleston — His folios as gifts — To Florida with two
assistants — Letters to Featherstonhaugh — St. Augustine — Misad-
ventures in the mud of East Florida — Audubon on Florida's fu-
ture— At the sources of the St. John's — Aboard the Marion —
Return from Key West — A merchant of Savannah — Disbanding of
party at Charleston 1

CHAPTER XXVII

Eastern Visit and Explorations in the North Atlantic

Bachman's success as a canvasser— Boston visit — Journey to Portland —
Ascent of the St. John — Return overland — Victor Audubon be-
comes his father's agent — Winter in Boston — The Golden Eagle —
Stricken with illness — Expedition to Labrador planned — Ameri-
can support — Sails from Eastport with five assistants — Discoveries
and adventures on the Labrador — Safe return — Another winter in
Charleston — Sued for old debts — Experience with vultures — Advice
and instruction to a son — Working habits — Return to England . 26

CHAPTER XXVIII

Thorns on the Rose

Contributions to magazines — Attacked in Philadelphia — Statement to
Sully — The rattlesnake episode — Behavior of a Philadelphia editor
— Mistaken identity in account of the reptile— Lesson of the ser-
pent's tooth — Audubon's long lost lily rediscovered— "Nosarians
and Anti-Nosarians" — Bachman and Audubon on vultures — Aim of
the critics — Authorship in the Biography — His most persistent
heckler — Pitfall of analogy 67

XXV

xxvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

CHAPTER XXIX

Sidelights on Audubon and His Contemporaries

PAGE

What was a Quinarian? — Controversy over the authorship of the Orni-
thological Biography — Auduhon's quaint proposal — Swainson's re-
ply— Friendship suffers a check — Species-mongers — Hitting at one
over the shoulders of another — Swainson as a biographer — His ca-
reer— Bonaparte's grievance — A fortune in ornithology — Labors of
John Gould and his relations with Audubon— The freemasonry of
naturalists 93

CHAPTER XXX

Audubon and MacGillivray

In London once more — MacGillivray's assistance continued — Return to
Edinburgh — MacGillivray's character and accomplishments — Audu-
bon's acknowledgments— Tributes of "Christopher North"— Results
of overwork— Fusillades from "Walton Hall"— Progress of the
large plates 125

CHAPTER XXXI

Third American Tour, 1836-1837

In New York harbor— Collections from the Far West— Audubon's ef-
forts to secure them— Return to Boston— Friendship of Daniel
Webster— Renewed efforts to obtain the Nuttall-Townsend collec-
tions—Expedition to the west coast of Florida— Deferred govern-
mental aid— Another winter with Bachman— Overland journey to
New Orleans— On board the Crusader— Mistaken for pirates— With
Harris and his son explores the Gulf coast— The Republic of Texas
—Visit to its capital and president— Meeting in Charleston— Mar-
riage of his son — Their return to England 1*6

CHAPTER XXXII

Audubon's Greatest Triumph

Extension of his work — Financial panic and revolt of patrons — New
western collections— His "book of Nature" completed— Work on the
letterpress in Edinburgh— Vacation in the Highlands— Commissions

CONTENTS xxvii

PAGE

to Harris — Parting address to the reader — Dissolution of the
Havell engraving establishment — The residuum of The Birds of
America — Robert Havell, engraver, and his family — Lizars' first
edition and the Havell reissues of plates — Brief manual for col-
lectors— Appreciations — Total edition of The Birds of America —
Past and oresent prices — The Rothschild incident 168

CHAPTER XXXIII

New Enterprises and Life at "Minnie's Land"

Settlement in New York — The Birds in miniature, and work on the
Quadrupeds — Marriage of Victor Audubon — Cooperation of Bach-
man in the Quadrupeds secured — Prospectuses — History of the oc-
tavo edition of the Birds — Baird's enthusiasm and efficient aid —
Parkman's Wren — Baird's visit to Audubon in New York — "Look
out for Martens," and wildcats — New home on the Hudson — God-
win's pilgrimage to "Minnie's Land" in 1842 208

CHAPTER XXXIV

Expedition to the Upper Missouri

Ambitions at fifty-seven — Plans his last expedition in the role of natu-
ralist— Credentials from public men — Canvassing tour in Canada
described — Baird's plans to accompany Audubon west frustrated —
Western expedition begun — Ascent of the Missouri and Yellowstone
— Discoveries of new birds — A wilderness that howls — Buffalo hunt-
ing— Passing of the great herds — Return from Fort Union — Inci-
dent on the canal boat — Completion of the octavo edition of the
Birds 239

CHAPTER XXXV

Final Work Days

Painting the Quadrupeds — Assistance of Bachman and Audubon's sons
— Copper plates of the Birds go through the fire in New York —
Audubon a spectator at the ruins — Bachman's ultimatum — Success
of the illustrations of the Quadrupeds — Bachman's letterpress —
Recommendation of Baird — J. W. Audubon in London — Bachman's
assistants — His life and labors — Decline of Audubon's powers — Dr.
Brewer's visit — Audubon's last letters — His death at "Minnie's
Land" 261

*xviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

CHAPTER XXXVI

Afterword: Audubon's Family in America

PAGE

Bachman completes his text on the Quadrupeds— Victor Audubon's suc-
cess in canvassing — John Woodhouse Audubon's family — New
houses at "Minnie's Land" — Second octavo edition of the Birds —
Victor Audubon's illness and death— Attempt to reissue The Birds
of America in America— The residual stock of this imperfect edi-
tion— Death of John Woodhouse Audubon — His career and work as
an artist and field collector— Mrs. Audubon resumes her old voca-
tion—Fate of "Minnie's Land"— Death of Mrs. Audubon— Her
share in her husband's fame— Story written on Audubon's original
drawings— Fate of the original copper plates of the Birds— A boy
comes to the rescue— "Minnie's Land" today— The "Cave"— A real
"Audubon Park" 291

APPENDIX I

Original Documents

1. Copy of the original bill rendered by Doctor Sanson, physician
at Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, to Jean Audubon, containing the
only existing record of the birth of his son, Jean Jacques Fou-
gere Audubon, on April 26, 1785; Les Cayes, December 29, 1783-
October 19, 1785 314

la. Translation of the Sanson Bill 315

2. Copy of the Act of Adoption of Fougere (John James Audu-
bon) and Muguet (Rosa Audubon), Nantes, March 7, 1794 . 328

3. Copy of the Act of Baptism of Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon,
Nantes, October 23, 1800 329

4. Copy of a bill of sale of Negroes rendered by Monsieur Ollivier

to Monsieur Audubon, Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, 1785 . . 330

5. Statement of Accounts of Messrs. Audubon, Lacroix, Formon &
Jacques in the purchase of Negroes from M. Th. Johnston, Les
Cayes, Santo Domingo, 1785 331

6. Copy of bill of sale of Negroes to Monsieur Audubon, and a
statement of his account with Messrs. Lucas Brothers & Con-
stant, Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, August 7, 1785-June 9, 1788 334

7. Accounts of William Bakewell of "Fatland Ford" as protege of
his future son-in-law, and as attorney or agent for Audubon &
Rozier, giving certain exact indications of the naturalist's early
movements and personal relations, before and after finally leav-
ing "Mill Grove," January 4, 1805-April 9, 1810 . . • .336

8. Concerning a Power of Attorney issued by Lieutenant Audubon
and Anne Moynet Audubon to Ferdinand Rozier and John Au-

CONTENTS xxix

PAGE

dubon, the Younger, at Coueron, France, in 1805; parts in
French translated by a Philadelphia notary; signatures of orig-
inal document authenticated by the Mayor of Coueron, October
21, 1805; his attest of the legality of Anne Moynet Audubon's
signature at Coueron, October 27, 1805; authentication of the
signature of the Mayor of Coueron by the Subprefect of Save-
nay, November 27, 1805; attest of the Subprefect's signature by
the Prefect 340

9. Articles of Association of Jean Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier
to govern their partnership in business; drawn up at Nantes,
March 23, 1806 344

9a. Translation of the Articles of Association of Jean Audubon and

Ferdinand Rozier 345

10. Power of Attorney issued by Lieutenant Jean Audubon, Anne
Moynet Audubon and Claude Francois Rozier, to their respective
sons, Jean Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier, at Nantes, France,
April 4, 1806, eight days before the latter embarked to Amer-
ica to enter upon their partnership in business 350

10a. Translation of the Power of Attorney issued by Jean Audubon,
Anne Moynet Audubon, and Claude Francois Rozier to Jean
Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier, April 4, 1806 .... 351

11. Account current of John Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier with
the estate of Benjamin Bakewell, late commission merchant in
New York, showing their dealings and standing with this house
during the first sixteen months of their business experience in the
West. Covers the period August 1, 1807, to December 13, 1808 . 354

11a. Final Account of Francis Dacosta, rendered July 25, 1807, to
Lieutenant Jean Audubon, his partner in the unfortunate mining
enterprise at "Mill Grove"; later contested and settled by arbi-
tration 356

12. Quit Claim or Release given by John James Audubon to Ferdi-
nand Rozier on the Dissolution of their Partnership in Business,

at Sainte Genevieve, Upper Louisiana (Missouri), April 6, 1811 359

13. Copy of a portion of the first Will of Lieutenant Jean Audu-
bon, Coueron, May 20, 1812 360

14. Copy of the second and last Will of Lieutenant Jean Audubon,
March 15, 1816 361

15. Copy of a portion of the first Will of Madame Anne Moynet,
wife of Lieutenant Audubon, December 4, 1814 .... 363

16. Copy of a portion of the second Will of Madame Jean Audubon,
May 10, 1816 364

17. Copy of the third Will, "No. 169, of Madame Anne Moynet,
widow of M. Jean Audubon, living at his house called "La Ger-
betiere," and situated near the village of Port-Launay, not far
from Coueron," December 26, 1819 366

18. Copy of a portion of the fourth and last will of Madame Jean
Audubon, living at the house of "The Turtle Doves" ("Les Tour-
terelles"), at Coueron, July 16, 1821 367

xxx AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

PAGE

19. Notice of the death of Lieutenant Jean Audubon, from the offi-
cial registry of Nantes, Nantes, February 19, 1818 . . .369

20. Letter of Lieutenant Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta, his
American agent and attorney, relating to the conduct of his son,
and to the lead mine at "Mill Grove" farm, transliterated from
photographic copy of duplicate (Letter No. 4) in Jean Audu-
bon's letter-book. Nantes, March 10, 1805 370

21. Letters of John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier,
father, and to Ferdinand Rozier, son, immediately preceding
and following his active partnership in business with the latter,
1807 and 1812 • 373

APPENDIX II

Audubon's Early Dated Drawings Made in France and

America

Drawings now in the collections of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes of Philadel-
phia, and formerly belonging to Mr. Edward Harris, of Moores-
town, New Jersey; of Mr. John E. Thayer, Lancaster, Massachu-
setts, and of Harvard University 375

APPENDIX III

"The Birds of America"

1. Final Lists of Subscribers to The Birds of America, folio edi-
tion, as published by Audubon in 1839 380

2. Prospectus of The Birds of America, as issued in 1828, when
ten Numbers of the original folio were engraved . . .386

3. Prospectus of the Second (partial) Edition of The Birds of
America, issued by John Woodhouse Audubon, through Messrs.
Trubner & Company, London, 1859 389

APPENDIX IV

Authentic Likenesses of Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon . . . .392

APPENDIX V

Bibliography

Containing a fully annotated list of Audubon's writings, biographies,

criticism, and Auduboniana *01

t ... 457
Index

ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME I

Audubon. After a photograph of a cast of the intaglio cut by John

C. King in 1844. Embossed medallion Cover

Audubon. After the engraving by C. Turner, A.R.A., of the minia-
ture on ivory painted by Frederick Cruikshank about 1831; "Lon-
don. Published Jan. 12, 1835, for the Proprietor [supposed to
have been the engraver, but may have been Audubon or Havell],
by Robert Havell, Printseller, 77, Oxford Street." Photogra-
vure Frontispiece

PAGE

Statue of Audubon by Edward Virginius Valentine in Audubon Park,

New Orleans Facing 14

The Audubon Monument in Trinity Cemetery, New York, on Chil-
dren's Day, June, 1915 Facing 14

Les Cayes, Haiti: the wharf and postoffiee .... Facing 40

Les Cayes, Haiti: the market and Church of Sacre Coeur . Facing 40

First page of the bill rendered by Dr. Sanson, of Les Cayes, Santo
Domingo, to Jean Audubon for medical services from December
29, 1783, to October 19, 1785 Facing 54

Second page of the Sanson bill, bearing, in the entry for April 26,
1785, the only record known to exist of the date of Audubon's
birth Facing 55

Third page of the Sanson bill, signed as accepted by Jean Audubon,
October 12, 1786, and receipted by the doctor, when paid, June 7,
1787 ........... Facing 54

Audubon's signature at various periods. From early drawings, legal

documents and letters ......... 63

Lieutenant Jean Audubon and Anne Moynet Audubon. After por-
traits painted between 1801 and 1806, now at Coueron . Facing 78

Jean Audubon. After a portrait painted by the American artist

Polk, at Philadelphia, about 1789 Facing 78

Jean Audubon's signature. From a report to the Directory of his
Department, when acting as Civil Commissioner, January to Sep-
tember, 1793 79

Certificate of Service which Lieutenant Audubon received upon his

discharge from the French Navy, February 26, 1801 . . .84

xxxi

xxxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

PAGE

"Mill Grove" in 1835 (about). After a water-color painting by Charles

Wetherill Facing 102

"Mill Grove," Audubon, Pennsylvania, as it appears to-day . Facing 102

"Mill Grove" farmhouse, west front, as it appears to-day . Facing 110

"Fatland Ford," Audubon, Pennsylvania, the girlhood home of Lucy

Bakewell Audubon Facing 110

Early drawings of French birds, 1805, hitherto unpublished: the male

Reed Bunting ("Sedge Sparrow"), and the male Redstart Facing 128

Receipt given by Captain Sammis of the Polly to Audubon and Ferdi
nand Rozier for their passage money from Nantes to New York,
May 28, 1806 134

"La Gerbetiere," Jean Audubon's country villa at Coueron, France, and

the naturalist's boyhood home Facing 136

"La Gerbetiere" and Coueron, as seen from the highest point in the
commune, windmill towers on the ridge overlooking Port Launay,
on the Loire Facing 142

"La Gerbetiere," as seen when approached from Coueron village by the

road to Port Launay Facing 142

Port Launay on the Loire Facing 142

Beginning of the "Articles of Association" of John James Audubon

and Ferdinand Rozier, signed at Nantes, March 23, 1806 Facing 146

First page of a power of attorney granted by Jean Audubon, Anne
Moynet Audubon and Claude Francois Rozier to John James Au-
dubon and Ferdinand Rozier, Nantes, April 4, 1806 . Facing 152

Signatures of Jean Audubon, Anne Moynet Audubon, Dr. Chapelain
and Dr. Charles d'Orbigny to a power of attorney granted to John
James Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier, Coueron, November 20,
1806 Facing 153

Early drawings of French birds, 1805, hitherto unpublished: the Euro
pean Crow, with detail of head of the Rook, and the White Wag-
tail Facin9 174

Early drawing in crayon point of the groundhog, 1805, hitherto un-
published Fac[n9 182

Water-color drawing of a young raccoon, 1841 . . . Facing 182

Alexander Wilson Facing 212

William Bartram Facin9 213

The "twin" Mississippi Kites of Wilson and Audubon, the similarity
of which inspired charges of misappropriation against Audu-
bon ... Facinff 228

ILLUSTRATIONS xxxiii

PAGE

Audubon's signature to the release given to Ferdinand Rozier on the

dissolution of their partnership in 1811 ..... 242

Ferdinand Rozier in his eighty-fifth year (1862) . . . Facing 246

Rozier's old store at Ste. Genevieve, Kentucky . . . Facing 246

Letter of Audubon to Ferdinand Rozier, signed "Audubon & Bake-
well," and dated October 19, 1813, during the first partnership
under this style ........... 251

Audubon's Mill at Henderson, Kentucky, since destroyed, as seen from

the bank of the Ohio River Facing 254

An old street in the Coueron of today ..... Facing 264

"Les Tourterelles," Coueron, final home of Anne Moynet Audubon, and
the resting-place of exact records of the naturalist's birth and
early life Facing 264

Early drawings of American birds, 1808-9, hitherto unpublished: the

Belted Kingfisher and the Wild Pigeon .... Facing 292

Bayou Sara Landing, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, at the junc-
tion of Bayou Sara and the Mississippi River . . Facing 314

Scene on Bayou Sara Creek, Audubon's hunting ground in

1821 Facing 314

Road leading from Bayou Sara Landing to the village of St. Franeis-

ville, West Feliciana Parish Facing 318

"Oakley," the James Pirrie plantation house near St. Francisville, where
Audubon made some of his famous drawings while acting as a
tutor in 1821 Facing 318

An early letter of Audubon to Edward Harris, written at Philadel-
phia, July 14, 1824 332

Note of Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell, written hurriedly in pencil,
recommending Audubon to his friend, Dr. Barnes, August 4,
1824 337

Crayon portrait of Miss Jennett Benedict, an example of Audubon's
itinerant portraiture. After the original drawn by Audubon at
Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1824 Facing 342

Miss Eliza Pirrie, Audubon's pupil at "Oakley" in 1821. After an

oil portrait Facing 342

Early drawing of the "Frog-eater," Cooper's Hawk, 1810, hitherto un-
published Facing 348

Pencil sketch of a "Shark, 7 feet long, off Cuba," from Audubon's

Journal of his voyage to England in 1826 . . . Facing 348

First page of Audubon's Journal of his voyage from New Orleans to

Liverpool in 1826 Facing 349

xxxiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

PAGE

Cock Turkey, The Birds of America, Plate I. After the original
engraving by W. H. Lizars, retouched by Robert Havell.
Color Facing 358

Title page of the original edition of The Birds of America, Volume II,

1831-1834 381

The Prothonotary Warbler plates, The Birds of America, Plate XI,
bearing the legends of the engravers, W. H. Lizars and Robert
Havell, Jr., but identical in every other detail of engrav-
ing Facing 384

Reverse of panels of Robert Havell's advertising folder reproduced

on facing insert 386

Outside engraved panels of an advertising folder issued by Robert
Havell about 1834. After the only original copy known to
exist Facing 386

Inside engraved panels of Robert Havell's advertising folder, showing

the interior of the "Zoological Gallery," 77 Oxford Street Facing 387

Reverse of panels of Robert Havell's advertising folder, reproduced

on facing insert 387

Title page of Audubon's Prospectus of The Birds of America for

1831 391

English Pheasants surprised by a Spanish Dog. After a painting by

Audubon in the American Museum of Natural History . Facing 394

Letter of William Swainson to Audubon, May, 1828 . . . -402
Audubon. After an oil portrait, hitherto unpublished, painted in

1828 by C. W. Parker, an American artist . . • Facing 412

Part of letter of Charles Lucien Bonaparte to Audubon, January

10, 1829 417

Mrs. Dickie's "Boarding Residence," 26 George Street, Edinburgh,

where Audubon painted and wrote in 1826-27, and in 1830-

qi ....••• Facing 438

The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia. After an old

print Facin9 438

Title page of the Ornithological Biography, Volume I . . • .441

ILLUSTRATIONS IN VOLUME II

Audubon. After a portrait by George P. A. Healy, 1838. Photo-
gravure .......... Frontispiece

PAGE

"Beeehgrove," William Garrett Johnson's plantation house near St.
Francisville, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, where Mrs. Audu-
bon lived and taught from 1827 to 1829 .... Facing 6

John Bachman's house in Charleston, South Carolina . . Facing 6

Early drawing in water color of the Carolina Parrot on branch of the

hickory, 1811, hitherto unpublished Facing 20

John Bachman at thirty-two. After an engraving by Charles C. Wright

of a portrait by A. Fisher ....... Facing 32

Robert Havell at eighty-five. After a photograph taken shortly before

his death in 1878 Facing 32

Letter of Dr. George Parkman to Audubon, May 25, 1833 . . .43

Pileated Woodpeckers on the "Raccoon Grape," The Birds of America,
Plate CXI. After the original engraving by Robert Havell, 1831.
Color ........... Facing 46

Letter of Robert Havell to Audubon, June 15, 1833 51

John George Children Facing 64

Edward Harris .......... Facing 64

John Bachman .......... Facing 72

George Ord Facing 72

Samuel Latham Mitchell Facing 72

Charles Waterton Facing 72

Dr. Thomas Cooper, President of South Carolina College. After a con-
temporary silhouette 78

Vindication of Audubon's representation of the fangs of the southern
rattlesnake as recurved at their tips. Detail from The Birds of
America, Plate XXI, and photograph of the skull of a recent
Florida specimen Facing 80

Bluebirds on a stalk of the "great Mullein," The Birds of America,
Plate CXIII. After the original engraving by Robert Havell, 1831.
Color Facing 100

XXXV

xxxvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

PAGE

William Swainson Facing 118

Thomas Nuttall Facing 118

Charles Lucien Bonaparte Facing 118

Constantine Samuel Rafinesquc ...... Facing 118

Audubon. After an engraving by H. B. Hall of a portrait painted by

Henry Inman in 1833 Facing 126

Letter of William MacGillivray to Audubon, October 22, 1834 . . .131

Part of the original draft of Audubon's manuscript for the Introduc-
tion to Volume II of the Ornithological Biography, giving list of
names of persons to whom Audubon carried credentials on his first
visit to London in 1827 Facing 133

Audubon's inscription in a copy of the Ornithological Biography, which

he presented to William MacGillivray in 1839 138

Early drawings of American birds, 1807-12, hitherto unpublished: the

Whippoorwill and the American Robin, with details . . Facing 144

Bust of Audubon by William Couper, in front and profile views. After
the original in the American Museum of Natural History, New
York Facing 160

Life mask of Audubon, hitherto unpublished, in front and profile views.
After the original made by Robert Havell in London, now in pos-
session of the Museum of Comparative Zoology of Harvard Uni-
verstty Facing 178

Canvas-backed Ducks, with distant view of the city of Baltimore, Mary-
land, The Birds of America, Plate CCCI. After the original en-
graving by Robert Havell, 1836. Color .... Facing 196

Victor Gifford Audubon Facing 210

John Woodhouse Audubon Facing 210

Title page of the paper covers in which parts of the first American

(octavo) edition of The Birds of America were originally issued . 213

Audubon. After a portrait painted by John Woodhouse and Victor

Gifford Audubon about 1841 Facing 226

"Minnie's Land," Audubon's home on the Hudson River, as it appeared

in 1865. After a lithograph in Valentine's Manual . . Facing 236

"Minnie's Land," as it appeared in 1917 from the river front, pocketed

by the retaining wall of Riverside Drive . . . Facing 236

Audubon, with gun, horse, and dog. After a painting by John Wood-
house Audubon about 1841 . ..... Facing 244

Letter of Edward Harris to Audubon, January 31, 1843 . . . 251

ILLUSTRATIONS xxxvii

PAGE

Drawings for The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America: the Amer-
ican or Canada porcupine and rabbits. After the originals in water
color in the American Museum of Natural History, New York

Facing 264

Title page of Volume I of the English edition of the text of The Vivip-
arous Quadrupeds of North America 275

John W. Audubon's inscription in a copy of Volume I of the text of

the Quadrupeds (English edition), presented to John Edward Gray 280

Audubon. After an engraving by Nordheim of a daguerreotype possi-
bly earlier than 1849 Facing 280

Audubon. After his last portrait, a daguerreotype made in New York

about 1850 Facing 280

Letter of John Bachman to George Oates, November 7, 1846 . . . 282

Audubon's last (?) letter to Edward Harris, February 22, 1847 . . 287

House formerly belonging to Victor Gifford Audubon, east front, as it

appears to-day Facing '294

House formerly belonging to John Woodhouse Audubon, south front,

as it appears to-day Facing 294

Lucy Bakewell Audubon. After a miniature painted by Frederick

Cruikshank in London, about 1831 Facing 304

Lucy Bakewell Audubon. After an unpublished photograph of 1871 .

Facing 304

CHRONOLOGY

1785

April 26. — Fougere, Jean Rabin, or Jean Jacques Fougere
Audubon, born at Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, now Haiti.

1789

Fougere, at four years, and Muguet, his sister by adoption, at
two, are taken by their father to the United States, and
thence to France.

179 b

March 7 {17 ventose, an 2). — Fougere, when nine years old,
and Muguet at six, are legally adopted as the children of
Jean Audubon and Anne Moynet, his wife.

1800

October 23 (1 brumaire, an 9). — Baptized, Jean Jacques Fou-
gere, at Nantes, when in his sixteenth year.

1802-1803

Studies drawing for a brief period under Jacques Louis David,
at Paris.

1803

First return to America, at eighteen, to learn English and
enter trade: settles at "Mill Grove" farm, near Phila-
delphia, where he spends a vear and begins his studies of
American birds.

xxxix

xl AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

1804.

December 15. — Half-interest in "Mill Grove" acquired by
Francis Dacosta, who begins to exploit its lead mine; he
also acts as guardian to young Audubon, who becomes
engaged to Lucy Green Bakewell; quarrel with Dacosta
follows.

1805

January 12-15 (?). — Walks to New York, where Benjamin
Bakewell supplies him with passage money to France.

January 18 (about). — Sails on the Hope for Nantes, and ar-
rives about March 18.

A year spent at "La Gerbetiere," in Coueron, where he hunts
birds with D'Orbigny and makes many drawings, and at
Nantes, where plans are made for his return, with Ferdi-
nand Rozier, to America.

1806

Enters the French navy at this time, or earlier, but soon with-
draws.

March 23. — A business partnership is arranged with Ferdinand
Rozier, and Articles of Association are signed at Nantes.

April 12. — Sails with Rozier on the Polly, Captain Sammis, and
lands in New York on May 26.

They settle at "Mill Grove" farm, where they remain less than
four months, meanwhile making unsuccessful attempts to
operate the lead mine on the property.

September 15. — Remaining half interest in "Mill Grove" farm
and mine acquired by Francis Dacosta & Company, condi-
tionally, the Audubons and Roziers holding a mortgage.

1806-1807

Serves as clerk in Benjamin Bakewell's commission house in
New York, but continues his studies and drawings of birds,
and works for Dr. Mitchell's Museum.

CHRONOLOGY xli

1807

With Rozier decides to embark in trade in Kentucky.
August 1. — They purchase their first stock of goods in New

York.
August 31. — Starts with Rozier for Louisville, where they open

a pioneer store.
Their business suffers from the Embargo Act.

1808

April 5. — Married to Lucy Bakewell at "Fatland Ford," her
father's farm near Philadelphia, and returns with his bride
to Louisville.

1809

June 12. — Victor Gifford Audubon born at Gwathway's hotel,
the "Indian Queen," in Louisville.

1810

March. — Alexander Wilson, pioneer ornithologist, visits Audu-
bon at Louisville.

Moves down river with Rozier to Redbanks (Henderson), Ken-
tucky.

December. — Moves with Rozier again, and is held up by ice at
the mouth of the Ohio and at the Great Bend of the Mis-
sissippi, where they spend the winter.

1811

Reaches Sainte Genevieve, Upper Louisiana (Missouri), in

early spring.
April 6. — Dissolves partnership with Rozier, and returns to

Henderson afoot.
Joins in a commission business with his brother-in-law, Thomas

W. Bakewell.
December.- — Meets Vincent Nolte when returning to Louisville

from the East, and descends the Ohio in his flatboat.

xlii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

1812

The annus mirabilis in Kentucky, marked by a series of earth-
quakes, which begins December 16, 1811, and furnishes
material for "Episodes."

Commission house of Audubon and Bakewell is opened by the
latter in New Orleans, but is quickly suppressed by the
war, which breaks out in June.

Spring. — Starts a retail store, on his own account, at Hender-
son.

November 30. — John Woodhouse Audubon, born at "Meadow
Brook" farm, Dr. Adam Rankin's home near Henderson.

1812-1813

Storekeeping at Henderson, where he purchases four town
lots and settles down.

1816

March 16. — Enters into another partnership with Bakewell;
planning to build a steam grist- and sawmill at Henderson,
they lease land on the river front.

1817

Thomas W. Pears joins the partnership, and the steam mill,
which later became famous, is erected. (After long disuse
or conversion to other purposes, "Audubon's Mill" was
finally burned to the ground on March 18, 1913.)

1818

Summer. — Receives a visit from Constantine Samuel Rafinesque,
who becomes the subject of certain practical jokes, at
zoology's future expense, and figures in a later "Episode."

CHRONOLOGY xliii

1819

After repeated change of partners, the mill enterprise fails,
and Audubon goes to Louisville jail for debt; declares him-
self a bankrupt, and saves only his clothes, his drawings
and gun. Resorts to doing crayon portraits at Shipping-
port and Louisville, where he is immediately successful.

1819-1820

At Cincinnati, to fill an appointment as taxidermist in the
Western Museum, just founded by Dr. Daniel Drake; set-
tles with his family and works three or four months, at a
salary of $125 a month ; then returns to portraits, and
starts a drawing school.

1820

Decides to publish his "Ornithology," and all his activities are
now directed to this end.

October 12. — Leaves his family, and with Joseph R. Mason, as
pupil-assistant, starts without funds on a long expedition
down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, to New Orleans,
hoping to visit Arkansas, and intending to explore the
country for birds, while living by his talents: from this
time keeps a regular journal and works systematically.

1821

January 7. — Enters New Orleans with young Mason without
enough money to pay for a night's lodging.

February 17. — Sends his wife 20 drawings, including the famous
Turkey Hen, Great-footed Hawk, and White-headed
Eagle.

Obtains a few drawing pupils ; is recommended by John Vander-
lyn and Governor Robertson, but lives from hand to mouth
until June 16, when Audubon and Mason leave for Ship-
pingport ; a fellow passenger, Mrs. James Pirrie, of West
Feliciana, offers Audubon a position as tutor to her daugh-
ter, and with Mason he settles on her plantation at St.
Francisville, Bayou Sara, where he remains nearly five
months ; some of his finest drawings are made at this time.

xliv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

October 21. — Leaves abruptly and returns with Mason to New
Orleans, where he again becomes a drawing teacher, and
resumes his studies of birds with even greater avidity.

December. — Is joined by his family, and winter finds them in
dire straits.

1822

March 16. — To Natchez with Mason, paying their passage by
doing portraits of the captain and his wife ; while on the
way finds that many of his drawings have been seriously
damaged by gunpowder ; teaches French, drawing and
dancing at Natchez, and Washington, Mississippi.

July 23. — Parts with Mason, after giving him his gun, paper
and chalks, with which to work his way north.

September. — Mrs. Audubon, who was acting as governess in a
family at New Orleans, joins him at Natchez, where she
obtains a similar position.

Receives his first lessons in the use of oils from John Stein,
itinerant portrait painter, in Natchez, at close of this
year.

1823

January. — Mrs. Audubon is engaged by the Percys, of West
Feliciana parish, Louisiana, and starts a private school at
"Beechwoods," belonging to their plantation, in St. Fran-
cisville, where she remains five years.

March. — Audubon leaves Natchez with John Stein and Victor
on a painting tour of the South, but meeting with little suc-
cess, they disband at New Orleans ; visits his wife, and
spends part of summer in teaching her pupils music and
drawing.

Adrift again ; both he and Victor are taken ill with fever at
Natchez, but when nursed back to health by Mrs. Audu-
bon, they return with her to "Beechwoods."

September 30. — Determined to visit Philadelphia in the inter-
ests of his "Ornithology," he sends on his drawings and
goes to New Orleans for references.

October 3. — Starts with Victor for Louisville, walking part of
the way.

CHRONOLOGY xlv

1823-1824

Winter spent at Shippingport, where Victor becomes a clerk

to his uncle, Nicholas A. Berthoud.
Paints portraits, panels on river boats, and even street signs,

to earn a living.

18H

To Philadelphia, to find patrons or a publisher; thwarted; is
advised to take his drawings to Europe, where the engrav-
ing could be done in superior style; befriended by Charles
L. Bonaparte, Edward Harris, Richard Harlan, Mr. Fair-
man, and Thomas Sully, who gives him free tuition in oils.

August 1. — Starts for New York, with letters to Gilbert Stuart,
Washington Allston, and Samuel L. Mitchell ; is kindly re-
ceived and made a member of the Lyceum of Natural His-
tory.

August 15. — To Albany, Rochester, Buffalo, Niagara Falls,
Meadville, and Pittsburgh, taking deck passage on boats,
tramping, and paying his way by crayon portraits.

September. — Leaves Pittsburgh on exploring tour of Lakes On-
tario and Champlain for birds ; decides on his future
course.

October 24- — Returns to Pittsburgh, and descends the Ohio in
a skiff; is stranded without a cent at Cincinnati ; visits Vic-
tor at Shippingport, and reaches his wife in St. Francis-
ville, Bayou Sara, November 24.

1825-1826

Teaches at St. Francisville, and gives dancing lessons at Wood-
ville, Mississippi, to raise funds to go to Europe.

1826

May 17. — Sails with his drawings on the cotton schooner Delos,
bound for Liverpool, where he lands, a total stranger, on
July 21.

xLvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

In less than a week is invited to exhibit his drawings at the
Royal Institution, and is at once proclaimed as a great
American genius.

Exhibits at Manchester, but with less success.

Plans to publish his drawings, to be called The Birds of Amer-
ica, in parts of five plates each, at 2 guineas a part, all to
be engraved on copper, to the size of life, and colored after
his originals. The number of parts was at first fixed at 80,
and the period of publication at 14 years ; eventually there
were 87 parts, of 435 plates, representing over a thousand
individual birds as well as thousands of American trees,
shrubs, flowers, insects and other animals of the entire con-
tinent ; the cost in England was £174, which was raised by
the duties to $1,000 in America.

Paints animal pictures to pay his way, and opens a subscription
book.

October 26. — Reaches Edinburgh, where his pictures attract
the attention of. the ablest scientific and literary characters
of the day, and he is patronized by the aristocracy.

November, early. — William Home Lizars begins the engraving
of his first plates at Edinburgh, and on the 28th, shows
him the proof of the Turkey Cock.

Honors come to him rapidly, and he is soon elected to mem-
bership in the leading societies of science and the arts in
Great Britain, France and the United States.

1827

February 3. — Exhibits the first number of his engraved plates
at the Royal Institution of Edinburgh.

March 17. — Issues his "Prospectus," when two numbers of his
Birds are ready.

April 5. — Starts for London with numerous letters to distin-
guished characters and obtains subscriptions on the way.

May 21. — Reaches London, and exhibits his plates before the
Linnaean and Royal Societies, which later elect him to fel-
lowship.

Lizars throws up the work after engraving ten plates, and it is
transferred to London, where, in the hands of Robert

CHRONOLOGY xlvii

Havell, Junior, it is new born and brought to successful

completion eleven years later.
Summer. — Affairs at a crisis ; resorts to painting and canvasses

the larger cities.
December. — Five parts, or twenty-five plates, of The Birds of

America completed.

1828

March. — Visits Cambridge and Oxford Universities ; though
well received, is disappointed at the number of subscribers
secured, especially at Oxford.

September 1. — To Paris with William Swainson ; remains eight
weeks, and obtains 13 subscribers ; his work is eulogized by
Cuvier before the Academy of Natural Sciences, and he re-
ceives the personal subscription, as well as private commis-
sions, from the Duke of Orleans, afterwards known as
Louis Philippe.

1829

April 1. — Sails from Portsmouth on his first return to America
from England, for New York, where he lands on May 1.

Summer. — Drawing birds at Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey.

September. — To Mauch Chunk, and paints for six weeks at a
lumberman's cottage in the Great Pine Woods.

October. — Down the Ohio to Louisville, where he meets his two
sons, one of whom he had not seen for five years ; thence
to St. Francisville, Bayou Sara, where he joins his wife,
from whom he had been absent nearly three years.

1830

January 1. — Starts with his wife for Europe, first visiting New
Orleans, Louisville, Cincinnati, Baltimore, and Washing-
ton, where he meets the President, Andrew Jackson, and is
befriended by Edward Everett, who becomes one of his first
American subscribers.

April 1. — Sails with Mrs. Audubon from New York for Liver-
pool. Settles in London ; takes his seat in the Royal Soci-

xlviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

ety, to which he was elected on the 19th of March ; resumes
his painting, and in midsummer starts with his wife on a
canvassing tour of the provincial towns ; invites William
Swainson to assist him in editing his letterpress, but a dis-
agreement follows.
Changes his plans, and settles again in Edinburgh ; meets Wil-
liam MacGillivray, who undertakes to assist him with his
manuscript, and together they begin the first volume of
the Ornithological Biography in October.

1831-1839

The Ornithological Biography, in five volumes, published at
Edinburgh, and partly reissued in Philadelphia and Bos-
ton.

1831-1834,

In America, exploring the North and South Atlantic coasts
for birds.

1831

March. — First volume of the Ornithological Biography pub-
lished, representing the text of the first 100 double-ele-
phant folio plates.

April 15. — Returns with his wife to London.

May-July. — Visits Paris again in the interests of his publica-
tions.

August 2. — Starts with his wife on his second journey from
England to America, and lands in New York on Septem-
ber 4.

Plans to visit Florida with two assistants, and obtains prom-
ise of aid from the Government.

October-November. — At Charleston, South Carolina, where he
meets John Bachman and is taken into his home.

November 15. — Sails with his assistants in the government
schooner Agnes for St. Augustine.

CHRONOLOGY xlix

183%

April 15. — In revenue cutter Marion begins exploration of the

east coast of Florida ; proceeds to Key West, and later

returns to Savannah and Charleston.
Rejoins his family at Philadelphia, and goes to Boston; there

meets Dr. George Parkman, and makes many friends.
August.- — Explores the coasts of Maine and New Brunswick,

and ascends the St. John River for birds.
Returns to Boston, and sends his son Victor to England to take

charge of his publications.

1832-1833

Winter. — In Boston, where he is attacked b}r a severe illness
induced by overwork ; quickly recovers and plans expedi-
tion to Labrador.

1833

June 6. — Sails from Eastport for the Labrador with five assist-
ants, including his son, John Woodhouse Audubon, in
the schooner Ripley chartered at his own expense.

August 31. — Returns to Eastport laden with spoils, including
few new birds but many drawings.

September 7. — Reaches New York and plans an expedition to
Florida.

September 25. — Visits Philadelphia and is arrested for debt, an
echo of his business ventures in Kentucky ; obtains sub-
scribers at Baltimore, and in Washington meets Washing-
ton Irving, who assists him in obtaining government aid ;
finds patrons at Richmond and at Columbia, South Caro-
lina.

October 2J+. — Reaches Charleston and changes his plans; with
his wife and son passes the winter at the Bachman home,
engaged in hunting, drawing and writing.

1834

The number of his American subscribers reaches 62.

April 16. — Sails with his wife and son on the packet North

America from New York to England with large collections.
Settles again in Edinburgh, and begins second volume of his

Biography, which is published in December.

1 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

1835
Many drawings, papers and books lost by fire in New York.
Part of summer, autumn and winter in Edinburgh, where the
third volume of his Ornithological Biography is issued in
December.

1836

Audubon's two sons, who have become his assistants, tour the
Continent for five months, traveling and painting.

August 2. — Sails from Portsmouth on his third journey from
England to the United States ; lands in New York on
Sept. 6 and canvasses the city.

September 13. — Hurries to Philadelphia to obtain access to the
Nuttall-Townsend collection of birds, recently brought
from the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast ; is rebuffed,
and bitter rivalries ensue ; Edward Harris offers to buy
the collection outright for his benefit.

September 20. — Starts on a canvassing tour to Boston, where
he meets many prominent characters, and obtains a letter
of commendation from Daniel Webster, who writes his
name in his subscription book. Visits Salem, where sub-
scribers are also obtained ; meets Thomas M. Brewer, and
Thomas Nuttall, who offers him his new birds brought
from the West.

October 10. — Is visited by Washington Irving, who gives him
letters to President Van Buren and recommends his work
to national patronage.

October 15. — Returns to Philadelphia, where attempts to obtain
permission to describe the new birds in the Nuttall-Town-
send collection are renewed ; he is finally permitted to pur-
chase duplicates and describe the new forms under cer-
tain conditions.

November 10. — To Washington, to present his credentials, and
is promised government aid for the projected journey to
Florida and Texas.

1836-1837

Winter. — Spent with Bachman at Charleston, in waiting for
his promised vessel ; makes drawings of Nuttall's and
Townsend's birds, and plans for a work on the Quadrupeds
of North America.

CHRONOLOGY li

1837

Spring. — Starts overland with Edward Harris and John W.
Audubon for New Orleans ; there meets the revenue cutter
Campbell, and in her and her tender, the Crusader, the
party proceeds as far as Galveston, Texas ; visits President
Sam Houston.

May 18. — Leaves for New Orleans, and on June 8 reaches
Charleston. John Woodhouse Audubon is married to
Bachman's eldest daughter, Maria Rebecca.

To Washington, and meets President Martin Van Buren.

July 16. — Sails with his son and daughter-in-law on the packet
England from New York ; reaches Liverpool on August 2d,
and on the 7th is in London.

The panic of this year causes loss of many subscribers, but
Audubon decides to extend The Birds of America to 87
parts, in order to admit every new American bird discov-
ered up to that time.

1838

June W. — Eighty-seventh part of The Birds of America pub-
lished, thus completing the fourth volume and concluding
the work, which was begun at Edinburgh in the autumn of

1826.

Summer. — By way of a holiday celebration tours the High-
lands of Scotland with his family and William MacGilli-
vray.

Autumn. — To Edinburgh, where, with the assistance of Mac-
Gillivray, the fourth volume of his Biography is issued in
November.

1839

May. — Fifth and concluding volume of the Ornithological Bi-
ography is published at Edinburgh. A Synopsis of the
Birds of North America, which immediately follows, brings
his European life and labors to a close.

lii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

Late summer. — Returns with his family to New York, and set-
tles at 86 White Street. Victor, who preceded his father
to America, is married to Mary Eliza Bachman.

Projects at once a small or "miniature" edition of his Orni-
thology, and begins work on the Quadrupeds. Collabora-
tion of Bachman in this project is later secured.

184.0-18U

First octavo edition of The Birds of America is published at
Philadelphia, in seven volumes, with lithographic, colored
plates and meets with unprecedented success ; issued to
subscribers in 100 parts, of five plates each with text, at
one dollar a part.

I840

June. — Begins a correspondence with young Spencer F. Baird,
which leads to an intimate friendship of great mutual
benefit, Baird discovering new birds and sending him
many specimens.

I841

Purchases land on the Hudson, in Carmansville, at the present
157th Street, and begins to build a house.

July 29. — Writes to Spencer F. Baird that he was then as anx-
ious about the publication of the Quadrupeds as he ever
was about procuring birds.

1U%

April. — Occupies his estate, now included in the realty section
of upper New York City called Audubon Park, which he
deeded to his wife and named for her "Minnie's Land."

September 12. — Starts on a canvassing tour of Canada, going
as far north as Quebec, and returns well pleased with his
success, after spending a month and traveling 1,500 miles.

Plans for his western journey nearly completed.

CHRONOLOGY liii

1843

March 11. — At fifty-eight, sets out with four companions for
the region of the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers,
but is unable to attain his long desired goal, the Rocky
Mountains.

November. — Returns with many new birds and mammals.

1845-1846

The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, in collabora-
tion with the Rev. John Bachman, issued to subscribers
in 30 parts of five plates each, without letterpress, making
two volumes, imperial folio, at $300.00.

John W. Audubon, traveling in Texas, to collect materials for
his father's work.

1845

Engrossed with drawings of the Quadrupeds, in which he re-
ceives efficient aid from his sons.

July 19. — Copper plates of The Birds of America injured by
fire in New York.

December 24- — Bachman, his collaborator, issues ultimatum
through Harris, but work on the Quadrupeds, which had
come to a stand, is resumed.

181^6-1847

John W. Audubon in England, painting subjects for the illus-
tration of the Quadrupeds of North America.

1846-1854

The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, in collabora-
tion with John Bachman, published in three volumes,
octavo, text only, by J. J. and V. G. Audubon; volume i
(184-7) only appeared during the naturalist's lifetime.

liv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

18^7
Audubon's powers begin to weaken and rapidly fail.

18^8

February 8. — John W. Audubon joins a California company
organized by Colonel James Watson Webb, and starts
for the gold fields, but his party meets disaster in the
valley of the Rio Grande; he leads a remnant to their
destination and returns in the following year.

1851

January 27. — Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon dies at "Min-
nie's Land," before completing his sixty-sixth year.

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT

AUDUBON AND THE DAUPHIN

Was John James Audubon Louis Charles, Dauphin and
Duke of Normandy, who by hereditary right became titular
King of France at the moment the head of his father, Louis
XVI, fell under the guillotine in Paris, January 21, 1793?
Was he the little boy prince who was "in the way" and "not
wanted" by his uncles and many of his countrymen, his poten-
tial subjects? Was he that unfortunate child who, orphaned
by regicides, was held a close prisoner for nearly three im-
pressionable years of his young life? Was he the boy who,
in consequence of such treatment, according to some reports,
developed a tendency to scrofula which we should now call
tuberculosis? Finally, was he the ten-year-old child who was
officially declared to have died in the Temple prison, June 7,
1795, a conclusion which many historians accepted, although
some have maintained that the true prince was spirited out of
the Tower, but when or how, or where or how long he may
have lived, are questions which have never been answered with
complete certainty.

When we consider the fierce partisanship engendered dur-
ing the Revolution, and the wide breach between what con-
temporaries spoke or wrote and what they really thought or
believed, the testimony of eye-witnesses to events in or about
the Temple must be considered very untrustworthy. Moreover,
the failure of one hundred and forty years of hot debate to
throw any clear light on the ultimate fate of the Dauphin tends
more and more to convince us that he was "lost" only in the
sense that he had died. If this be the hard truth, what more
vain than refuting the claims of pretenders or their descend-
ants ?

Iv

lvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

Whatever convictions historians may have reached upon
this issue to-day, the questions respecting Audubon can re-
ceive but one answer — a decisive negative. I repeat them only
because they have been seriously asked and, incredible as it
may seem, have been given a warm welcome by two recent
biographers.1

Miss Rourke mentions a number of reasons which have led
her to favor the fantastic Dauphin idea. The fact that Au-
dubon was first called "Fougere," and later "Jean Rabin,"
while for a time he used the name "Laforest" is cited with
suspicion. When Captain Jean Audubon finally returned from
Santo Domingo to France, late in 1789, "how many children,"
she asks, "did he bring with him" ; and, "if he was accompanied
by a little boy, there is no certainty," she says, "that this was
the same boy who was adopted as Fougere, three years later."
If this were not the same boy, neither she nor Mrs. Tyler knows
what became of the first or has any proof that Audubon was
a substitute child. There was a long period, says Miss Rourke,
between Audubon's birth (April 26, 1785) and his adoption
(March 7, 1794) of nearly nine years, and "this gap has never
been filled in. Where was this boy during this time? It is
well within the range of possibility that after his return to
France during the Revolution, a boy was entrusted to the
care of Captain Audubon whose identity he was induced to
hide. He may have used the approximate birthday and later
the name of the little boy born in Santo Domingo to cover the
history of another child. Some of those closest to Audubon
during his lifetime believed implicitly that he was of noble
birth."

Miss Maria R. Audubon, the naturalist's granddaughter,
stated to me in 1914 that Jean Audubon and his wife settled
some property upon "Jean Rabin, creole de Saint-Domingue,"
which he refused to accept under that name, saying, "My own
name I have never been permitted even to speak ; accord me

1 See Audubon, by Constance Rourke (New York, 1936), and / Who
Should Command All, by Alice Jaynes Tyler (New Haven, 1937).

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lvii

that of Audubon, which I revere, as I have cause to do.'* This
reference to property probably had to do with the wills of his
father and stepmother, in which the objectionable name occurs
many times. Audubon's dislike of the Rabin name does not
seem to have persisted, for in view of the settlement of prop-
erty under those wills, on July 25, 1817, a power of attorney
was drawn in favor of his brother-in-law, Gabriel Loyen du
Puigaudeau. In this curious document the naturalist refers
to himself as "John Audubon" and as "Jean Rabin, husband
of Lucy Bakewell." The Jean Rabin alias occurs four times
in the text, over the signature of "John J. Audubon" at the
end.

An English reviewer once expressed regret that I had
probed the birth and parentage of Audubon, saying that he
preferred to take this illustrious man at his word that he
"belonged to every country." Such writers forget that a prime
duty of every biographer is to make his subject known, and
that this is impossible if he comes from nowhere, or, as John
Neal facetiously remarked, if he is "one of those extraordinary
men who are erected, — never born at all." Audubon's father
"had other reasons," thinks Miss Rourke, "for sending Fou-
gere to America which he did not disclose. . . . They could
not have had to do with money. . . . Whatever his reasons
were they persisted, and may have had to do with the boy's
parentage."

Mrs. Tyler begins her book with a quotation, "Historv has
the inalienable right to be written correctly," to which every
honest person will subscribe, but which writers of biography are
too apt to forget. Throughout her book she refers to me as
"Robert," a praenomen I have never borne, but since names
are easily confused, I forgive her. The naturalist's father,
Jean Audubon, is called the "Admiral," a title he never bore,
which gives a sense of unreality to her text. The highest rank
that Jean attained in the French navy was lieutenant (lieu-
tenant de vaisseaua), one grade below that of captain. In my
Audubon the Naturalist I gave a summary of the naval career

lviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

of his father in the merchant marine and navy of France, hav-
ing obtained access in wartime to the official records of the
navy department in Paris through the good offices of our
ambassador, the late Hon. Myron T. Herrick. Jean Audubon
held the rank of lieutenant from October 11, 1797, until his
retirement for disability on January 1, 1801. Perhaps Mrs.
Tyler followed the example of Miss Maria R. Audubon, who
was accustomed to give this exalted rank to her grandfather;
and perhaps Miss Audubon got it from a letter that Audubon
carried with him when leaving Edinburgh for London, written
by a Mr. Hay, and addressed March 15, 1827, to his brother,
Robert William Hay, Downing Street, West, in which this
statement occurs : "Mr. Audubon is a son of the late French
Admiral Audubon, but has himself lived from the cradle in the
United States, having been born in one of the French colonies."
Audubon certainly should have known his father's naval rank,
and also that he could not have lived from the cradle in the
United States, but the last statement is now believed to have
been true.

Strong presumptive evidence had led me to conclude that
John James Audubon was the illegitimate son of Lieutenant
Jean Audubon and Mademoiselle Rabin, a French Creole of
Santo Domingo. "Rather than tolerate the suggestion of ille-
gitimacy in regard to their grandfather," says Mrs. Tyler, "the
old ladies decided to bear the rigors of publicity if needs be,
and to give to the world the information which would disprove
this biography. To that end they released me from the promise
to withhold publication of their 'secret,' and perhaps the world's
secret also." This family secret of Audubon's noble birth,
which is revealed in Mrs. Tyler's / Who Should Command All,
was imparted by the naturalist in extracts from his private
journals, sometimes sent in letters to his wife, and apparently
written for her benefit alone, with no thought of their publica-
tion. The significant passages were copied by his granddaugh-
ter, Miss Maria R. Audubon, into a little black note-book,
which I was permitted to see in 1914, but, out of respect to

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lix

her wishes and those of her sister, Miss Florence Audubon, they
were only briefly referred to in my biography of their grand-
father in 1917. In the course of our conversation, Miss Maria
confessed that she had really never known who her grandfather
was, but that in the light of these journal entries she had come
to think that he was — or, perhaps she said, might have been —
the lost Dauphin. In commenting on this question, Miss Audu-
bon added that a gentleman to whom these extracts had been
shown had said that possibly they had been written to obscure
the unwelcome fact of illegitimacy, a wise remark, as the sequel
has shown. I tried to dissuade Miss Audubon from her ex-
pressed intention of destroying the original manuscript, but to
no avail.

The entries in this note-book, which form the basis of Mrs.
Tyler's / Who Should Command All, have recently been pub-
lished by Stanley Clisby Arthur in his careful biography.2
Mrs. Tyler says that I have "not recorded one biographical
event between the year 1794, the date of Audubon's adoption,
and 1800, the date of his baptism," and tries to put young
Audubon in "Selkirk's Settlements," in Canada, at some time
between these early years. All of these questions will be taken
up later.

H

In 1914, at the very outbreak of the World War, a great
flock of documents pertaining to Lieutenant Audubon and his
family was discovered at Coueron, the seat of his country villa
in France. Outstanding among them was the curious bill of
Jean Audubon's family physician, Doctor Sanson, of Les Cayes,
Santo Domingo, covering a period of nearly three years, 1783
to 1786. 3 This is particularly remarkable for recording the
birth of a child to Mademoiselle Rabin on April 26, 1785. The

2 See Audubon: An Intimate Life of the American Woodsman (Bibl.
No. 264).

3 See the reproduction of this bill in Chapter IV, and for translation,
Appendix I.

lx AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

inference, supported by other documentary testimony, was that
this referred to the identical child who later became John James
Audubon and who was baptised in 1800 as Jean Jacques
Fougere (Audubon).

Jean and Anne Moynet Audubon adopted this boy Fougere,
then nine years old, and a seven-year-old girl, Muguet or Rosa,
born also in Santo Domingo but to another woman, at Nantes
on March 7, 1794.4

The Jean Rabin alias was used in the six wills drawn by
Lieutenant Audubon and his wife, and in the power of attorney
of Audubon himself to which I have referred.5 It is these vari-
ous legal documents, usually drawn under oath and attested
by witnesses, that Miss Rourke and Mrs. Tyler set aside as "not
proven" ; yet they do not hesitate to place Audubon at the
foot of a long list of spurious claimants to being the son of
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, without a shred of docu-
mentary support to such a claim excepting the family tradi-
tion based upon extracts from Audubon's private journals
which were intended for the perusal of his wife alone — and this
in view of the further fact that it has never been definitely
proven that the Dauphin did not die in the Temple or shortly
after leaving it.

in

It is generally assumed that the person whose parents and
near relatives are no longer living knows more about his early
history than anybody else, and this is generally true, except
in the case of a child's early adoption, substitution, or aban-
donment by its true parents.

What Audubon said publicly or privately about his birth,
his age, and his parents forms a mystifying record. According
to Vincent Nolte, Audubon, after parrying some prying ques-

* For translation of texts of the acts of adoption and baptisms, see Vol.
I, pp. 59-61.

6 For power of attorney, see Vol. I, p. 64, note, and for wills, Vol. I,
p. 262, and Vol. II, pp. 360-368-

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxi

tions about himself in 1811, admitted that he was a Frenchman
by birth and a native of La Rochelle.

Joseph Robert Mason, youthful companion of Audubon on
his famous journey down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in
1820-21, who was thus closely associated with him for twenty-
one months, told John Neal, fifteen years later, that Audubon
had repeatedly represented to him that he was born in Santo
Domingo. A statement to this effect was also made by James
J. Walsh in 1904.6 Audubon's journal record of this river
journey, which I was permitted to examine rather cursorily
twenty years ago, was published in 1929 and is commented on
by Mr. Arthur.7 While fortunate in escaping the fire and
general mutilation by injudicious hands, this record has been
tampered with at one critical point — in the entry for Novem-
ber 28, 1820, where Audubon spoke of his birth and parentage
and related incidents which he thought that his family in the
future might wish to know. The mutilator of his text, how-
ever, did not succeed in forever obscuring what the writer pre-
sumably intended to convey. In the two lines at this point that
have been blotted out as effectively with a pen as could have
been done with an ink-filled brush, we can reasonably infer that
Audubon gave his own mother's name and either stated or im-
plied that he was born out of wedlock and in Santo Domingo.
This inference seems to be justified by the addition in what im-
mediately follows, with the same kind of ink and probably by the
same hand, of the prefix "re" to the word "married." As origi-
nally written by Audubon, the entry reads: "My Mother, who
I have been told was an extraordinary beautiful Woman, died
shortly after my Birth and my father having married in France
I was removed thereto when only Two Years old and received
by that Rest of Women, raised and cherished by her to the
utmost of her Means . . ." It is evident that the person who

"See James J. Walsh, Bibl. No. 240.

7 See Journal of John James Audubon, Bibl. No. 250, and for repro-
duction of the mutilated manuscript, Stanley Clisby Arthur, Bibl. No. 264,
p. 118.

lxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

obliterated those two lines and changed "married" to "remar-
ried" was determined to make it appear that Captain Audubon
had been first married to his boy's mother, and that after her
death he took their child to France, where he was married again,
this time to the woman who became the boy's stepmother, when
the truth, as Audubon had stated it, was just the opposite.

A few years later, about 1824, when Audubon and his wife
were living at "Beechwoods," a plantation near St. Francisville,
Louisiana, the wife of his old friend and former clerk, Dr.
Nathaniel Wells Pope, left a record of her reminiscences, quoted
by Stanley Clisby Arthur, in which she said that Audubon had
often described to her the cottage in which he was born that
was situated on the banks of the Mississippi River, in Lower
Louisiana, and surrounded by orange trees.

At Oxford in 1828 a lady who wanted his autograph asked
Audubon to write his name and the date of his birth. The
latter, he said, he could not do, "except approximately," and
his hostess "was greatly amused that he should not know." As
I have already noted, Audubon appears to have told Mr. Hay,
a friend at Edinburgh, in March, 1827, that he was born in
one of the French colonies.

In the Introduction to the first volume of his Ornithological
Biography, Audubon, who was under no necessity of saying
anything about his birth, made the vague affirmation, "I re-
ceived life and light in the New World," and continued : "When
I had hardly yet learned to walk, and to articulate those first
words always so endearing to parents, the productions of na-
ture that lay spread all around, were constantly pointed out
to me" ; and in the biographical sketch "Myself" he wrote that
"the first of my recollective powers placed me in the central
portion of the city of Nantes, on the Loire River, in France."

Again, in the Introduction to the second volume of the
Ornithological Biography, Audubon spoke of America as "the
land of my birth," and as the country in which "my eyes first
opened to the light."

How do such statements support the theory that Audubon

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxiii

was the "lost" or mislaid Dauphin, or suggest the palace of
Versailles, where Louis Charles was born, with forty or more
servitors around him with assignments directed mainly to the
care of the little prince, not to speak of his later governesses,
tutors, or teachers? John James was not Louis Charles!

In the biographical sketch just referred to, supposed to
have been written about 1835, which, though edited by his
granddaughter, is replete with palpable errors, Audubon wrote
that "the precise period of my birth is yet an enigma to me."
He then spoke of his father going from Santo Domingo to
Louisiana, and there marrying a Spanish lady of beauty and
wealth, and of having three sons born to them, "I being the
youngest of the sons, and the only one who survived extreme
youth. My mother, soon after my birth [implying that he
was born in Louisiana], accompanied my father to the estate
(sic) of Aux Cayes, on the island of Santo Domingo, and she
was one of the victims of the ever to be lamented period of the
negro insurrection of that island."

The evidence now available from a variety of sources points
more clearly than ever to the fact that the mother of Audubon
was a French Creole, Mademoiselle Rabin, of Santo Domingo,
where her children were all born, and that she was not married
to Audubon's father, who stated under oath in the act of adop-
tion that the mother of his son had died "about eight years"
pi-ior to March 7, 1794, the date of the signing of the act —
that is, in 1786, or one year after 1785, the year of the child
born to Mademoiselle Rabin as recorded in the Sanson bill.
Later items in the latter show that this child's mother was in
declining health, and tend to confirm Audubon's statement,
quoted above, that his mother had died shortly after his birth.

In various extracts from Audubon's European journal,
written for the benefit of his wife, but not for the public, at
various times from 1826 to 1828, chiefly at Edinburgh and
Paris, he records a visit from the Countess of Selkirk, refers
to his high birth, to walking the streets of Paris like a common
man when he "should command all." He also refers to his

lxiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

hated uncle, "Audubon of La Rochelle," and speaks of the oath
under which he was bound not to reveal his identity. The name
of the Dauphin or Louis XVII does not appear in any of these
excerpts, but the reference seems to be clear.

It should be remembered that when the Dauphin and his
mother were separated in the Temple prison on July 3, 1793,
the son was in his ninth year, and that the boy was nearly eight
years old when his father was executed, so that the young
prince had the memory of several years of both his parents,
to whom, according to the testimony of all who had known them,
he was devotedly attached.

Mr. Arthur speaks of Miss Harriet Bachman Audubon,
daughter of John Woodhouse Audubon by his first wife, telling
how she had read in one of her grandfather's journals this
significant statement : he made reference to "my father, meaning
Jean Audubon, — and in the next sentence said 'my own father
whom I saw shot.' He said 'shot,' because he was only eight
years old and the word 'to guillotine' was not then invented."
Miss Audubon was evidently promoting the idea that the nat-
uralist's "own father" was Louis XVI and that her grandfather
was the Dauphin ; but if there is any truth in the quotation, it
would definitely prove that young Audubon could not have been
the Dauphin since the execution of Louis XVI was not witnessed
by his own son or by any other member of the royal family.

In his Ohio and Mississippi journal, writing in 1820, Audu-
bon spoke of himself as "a young man of seventeen sent to
America to make money," in 1802, as he then thought. It is
thus evident that at the age of thirty-five he looked upon 1785
as his natal year, although he was a year short in his dating
of that first American voyage, which actually occurred in
1803, when he was in his eighteenth year. When writing to
Bachman in 1832, he gave his own age as forty-seven, which
would imply that he was born in 1785, and this would again
agree with the date of birth of a child born to Mademoiselle
Rabin, as recorded in the Sanson bill. In writing to Bachman
again six years later, on April 14, 1838, he speaks of his being

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxv

then fifty-three years old, which would also point to the same
birth date of 1785.

On June 4 1826, at sea, when on his way to England and
to fame, Audubon wrote : "We are a few miles south of the
Line for the second time in my life. — What ideas it conveys to
me of my birth, and the expectations of my younger days." If
this statement is true, it would explode the Audubon-Dauphin
hypothesis, unless its proponents can explain how the boy
prince could ever have been south of that Line before 1826.

In a letter to his wife, written from New Orleans in 1837,
as noted by Mr. Arthur, Audubon spoke of that town as "my
natal city," and local newspapers of the time hailed him as a
native of Louisiana. Moreover, Cuvier, in his report on The
Birds of America to the Ro}ral Academy of Sciences of Paris,
September 22, 1828, made the same statement, which in this
case could have come only from Audubon himself. When he
sailed from Nantes for the United States with Rozier in 1806,
his passport, which his father had procured for him, indicated
that he was born in New Orleans.

To many it would seem strange that J. J. Audubon should
have found so close a resemblance between himself and Jean
Audubon unless his father by adoption were his "real father."
Writing in 1820, Audubon said that "Major Croghan of Ken-
tucky told me often that he [Jean Audubon] looked much like
me and he was particularly well acquainted with him." In his
"Myself" sketch he also said : "In personal appearance my
father and I were of the same height and stature, being five
feet, ten inches, erect and with muscles of steel. ... In temper
we much resembled each other also." One day in October,
1826, when Audubon returned to his rooms in Edinburgh and
looked into a mirror, he saw, as he recorded in his journal, not
only his own face, but "such a strong resemblance to that of
my venerated father that I almost imagined that it was he
that I saw ; the thoughts of my mother came to me, my sister,
and my young days, — all was at hand, yet so far away." It
should be added that a year and half later, at Edinburgh also,

lxvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

he wrote: "To-day, as I was shaving, I was struck by my re-
semblance to my father, not my adopted father, but my own
father."

Those committed to the Dauphin theory see in Audubon's
features a strong Bourbon likeness, but such fancied resem-
blances never carry much weight. Rev. John Halloway Han-
son,8 biographer and protagonist of Eleazar Williams, was
certain that this half-breed Indian was an aristocrat, and the
Dauphin to boot, for he had the Bourbon features from top to
toe.

In writing to young Spencer Fullerton Baird in 1842,
Audubon expressed the curious, if purely fanciful, idea that
his mother once lived on his father's "Mill Grove" farm, which
was near Norristown in Pennsylvania.

The foregoing record probably does not exhaust all the
possibilities, but it is amazing enough, and partly explains why
John Neal was so often taunting Audubon for having as many
birthplaces as the poet Homer. A remarkable fact about these
statements is that nearly all of them come to us at second
hand, that is, from private letters or edited journals, the
quotations from the Ornithological Biography being the only
ones that were published under Audubon's own signature.

From the account just given, it is obvious, I think, that
Audubon was determined that the facts concerning his birth
and parentage should not be made public, and that to achieve
this end he resorted to enigma, as the best available smoke-
screen. If he thought that public knowledge of those facts
would prove a stumbling-block in his own career, and in that
of his two sons, whom he once said he hoped might rise to
eminence, he was indubitably right ; for strange as it may seem,
and unjust as it assuredly is, the stigma of illegitimacy has
long been a penalty which the public is ever ready to place on

8 Author of The Lost Prince (New York, 1854). With this book, said
William W. Wight, the habit began of referring to Louis XVII as "lost,"
as if he had been mislaid or hidden. "He was lost only in the sense that
he had died." Hanson's mother was a daughter of a younger brother of
Oliver Goldsmith, the poet.

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxvii

the head of the innocent. What strangers or what his inti-
mates knew about those family matters was what Audubon
was willing to tell them, and his own record shows plainly
enough that he preferred to bear the taunts of the uncharitable
rather than to face the reality ; but so redoubtable a handicap
should not be allowed to detract one iota from his just fame.

IV

"One of the great miracles of history would have occurred,"
writes Miss Rourke, "if Audubon were the lost Dauphin, but
this is nothing against the idea." True enough, but the same
could be said of Eleazar Williams or any other of the numerous
pretenders impersonating that unfortunate prince. If there
were solid, unmistakable evidence to support the conclusion
that Audubon was the titular king of France, I should be only
too glad to accept it, but the presumptive evidence is all the
other way. The theory will not bear analysis ; it is too weak
to stand on its own feet.

"Some of those closest to Audubon during his lifetime," says
Miss Rourke, "believed implicitly that he was of noble birth."
Very true, but Audubon said many things, at different times
and to different persons, which contradict point-blank what was
said in letters or journals intended for his wife — as that he
was born in the New World, or in one of the French colonies ;
that his mother died shortly after his birth; or that his first
memories were of Nantes, and that the only mother he had ever
known was his stepmother. In forming a judgment in the
midst of so many contradictions, we are inevitably thrown back
upon those family legal documents which have not been edited
or in any way tampered with, and which were drawn up before
the youth was grown to man's estate and obliged to fight his
way in a hostile world. In striving to reach the truth in such
a case, all domestic partiality must of necessity be laid aside.

"A long period exists," says Miss Rourke, "between the
date given for Fougere's birth [April 26, 1785] and the date

lxviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

of his adoption [March 7, 1794] — nearly nine years — a gap
which has not been filled in. Where was the boy during this
time?" The evidence is fairly conclusive that Jean Audubon
took his son to France late in 1789, so that this "gap" is
reduced to about five years ; and it seems to me that in his
Ornithological Biography and the "Myself" sketch the sub-
ject has filled this interval quite well enough himself. In the
latter he spoke of "being constantly attended by two black
servants, who had followed my father from Santo Domingo to
New Orleans and afterwards to Nantes." Mrs. Tyler thinks
that "it can be only mental inertia which has allowed hundreds
of intelligent people to read this sentence, and not press the
inquiry why the illegitimate son of a common, seafaring captain
of Nantes should have been constantly attended by one or two
black servants." But what shall be said of the mental condition
of the people who have first read the opening sentence of the
very same paragraph about Audubon's first recollective powers
placing him in the central part of the city of Nantes? If that
statement were literally true, it would at once sterilize the idea
of Audubon being the lost Dauphin. In any case, one would
think that a household with an active boy rising five years (in
1790) and a girl rising three could keep any two black servants
on their toes for a good long time. Audubon did not mention
his little sister Rosa, but there is no reason to think that he
monopolized all the attention of servants.

In 1789 Jean Audubon jumped from the frying-pan of
Santo Domingo into the revolutionary fires which were then
sweeping France. At Nantes he became an ardent revolution-
ist when his city was entering the most terrible years of its
history. It withstood a determined siege by the loyalists of
La Vendee under Charette, and a reign of terror under Jean
Baptiste Carrier, whose recall on February 14, 1794, just
twenty-one days before the act of adoption was signed, had
given Jean Audubon and his fellow-citizens the first respite they
had enjoyed in years.

At Nantes, Captain Audubon had occupied a number of

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxix

different houses during a long intermittent residence; and he
continued to live there with his family until his retirement from
the navy for disability on January 1, 1801, when he settled in
his country villa, "La Gerbetiere," at Coueron, on the right
bank of the Loire nine miles down the river.

During this earlier time, up to his sixteenth year, young
Audubon had received little or no regular schooling, but he
had enjoyed a good deal of desultory experience in natural
history and drawing. Thereafter, from 1801 to 1803, when
he first returned to America, and for a year or more in 1805
and 1806, when he was at Coueron, aside from slight digres-
sions, he was roaming the countryside and making a collection
of his own drawings of the native birds. According to his own
account of these formative years, he received plenty of good
advice, criticism, and admonition from his father, and it was
at Coueron that Fougere first met Dr. Charles d'Orbigny, who
might be called his father in natural history. For my part
I do not see the need of doubting the identity of the youth
whose life has been briefly sketched from 1789 to 1803. If
this was Audubon, who up to his eighteenth year had spent
nearly five years in Santo Domingo, eleven years in Nantes,
and parts of two years at Coueron, where does the Bourbon
prince enter the picture?

Miss Rourke thinks that Lieutenant Audubon did not tell
all of his reasons for sending his son to the United States, and
that "whatever his reasons were, they persisted, and may have
had to do with the boy's parentage." This is unimportant,
since what the father did not tell, the son apparently did. In
writing to Miers Fisher in 1803 and to Francis Da Costa in
the winter of 1804-05, Lieutenant Audubon expressly said that
the compelling reasons for sending his son to America at that
time were to enable him to learn English and to enter trade.
"Remember, my dear Sir," the elder Audubon wrote, "I expect
that if your plan [with the lead mine] succeeds, my son will
find a place in the works, which will enable him to provide for
himself, in order to spare me from expenses which I can with

lxx AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

difficulty support." If young Audubon had been the hereditary
king of France, Louis XVII, is it likely that Lieutenant Audu-
bon, then retired, in poor health, impoverished, receiving a
paltry annuity from the French Government of six hundred
francs, would have been expected to meet all the expenses of
sending a legal French king, though masquerading as his son,
to America and of maintaining him there?

There was, to be sure, another reason why the retired sailor
and soldier wanted to get his son Fougere out of France at
that time, though he may not have wished to write it. The
young man was eligible for conscription. The need for "cannon
fodder" was soon to become acute all over France, for Napoleon
became emperor in 1804. Audubon himself told the secret at
a much later time, when going down the Ohio River in 1820.
On November 26 of that year he wrote: "The conscription
determined my father on sending me to America"; and he
added: "A young man of seventeen [eighteen], sent to America
to make money, for such was my father's wish."

In his journal on March 15, 1827, at Edinburgh, Audubon
recorded a visit from the Countess of Selkirk, and thought it
strange that she should call upon him at his George Street
lodgings. "Did she know, I wonder," he wrote, "who I am
positively, or does she think that it is John J. Audubon, of
Louisiana, to whom she spoke? Curious event, this life of
mine !" It would be reasonable to suppose that the Countess
called on Audubon out of curiosity, since he was becoming
something of a social lion, and she had doubtless heard of this
genius from the backwoods of America from her nephew, Cap-
tain Basil Hall, who was one of Audubon's confidential friends.
Moreover, this friend was then planning to visit America and
was getting much useful information from the naturalist.

On October 9, 1828, when in Paris, according to Mrs. Tyler,
Audubon wrote in his journal (and afterwards copied the entry

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxi

in a letter to his wife) : "How often I thought that I might
once more see Audubon of La Rochelle without being known
by him, and try to discover if my father was still in his rec-
ollection, if he had entirely forgotten Selkirk's Settlements."
In my version of this entry there is no s at the end of the last
word, but the vagueness which the plural number imparts really
makes no difference in our interpretation of the Dauphin ques-
tion. "And if," continued Audubon, ". . . if I say a few words
more, I must put an end to my existence, having forfeited my
word of honor and my oath."

This Lord Selkirk, whose interests in Canada were para-
mount but who never held any public office there higher than
justice of the peace, had been much in the public eye in England
in the early part of the nineteenth century. At the time of the
Countess' call she had been a widow seven years, but it is pos-
sible that Audubon had heard all about the Earl's disastrous
colonial expriments through her nephew. Whether this is true
or not, this Selkirk reference is the slender thread on which
Mrs. Tyler builds an amazing superstructure. "It would ap-
pear," she says, "that John James Audubon was, at some time,
a member of Selkirk's Settlements in Canada." She writes :
"The long suspense is over ! At last we know the reason for
Admiral Jean Audubon's abnormal solicitude, which took the
form of the constant attendance of those black servants, who
guarded John James Audubon, the supposedly illegitimate son
of the rough sea captain of Nantes ! That little nine-year-old
boy, adopted by Jean Audubon on March 7, 1794, was a per-
sonage whose real identity might presumably be recognized by
the wife of the Earl of Selkirk. The wife of the Earl of Selkirk
had apparently known him personally when he was a settler in
Selkirk's Settlements. It is not very likely that the Earl's wife
habitually met the rough colonists sent out to the wilds of
North America, unless by chance one of those colonists was not
a real settler, but was a personage emigrating under this guise
in order to hide his identity, and to seek the protection of the
Earl's remote colony. If the Earl of Selkirk were hiding a

lxxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

person of importance in his Settlements in the Hudson Bay
country, very probably the Earl's wife met that person before
embarkation ; or perhaps she gave him hospitality in her home,
as was common in those days when England was the first des-
tination of terror stricken French refugees."

"And that other Audubon of La Rochelle, who apparently
had been with him in Selkirk's Settlements, was he the person
entrusted to convey and guard that little boy of eleven years,
on the long perilous journey to Hudson Bay?" Mrs. Tyler
seems to have confused Hudson Bay with the Hudson's Bay
Company, which drew its furs from a vast region, but none of
Selkirk's Settlements was anywhere near Hudson Bay.

Audubon's claim that he was bound under a solemn oath to
his father not to reveal his own identity Mrs. Tyler thinks
explains many things about the early history of Audubon the
naturalist. "Does it not explain why the wily old sea captain,
Jean Audubon, adopted two children on the same day, to give
a semblance of paternity to both acts? And does it not suggest
why he registered the name of the mother of the girl, and
omitted to register the name of the mother of the boy, whose
recorded age almost paralleled that of Marie Antoinette's son,
who had vanished from the Temple just forty-odd days before
the date of this adoption?"

It is my opinion that Jean Audubon, who was only forty-
nine years old when this act of adoption was drawn, and who
was but just then getting a breathing-spell after perilous times,
knew what he was talking about, that he was no perjurer, but
was perfectly honest in every statement sworn to and witnessed
in this act. That he was a few days out in his memory of birth
dates is not important. There is no evidence that he failed to
mention the name of the mother of his son in order to conceal
the woman's name. The surest way of doing this would have
been to use a fictitious one. Judge Fougere, as quoted by Mr.
Arthur, offers another explanation : since Mademoiselle Rabin
was dead and could not enter a legal objection, it was not
necessary to give her name ; "but, on the contrary, Mile. Cath-

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxiii

arine Bouffard, who had succeeded her in the Audubon home,
was still alive, and when her daughter, Rosa, was adopted,
Captain Audubon was forced to record her name because, as
she was still in France, she could have entered a legal objec-
tion."

Mrs. Tyler reproduces the title of a book on the Red River
Colony which she says "serves to prove that Selkirk's Settle-
ments were preeminently suited for the purpose of hiding the
little King of France far from a world on fire with his pur-
suit. . . . And the by-products of this place of concealment
were to exceed in importance to the world even his physical
survival. The germinating genius of this growing boy which
straight through life seemed to flower under adversity, was born
of this forest life and intimacy with primeval nature.

"It would have been natural for Admiral Audubon to turn
his eyes to those North American outbounds of civilization,
which he had so extensively traversed, were he casting about
to find asylum for his adopted son after Charette's death. . . .
Something had to be done to get that little boy out of danger,
and so completely beyond the reach of Carrier's followers that
pursuit would be absolutely impossible. Nor would distance
alone provide sufficient protection. Secrecy must again be in-
voked, and masquerading under some impenetrable guise, Sel-
kirk's Settlements provided both requirements."

Mrs. Tyler even charts the course which she thinks Louis
XVII, masquerading as John James Audubon, had taken in
travelling from Nantes to the wilds of Canada ; to England,
"the first destination of so many French refugees, . . . Saint-
Domingue, Admiral Audubon's former home; and probably
from there to New Orleans, and up the Mississippi to the
Settlements. . . .

"The name La Foret, which Audubon assumed, and which
has never had any explanation, probably dates from this period.
It may be the name under which John James Audubon was
known as a Selkirk "Settlements colonist. . . . This name was
probably dear to her [Mrs. Audubon], because she was the only

lxxiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

person in Audubon's life, who knew about his Canadian sojourn.

"This thesis, if true, provides the explanation of so many
inexplicable elements in the life of John James Audubon, that
it is with a distinct sense of relief that I offer it as a working
hypothesis, in the light of these letters. For, as I have said,
no amount of wandering around the countryside of Coueron
could have fitted this adolescent boy, John James Audubon, for
his future life, and transformed him into one of the most power-
ful, resourceful woodsmen the new world possessed. . . .

"And yet when John James Audubon came to the United
States in 1803, when he was barely eighteen years of age, he
could traverse the continent alone like an Indian, find his way
through trackless forests, swim swollen rivers, shoot with the
marksmanship of the wilderness, and he could survive with his
naked fists in the primeval forest of North America. His con-
tacts with the Indians had the sure touch of easy familiarity;
his knowledge of wild life knew no bounds. . . .

"Where had John James Audubon acquired this forest train-
ing? It is my belief that John James Audubon acquired all
his forest training in the Selkirk's Settlements, somewhere be-
tween 1796 and 1800."

What an extraordinary picture we have here of the boy
"king," whose sister once said that if he had actually escaped
from the Temple prison, he could not have lived long on account
of his weakened condition : hidden for a time in the heart of
Nantes, under the roof of one who was, or who had recently
been, an ardent revolutionist; adopted by this very man, Jean
Audubon, in place of his own son — about whose fate neither of
the writers quoted seems to have thought it necessary to in-
quire ; taken secretly to England, where Mrs. Thomas Douglas,
later to become the Countess of Selkirk, opens her heart and
home to him. Then a mysterious uncle takes him to Santo
Domingo, thence to New Orleans, and then up "Old Man River"
to that vague destination called "Selkirk's Settlements," where
the boy "king" first learned his Indian lore and woodcraft.

It is sad to relate that this ingenious picture bears no re-

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxv

semblance whatsoever to reality. As a "working hypothesis"
it fails to work. There is not an essential line or word of
truth in it, not one ! It cannot be true in any particular, since
in the period in question, of 1796 to 1800, which Mrs. Tyler
is endeavoring to fill, there were no Selkirk's Settlements any-
where in existence, and none indeed before 1803, when young
Audubon, at eighteen, was leaving France and heading for his
father's "Mill Grove" farm in Pennsylvania.

The Scottish nobleman Thomas Douglas (1771-1820), the
fifth Earl of Selkirk and the seventh and youngest son of the
fourth Earl, did not come into his title and fortune until the
death of his father in 1799. He was a patriot who gave his
fortune and himself for the development of the British Empire
by laudable means, his great aim being to turn the flow of
Scottish colonists from the Carolinas and New England to
Canada. He sponsored three settlements in North America,
the first in 1803 on Prince Edward Island, which was eventu-
ally fairly successful. The second, named "Baldoon" after a
village on his ancestral acres, was situated in the western
peninsula of upper Canada, between Lakes Huron and Erie,
and never became more than a straggling pioneer village before
it was finally plundered by Americans in the War of 1812.

The Selkirk Settlement of the Red River, in the Winnipeg
region of what is now Manitoba, and over five hundred miles
from Hudson Bay, was undoubtedly the one to which Audubon
referred, and about it every reader of newspapers in England
must have heard in the second decade of the last century. Its
notoriety was due to its vast land area, the money at stake,
and to the numbers of people involved. The legal battles
fought over it in the courts, which lasted for upwards of ten
years, with their strain and worry, caused, as many believed,
the premature death of Lord Selkirk at forty-nine. The Earl
died on April 8, 1820, at Pau, France, whither he had gone in
the vain hope of recovering his health, and was buried in the
Protestant cemetery there.

The directors of the Hudson's Bay Company had granted

lxxvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

Selkirk an area of 116,000 square miles, comprising parts of
what are now Manitoba, North Dakota, and Minnesota, and
regarded as about the most fertile district on the whole North
American continent. By the deed of January 12, 1811, Sel-
kirk became the owner, in fee simple, of a tract five times the
size of his native Scotland, stretching from Lake Winnipeg and
the Winnipeg River on the east almost to the source of the
Assiniboine on the west. This brought Selkirk and the Hud-
son's Bay Company in deadly conflict with the North-West
Fur Company, whose directors were more interested in their
fat dividends than in philanthropy. They gave Lord Selkirk
no peace in the courts until, on the verge of financial ruin, his
health broke. In 1821, the year after Lord Selkirk's death,
the rival companies combined, and fifteen years later they made
a financial settlement with the Selkirk heirs. The purchase of
the territorial rights of this Company by the Dominion of
Canada in 1869 led to Riel's rebellion, which was suppressed
by British regulars under Colonel (later Lord) Wolseley. The
Red River district entered the Canadian Confederation in 1870
as the Province of Manitoba. Lord Selkirk seems to have lived
fifty years ahead of his time. Sir Walter Scott is reported to
have said of him: "I never knew in my life a man of more
generous and disinterested disposition." A town and a county
of Manitoba bear his name.9

Why did Audubon refer to Lord Selkirk in 1828, and why
was he curious to know if "Audubon of La Rochelle" remem-
bered Selkirk's Settlement? For no better reason, apparently,
than why he should wish to know if this same Audubon of La
Rochelle, whom we have supposed was the naturalist's uncle,
remembered his own brother, Jean, with whom we are told that
he had quarrelled.

A recent reviewer of Mrs. Tyler's book speaks of "Lady
Selkirk, wife of Alexander Selkirk, who tried to establish a set-

9 For facts concerning Lord Selkirk's life I am mainly indebted to
Chester Martin, Lord Selkirk's Work in Canada, Oxford Historical and
Literary Studies, Vol. VI (Oxford, 1916).

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxvii

tlement in the Hudson Bay country at the end of the eighteenth
century." Verily, "man walketh in a vain shadow, and dis-
quieteth himself in vain." The noble lord Thomas Douglas,
who gave his all to his country, in after years is confounded
with that notorious pirate Alexander Selkirk, who was bucca-
neering in the South Seas in the seventeenth century and, after
having reformed, as we may hope, became the prototype of
Robinson Crusoe !

Lord Selkirk's active' colonial work lasted seventeen years,
1803-1820, during which time Audubon, with the exception of
parts of two years (1805-1806) at Coueron, was in the United
States, engaged, when not hunting birds, in various business
enterprises. On July 26, 1817, Audubon executed a power of
attorney in favor of his brother-in-law, Gabriel Loyen du
Puigaudeau, a little more than a year after his father had
drawn up his last will, and but little over six months before
his death. This will was at once contested by a number of
nieces, in the courts of Nantes, on the ground that his ille-
gitimate children, J. J. Audubon and Rosa du Puigaudeau,
could not inherit Jean Audubon's property under existing
French law. Nothing was said about the Dauphin or the per-
sonal identity of the son. When this litigation became known,
Audubon seems to have broken off all relations with his father's
family at Coueron, and in June, 1820, after the lawsuit had
been settled by compromise, we find the brother-in-law writing
him an appealing letter, saying that no word had come from
him in two years and that Madame Audubon "does not cease
to speak of you." Audubon did not ignore this appeal, but,
as recorded in his journal on January 10, 1821, at New Or-
leans, he wrote letters to his brother-in-law and to his foster
mother, at Coueron, a long neglected duty, as he acknowledged.

In his European journal Audubon spoke of "my mother,
the only one I can truly remember; and no one ever had a
better, nor a more loving one. Let no one speak of her as my
stepmother. I was ever to her a son of her own flesh and blood,
and she was to me a true mother." If such apparently spon-

lxxviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

taneous statements are taken to mean what they say, they
would be fatal to the theory that Audubon was a son of Marie
Antoinette. In spite of such protestations, on the other hand,
on August 6, 1826, Audubon writes in his journal of plans for
going to "Nantes to see my venerable stepmother," who had
died on October 18, 1821 ; and again in 1828 he spoke of this
estimable woman as if she were then alive, although she had
been dead seven years. This seems to show conclusively that
Audubon had been out of touch with his father's family for a
long time, although one must think that he had been notified
of his stepmother's death since he was a beneficiary under
her will.

VI

For some time I have been in correspondence with Stephane
Antoine Fougere, at one time mayor and now judge in the
civil courts of Les Cayes, which has a present population of
twenty thousand people and is one of the most important sea-
ports of the Republic of Haiti. By perpetuation of a carto-
graphical blunder this city is sometimes designated "Aux
Cayes," which means "At the Keys" or "Cays," and is appro-
priately placed at the head of a letter or other document writ-
ten at Les Cayes.

In a recent letter Dr. Donald F. Rafferty, now of Pass
Christian, Mississippi, writes: "At the beginning of the World
War I was ordered to Haiti, and stationed at Les Cayes, in
charge of a French hospital. A friend sent me your book on
Audubon . . . and after reading it ... I loaned the book to
Mr. Uriah Cardozo, who returned it to me with the comment
that the author had not mentioned the fact that Audubon was
actually born aboard a schooner in the roadstead of Les Cayes.
Apparently the story had some foundation in fact as it was
common knowledge among the intelligentsia of Les Cayes." If
Audubon were actually born "on the sea," the fact might throw
some light on his statement that he "belonged to every country."

The following information relating to Mademoiselle Rabin,

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxix

Audubon's mother; to her parents, in whom were united the
Rabin and Fougere families; and to Belony Fougere, the re-
puted brother of Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon, I give on the
authority of Judge Fougere, who considers himself a great-
grandnephew of Audubon in direct descent from Belony Fou-
gere. His knowledge of his family history comes from his
grandfather, Oxylus Fougere, who died at Les Cayes in 1908,
at the age of eighty-five, and who had often spoken of his
famous uncle who had lived in the United States, referring, of
course, to J. J. F. Audubon. If the naturalist was correct in
speaking of having had two (or three) older brothers, he was
mistaken in thinking that all of them had been "killed in the
wars," for Belony survived, and his descendants are living at
Les Cayes to-day.

Audubon's mother, according to this account, came from
two well-known land-owning families, the Rabins and the
Fougeres, who held estates respectively in the northern and
southern parts of what is now the Haitian Republic. These
tracts, according to Judge Fougere, still bear these family
names, in accord with the French custom of naming sections
of the public domain after the principal land-owners, and are
so marked on the maps to-day. Judge Fougere, who has kindly
investigated this matter for me, found that in S. Rouzier's
Geographical and Administrative Guide Book of Haiti the
Rabin division in the north is situated in the fourth rural
section of the Commune of Port-de-Paix, and the Fougere divi-
sion in the district of Miragoane in the southern part of the
country.

The father of Mademoiselle Rabin is said to have objected
so strenuously to his daughter's consorting with Captain Jean
Audubon, a married man, that she insisted on having her chil-
dren by him bear the patronym, not of her irate father, but
of her mother, who was presumably more complacent. Perhaps
Audubon's early dislike of the Rabin name may be traced to
this opposition expressed by his mother, but this is purely
speculative.

Ixxx AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

Mr. Arthur, in his detailed biography, has reversed the
names of the parents of Audubon's mother, giving Fougere as
the father's name. Since both of us have derived our informa-
tion from the same source, I have recently appealed to Judge
Fougere to settle this question if possible, and he has written
me under date of May 22, 1937, as follows: "If I have written
to Mr. Arthur that Mile. Rabin was probably Rabin by her
mother, and Fougere by her father, it may have been due to
a lapsus calami, . . . nevertheless this false belief has been
practised by the Fougere family for a good long time. I have
been lately positively convinced of the fact that Mile. Rabin
was Fougere by her mother, through explanations received from
a near relative. As to whether the Mademoiselle was Fougere
by her mother or her father is, in my opinion, a matter of no
real importance. What is of the utmost consequence to know
is that the Fougere of Audubon's baptismal name came from
one of the grandparents on his mother's side."

Belony Fougere, Audubon's older brother and Judge Fou-
gere's great-grandfather, according to the family records that
I am now following, married Francine d'Obcent (or d'Opsant)-
Dumont, who was owner of the large rural section of "Dumont"
in the district of Les Cayes. He worked as a planter, at one
time taught school, and also set up as a shoemaker. Belony
had two sons, Oxylus and Tibere, and four daughters, Belo-
mine, Telcila, Dulcinette, and Elmirene. Louis Joseph Simon,
a son of Telcila now living at Les Cayes, was at one time
Haitian Consul-General at New York. Belony spent his early
life at Les Cayes, but later lived at Jeremie, where he died.

Oxylus Fougere, nephew of Audubon and grandfather of
Judge Fougere, to continue this account, was a physician and
also had a pharmacy at Les Cayes. He had three sons, An-
toine, father of Judge Fougere, Fenimore and Marc, and a
daughter, Marie. Antoine was a pharmacist of the first class
at the University of Paris, and a former house surgeon in that
city with the degree of licentiate in medicine. Fenimore was a
physician and assistant surgeon in the French army in 1870.

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxxi

Both Antoine and Fenimore were in Paris seventeen years.
Some have thought that the name of La Foret (La Forest or
Laforest), which Audubon assumed for a time in his early life,
was a fanciful one ; but according to Judge Fougere, as noticed
also by Mr. Arthur, Mademoiselle d'Obcent-Dumont, who be-
came the wife of Belony Fougere, was descendant of a family
bearing that name and having plantations at Jeremie. The
La Forests living there to-day all have Negro blood.

VII

If Audubon had been the son of Louis XVI and Marie
Antoinette, is it possible to believe that he would have been
sent to Paris, probably in 1802, when the world had been "on
fire with his pursuit," to study under Jacques Louis David,
famous artist and Conventional regicide, who had voted to send
his father to the guillotine, who had visited the son when a
prisoner in the Temple, presumably with the intention of paint-
ing or drawing his portrait, and who had actually sketched the
pathetic figure of his brave mother when on her way to the
scaffold ?

This reference to Marie Antoinette suggests another critical
scene in the life of this young queen, who had grown old while
still in her thirties. On that desolate winter morning of Janu-
ary 21, 1793, in Paris, in an upper room of the Templars'
Tower, were gathered a stricken wife and mother, the Princess
Elizabeth, familiarly known as "Aunt Babet," and the two
royal children, Marie Therese Charlotte and Monsieur Charles,
the Dauphin of France, in the presence only of their two
watchdogs, the commissioners who were daily detailed from the
Convention, and their faithful pantry boy, Turgy. In a set
of significant questions that this last-named youth, when grown
to manhood, sent to the spurious pretender "Charles de
Navarre," in 1817, was this: "What took place on January 21,
when the cannon were heard in that upper room? What did
your aunt say at that instant, and what unusual thing was

lxxxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

done for you?" No answer to these questions was ever re-
ceived, and it is safe to say that not one of the numerous other
claimants to having been that little boy — no more than John
James Audubon, who at that very time, according to his own
written statement, was under the roof of his father and devoted
stepmother — could have met this test with any better success.
Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon was not Louis Charles !

So far as anyone now knows, Turgy never answered his own
query, but we may surmise that the mother and the aunt em-
braced the child, and said, perhaps, the traditional thing:
"Louis Charles, the King, your father, is dead ; long live the
new King, his son !" Very likely they tried to explain to him
the new position in which he and they were now placed. The
Dauphin was then not quite eight years old, having been born
on Easter Day, March 27, 1785. The boy Audubon was about
a month younger.

I have stated a number of facts and circumstances which
weigh strongly against the idea that Jean Jacques Fougere
Audubon was Louis Charles, the Dauphin or Louis XVII, nom-
inal King of France, but there is another consideration, that
of physical marks upon the body, which, though seldom men-
tioned, is even more important and which ought definitely to
settle the question. Those closest to the Dauphin knew of
certain marks upon his body which, taken together, could iden-
tify him with absolute certainty. These were (1) vaccination
marks on both arms; (2) a scar over the left eye, and another
on the right side of the nose; and (3) a deformed right ear,
which had its lower lobe excessively enlarged. The first two
were unimportant, because they could be easily produced ;
Eleazar Williams or any other pretender might, and sometimes
did, point to some such scars in the right places. But the
deformed ear was another matter. That was a physical char-
acter which could not be imitated, and there was then no plastic
surgery in France, or anywhere else, that could either produce
or remove such a defect without trace. This deformity was
not generally known, and it was probably actually known to

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxxiii

but very few, if any, outside the royal household, since the
boy Dauphin, as seen in life and in his portraits, had always
appeared with long locks, banged and hanging down over his
ears, which they completely concealed. No doubt his fond par-
ents were quite willing that his tresses should hide such a defect.
It was a bodily mark which tripped many a brazen pretender
in the eyes of the knowing.

Did anyone ever notice or know that John James Audubon's
right ear was deformed? Not so far as is now known, and his
numerous portraits give no suggestion of it. If Audubon's
right ear was normal, as he and other artists represented it to
be, he could not have been Louis Charles, the prince. Had he
possessed such a deformity and been bound, under oath, as he
said, not to reveal his identity, would he have consented to
be shorn of his "ambrosial locks" in Edinburgh on March 19,
1827?

vin

There is probably no parallel in history to the Dauphin
racket, which began in France shortly after the reputed death
of Louis Charles and lasted for the better part of a century,
with reverberations still felt to this day. The causes that led
to such an extraordinary succession of events do not seem to
have been duplicated in either ancient or modern times.

Within five years after the death of the Dauphin, as re-
corded in the Temple's archives, seven boys all claiming to be
Louis XVII had already come to the attention of the French
police. Soon they kept bobbing up overnight, as Vogt says,
like as many prairie dogs, here, there, and everywhere, and
sometimes two were circulating in the country at the same
time. Three who made such false claims lived at one time or
another in the United States or Canada. Of one of these,
Eleazar Williams, I shall speak later. The Dauphin's sister
once remarked, when the impersonators of her lost brother had
reached twenty-seven in number, that she believed every one
of them to be spurious. Fifty years after the reputed death

lxxxiv AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

of Louis Charles, the number of those claiming to be, or who
believed or imagined themselves to be, that prince had risen to
forty, and some have estimated that the roll of false claimants
by now has touched the seventy mark ! They were an assorted
collection of near-lunatics, unstable persons with delusions of
grandeur or plain monomaniacs, mendacious liars, clever
forgers, general swindlers or adventurers, and pious hypocrites.
What did they expect to gain by such fraudulent claims?
Probably not a diadem or kingly crown in most cases, but
money and gifts of various sorts from the credulous, a share,
perhaps, of the large private fortune of the sister of the
Dauphin, and, above all, public acclaim and notoriety. The
shrewdest forgers or the most consistent and accomplished
liars often did obtain some of these things, such as jewels,
coin of the realm, and a chance to live for a time at least in
luxury. Several wrote fictitious memoirs, and many figured in
the law courts, when they often drew fines and prison sentences.
Their claims were usually thrown out of court, but if they
were banished from France, they were almost certain to turn
up again in the same role somewhere else.

Probably no boy in the world's history whose life, or that
part of it about which anything is definitely known, extended
to only ten years, two months, and two days, to follow the
Temple record again, has had so many biographers, so many
impersonators, or has been pronounced dead and buried so
many times and in so many different places. Under such cir-
cumstances it is not surprising that the bibliography of this
unfortunate prince has extended to extraordinary propor-
tions.10 Over a hundred years after the reported death of the
Dauphin, a monthly publication, Revue historique de la Ques-
tion Louis XVII, was started in Paris in 1905, but seems to
have run out of material in the course of five or six years.11

10 See William W. Wight, who in his Louis XVII: A Bibliography
(Boston, 1915) lists with annotations 478 titles, and these limited solely to
material in his private library.

"According to Wight this began as a "monthly" in 1905, with but
six issues, and these gradually diminished until there was but one issue
in 1910.

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxxv

Its editor began his address to prospective readers with a
quotation from Renan. "I fear," said Renan, "that the work
of the twentieth century will but consist of retrieving from
the waste-basket a multitude of excellent ideas which the nine-
teenth century had heedlessly thrown away. The survival of
Louis XVII, after leaving the prison of the Temple, is one of
these ideas." This idea, which seemed so excellent to Renan,
when put to the test, has proved to be sterile of practical
results. This journal appears to have been intended to con-
tinue the work of an earlier publication, Bulletin de la Societe
d'Etudes sur la Question Louis XVII, which, according to
Wight, was discontinued, after some change in name, in May,
1894.

There was a shrewd adventurer who suddenly appeared in
France in 1830, coming apparently from nowhere and passing
under the German name of Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, in recent
times identified, though not with complete certainty, as Carl
Benjamin Werg. After a long and checkered career he was
thrown out of France and went to England, where he invented
a bomb which was operated by clockwork. Failing to interest
the English in his invention, he started for Holland in 1845
with a passport bearing the name of "Charles Louis de Bour-
bon." As he was detained at Rotterdam, the question of ad-
mitting him soon became one of international diplomacy
between France and Holland. The Dutch appear to have
wanted his bomb, but as they had little liking for Charles X,
the French King, the matter dragged over five months and
ended in compromise. The French were willing to have the
name "Charles Louis" appear in the document (the Dauphin's
name having been Louis Charles), and for all they cared the
bomb might be called the "Bourbon bomb," but they would not
go a step farther. This was held, but on insufficient grounds,
as a tacit admission that the Naundorff family was entitled
to use the Bourbon name. The agreement was signed on June
20, 1845, and Naundorff, who had gone to Delft, was dead of
typhoid fever less than two months later.

lxxxvi AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

In 1851 the Naundorff family tried to get from the French
Government an acknowledgment of their right to the use of the
Bourbon name, but without success ; they appealed against this
verdict in 1874, but lost again. Finally, in 1911, the Naundorff
descendants made a third attempt at having their claim of
being scions and heirs of Louis XVI acknowledged in France,
but were again denied, and there the matter now stands.
Naundorff had neither the physiognomy nor the physical
marks of the Dauphin, but many believed that he was rather
better than the average run of pretenders. Minnegerode,
whom I have followed in this statement of the Naundorff case,12
is undoubtedly right in saying that the admission wrung from
France by the Dutch in 1845 was one which no French court
would for a moment have allowed. Nevertheless, Naundorff
was buried with the honors of royalty at Delft, and his monu-
ment there bears this inscription : "Louis XVII, roi de France
et de Navarre (Charles Louis due de Normandie)." Only
recently (July, 1937) the death was announced of one of
Naundorff's descendants, most of whom had clung to the fiction
of their Bourbon inheritance.

A much more difficult subject to understand than the
Hervagaults, the Richemonts, or the Naundorffs is the psy-
chology of an American pretender to royalty, Eleazar Williams,
one-time missionary to the Indians. It is a pity that Gamaliel
Bradford never psychographed him. He had no criminal
record, but was a teacher among the Indians for many years,
and Bishop Hobart, of New York, ordained him to the ministry
of the Protestant Episcopal Church and baptised his Indian
wife, giving her the name of Mary Hobart. Williams trans-
lated the Book of Common Prayer and numerous hymns into
the Iroquois language, and at Green Bay, Wisconsin, started a
school for half-breed Indian children. This was maintained
until 1823, when he married one of his pupils. In 1839 Wil-
liams is said to have confided to a Buffalo editor that he was

12 See Meade Minnigerode, The Son of Marie Antoinette: the Mystery
of the Temple Tower (New York, 1934).

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxxvii

the real Dauphin of France, and ten years later an article,
supposedly written or inspired by Williams himself, appeared
in the United States Democratic Review, in which his definite
claim to royalty was made public. Meanwhile Williams re-
peated his story to anyone who would listen, but the widespread
notoriety after which he had evidently been striving came with
the publication in Putnam's Monthly Magazine for February,
1853, of an article on "Have We a Bourbon among Us?" by
the Rev. John Halloway Hanson. Hanson corresponded with
Williams, visited him, and became such an enthusiastic sup-
porter of his cause that he wrote his biography, in a volume
of nearly five hundred pages which was published in 1855. Han-
son was an idealist, without a particle of critical judgment,
and, believing in the unimpeachable integrity of his hero, he
accepted without question all of his yarns however amazing or
impossible. I can relate but one of these stories, which came
out in a conversation with Hanson, who said in effect : "Before
you left the Temple, at the age of ten, you must have stored
up in your mind many memory pictures of extraordinary events,
some of which you will be able to recall. Now, I wish you
would describe some of them." "A most remarkable fact,"
replied the self-styled Dauphin, "is that up to the age of
thirteen or fourteen my mind was like a blank page: nothing
was written on it. Consciousness seemed to be imperfect or
entirely lacking, and at that early period I was practically an
idiot. Then, this strange thing happened : one summer's day,
when I was bathing with a number of Indian boys, my friends,
in the waters of Lake George, in my foolish way I climbed a
high rock over the water and dived. The shock rendered me
unconscious, but my boy friends dragged me out, and when I
was gradually restored to consciousness I was a changed per-
son. My mind was restored to me, and the events, which had
happened in my earlier years in Paris, came back. Pictures
of soldiers and great personages were there, and there was a
hard, cruel face, which I seemed to recognize with a start, when
I suddenly came upon it in a steamboat or upon entering a

lxxxviii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

train. I think that what terrified me must have been a
resemblance to my evil guardian of an early day, Simon the
cobbler !" Intelligent people probably knew as well then as they
do now that any sharp blow upon the head is not conducive
to an improvement in mentality. The Reverend Mr. Hanson
should have remembered the Old Testament proverb : "Though
thou shouldest bray a fool in a mortar among wheat with a
pestle, yet will not his foolishness depart from him."

Williams told Hanson that the Prince de Joinville, son of
Louis Philippe, when in this country in 1841, came to Green
Bay and tried to induce him to sign an abdication of his rights
to the French throne. When this was denounced in France as
a pure fabrication, Williams said to Hanson: "I do not trouble
myself much about the matter. . . . My story is on the wings
of heaven, and will work its way without me. . . . God in His
providence must have some mysterious ends to answer, or He
would never have brought me so low from such a height. ... I
do not want a crown. I am convinced of my regal descent ;
so are my family. The idea of royalty is in our minds, and we
will not relinquish it. You have been talking to a king to-
night." They were then on a steamboat approaching Bur-
lington, Vermont.

In concluding his article on "The Bourbon Question," the
sequel to the one to which I have just referred, Hanson said:
"To those who have charitably attributed to me the origi-
nation of a moon hoax 1S to sell a magazine, or the credulity of
adopting the baseless tale of a monomaniac, I reply . . . that
I am content to leave the case to speak for itself, quite satisfied
with the approbation of those, neither few, nor stupid, nor
credulous, who entertain with me the strongest conviction of
the high probability that beneath the romance of incidence
there is here the rocky substratum of indestructible fact."

13 Referring to the story in The Sun (New York) of August 25, 1835,
sometimes called the greatest scientific fraud ever perpetrated, which pur-
ported to have been written by Sir John Herschel, but is now believed
to have been the work of a clever reporter, Richard Adams Locke.

FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT lxxxix

Eleazar Williams said that his story would work its way
without him. It has, but it has taken a different course from
that which he would have chosen, especially since the historians
at the University of Wisconsin have made it their business to
investigate his life history. It has been definitely established
that Eleazar Williams was a half-breed Indian, son of Thomas
Williams and Mary Ann Kenewatsenri. Thomas was a grand-
son of Eunice Williams, who was a daughter of John Williams,
minister at Deerfield, Massachusetts. She was captured in 1784
in a French and Indian raid, was married to an Indian chief
of Caughnawaga, and her descendants all took the Williams
name. In 1824 Eleazar gave Sault S. Louis (Caughnawaga,
Canada) as his birthplace, but he publicly maintained the
fiction of being the French Dauphin up to his death in 1858.
Eleazar Williams stands in a class by himself among the
better-known pretenders to royalty in relation to Louis Charles.
Why did this minister and missionary worker choose to lead a
life of duplicity? His dishonesty brought him no monetary
rewards. His greatest weakness seems to have been an in-
ordinate vanity. His bold claims and those of his credulous
friends, who could not have known him any too well, made him
a marked man, and wherever he went interest in him was
aroused. If he preached in a country church, that was an event
to be remembered. In a recently published work on Old His-
toric Churches of America there is pictured a church at Long-
meadow, Massachusetts, "with which," it was stated, "is asso-
ciated the romantic story of Eleazar Williams, believed by many
to have been Louis XVII of France."

What shall be said of the conjectures of Mrs. Tyler on this
crude Williams hoax? "There is a persistent rumor in
Canada," says Mrs. Tyler, "that the Dauphin lived there.
When a legend of this kind lives through a century, it usually
has some basis in fact, as is now seen [the basis being that
Audubon was Louis XVII, and was secretly taken to Canada
when eleven years old]. And this may even account for the
story of the 'mythical Williams boy,' who was a missionary to

xc AUDUBON THE NATURALIST

the Indians, for Audubon's religious life was deeply spiritual,
and he may have used his stay in Canada to this end ; and the
Williams boy's mother, Mrs. Williams, is reputed to be the
indomitable and indefatigable Lady Atkyns, who gave Marie
Antoinette her pledge that she would never stop till she had
saved her son, Louis 17th. It may be that Lady Atkyn's pledge
was thus fulfilled."

What a strange denouement ! Audubon, at the age of
eleven, giving spiritual comfort to North American Indians,
whom he had never seen, in "Selkirk's Settlements," which did
not then exist, and in a country which he had never visited !
What, I wonder, would Lady Atkyns — Walpole born, whose
husband had been a Norfolk baronet — have thought, after all
her money had been thrown to the winds in a vain, if worthy,
cause, of being reputed the mother of a half-breed American
Indian, and a pious impostor at that? Would not the ardent
biographer of that "Williams boy," who protested that he was
not starting a moon hoax, be equally surprised to know how
much moonshine there was in his whole story?

Audubon's life was romantic enough. He does not need any
false halo of royalty. He can stand on his own feet.

AUDUBON

THE

NATURALIST
VOLUME I

Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. . . .

Shakespeare, Othello to his biographers.

Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else, is power-
less against truth.

Huxley.

What a curious, interesting book, a biographer, well ac-
quainted with my life, could write; it is still more wonderful
and extraordinary than that of my father.

Audubon, in letter to his wife,

March 12, 1828.

AUDUBON

THE

NATURALIST

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Audubon's growing fame — Experience in Paris in 1828 — Cuvier's patron-
age— Audubon's publications — His critics — His talents and accom-
plishments— His Americanism and honesty of purpose — His foibles
and faults — Appreciations and monuments — The Audubon Societies —
Biographies and autobiography — Robert Buchanan and the true his-
tory of his Life of Audubon.

It is more than three-quarters of a century since
Audubon's masterpiece, The Birds of America, was
completed, and two generations have occupied the stage
since the "American Woodsman" quietly passed away
at his home on the Hudson River. These generations
have seen greater changes in the development and ap-
plication of natural science and in the spread of sci-
entific knowledge among men than all those which pre-
ceded them. Theories of nature come and go but the
truth abides, and Audubon's "book of Nature," repre-
sented by his four massive volumes of hand-engraved
and hand-colored plates, still remains "the most mag-
nificent monument which has yet been raised to ornithol-
ogy," as Cuvier said of the parts which met his aston-
ished gaze in 1828; while his graphic sketches of Ameri-
can life and scenery and his vivid portraits of birds,

1

2 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

drawn with the pen, can be read with as much pleasure
as when the last volume of his Ornithological Biography
left the press in 1839. This appears the more remark-
able when we reflect that Audubon's greatest working
period, from 1820 to 1840, belonged essentially to the
eighteenth century, for the real transition to the nine-
teenth century did not begin in England before 1837;
then came the dawn of the newer day that was to wit-
ness those momentous changes in communication and
travel, in education, democracy and ideas, which char-
acterize life in the modern world.

When Audubon left London for Paris on Septem-
ber 1, 1828, it took him four days by coach, boat and
diligence to reach the French capital, a journey which
in normal times is now made in less than eight hours.
Mail then left the Continent for England on but four
days in the week, and to post a single letter cost twenty-
four sous. Writing at Edinburgh a little earlier (De-
cember 21, 1826), Audubon recorded that on that day
he had received from De Witt Clinton and Thomas
Sully, in America, letters in answer to his own, in forty-
two days, and added that it seemed absolutely impossi-
ble that the distance could be covered so rapidly. This
was indeed remarkable, since the first vessel to cross
the Atlantic whollv under its own steam, in 1838, re-
quired seventeen days to make the passage from New
York to Queenstown.

"Walking in Paris," said Audubon in 1828, "is disa-
greeable in the extreme; the streets are paved, but with
scarcely a sidewalk, and a large gutter filled with dirty
black water runs through the middle of each, and peo-
ple go about without any kind of order, in the center,
or near the houses." The Paris of that day contained
but one-fourth the number of its present population.

INTRODUCTION 3

Having reaped the fruits of the Revolution, it was
enjoying peace under the Restoration; moreover, it
was taking a leading part in the advancement of natu-
ral science, of which Cuvier was the acknowledged dean.
It was but a year before the death of blind and aged
Lamarck, neglected and forgotten then, but destined
after the lapse of three-quarters of a century to have a
monument raised to his memory by contributions from
every part of Europe and America, and to be recog-
nized as the first great evolutionist of the modern school.
Audubon had not seen his ancestral capital for up-
wards of thirty years, not since as a young man he was
sent from his father's home near Nantes to study draw-
ing in the studio of David, at the Louvre. Though in
the land of his fathers and speaking his native tongue,
his visit was tinged with disappointment. At the age
of forty-three he was engaged in an enterprise which
stands unique in the annals of science and literature.
But fifty plates, or ten numbers, of his incomparable
series had been engraved, and this work had then but
thirty subscribers. That he was bound to sink or swim
he knew full well. On August 30 he wrote: "My
subscribers are yet far from enough to pay my ex-
penses, and my purse suffers severely from want of
greater patronage." This want he had hoped to satisfy
in France, but after an experience of eight weeks, and
an expenditure, as he records, of forty pounds, he was
obliged to leave Paris with only thirteen additional
names on his list. Yet among the latter, it should be
noticed, were those of George Cuvier, the Duke of Or-
leans and King Charles X, while six copies had been
ordered by the Minister of the Interior for distribution
among the more important libraries of Paris. More-
over, he had won the friendship and encomiums of

4 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Cuvier, which later proved of the greatest value. The
savants who gathered about him at the meeting of the
Royal Academy of Sciences, over which Cuvier pre-
sided, exclaimed, "Beautiful! Very beautiful! What
a work!", but "What a price!", and acknowledged that
only in England could he find the necessary support.
Audubon concluded that he was fortunate in having
taken his drawings to London to be engraved, for the
smaller cost of copper on that side of the Channel was
an item which could not be overlooked. Little did he
dream that commercial greed for the baser metal would
send most of his great plates to the melting pot half
a century later. No doubt he was right also in con-
cluding that had he followed certain advisers in first tak-
ing his publication to France, it would have perished
"like a flower in October." It should be added that
King Charles' subscription expired with his fall two
years later, while that of Cuvier ended with his death
in 1832.

Audubon was one of those rare spirits whose post-
humous fame has grown with the years. He did one
thing in particular, that of making known to the world
the birds of his adopted land, and did it so well that
his name will be held in everlasting remembrance. His
great folios are now the property of the rich or of those
fortunate institutions which have either received them
by gift or were enrolled among his original subscribers,
and wherever found they are treasured as the greatest
of show books. The sale of a perfect copy of the Birds
at the present day is something of an event, for it com-
mands from $3,000 to $5,000, or from three to five times
its original cost. All of Audubon's publications have
not only become rare but have increased greatly in price ;
they are what dealers call a good investment, an experi-

INTRODUCTION 5

ence which probably no other large, illustrated, scien-
tific or semi-scientific works have enjoyed to a like de-
gree.

As has been said of Prince Henry the Navigator,
though in different words, John James Audubon was
one of those who by a simple-hearted life of talent, de-
votion and enthusiasm have freed themselves from the
law of death. Audubon was a man of many sides, and
his fame is due to a rare combination of those talents
and powers which were needed to accomplish the work
that he finally set out to do. His personality was most
winning, his individuality strong, and his long life, bent
for the most part to attain definite ends, was checkered,
adventurous and romantic beyond the common lot of
men.

Few men outside of public life have been praised
more lavishly than Audubon during his active career.
Though he had but few open enemies, those few, as if
conscious of the fact, seemed to assail him the more
harshly and persistently. In reading all that has been
said about this strenuous worker both before and since
his death, one is continually struck by the perverse or
contrary opinions that are often expressed. He was
not this and he was not that, but he was simply Audu-
bon, and there has been no one else who has at all closely
resembled him or with whom he can be profitably com-
pared. One charges that he did not write the books
which bear his name. Another complains that he was
no philosopher, and was not a man of science at heart;
that he was vain, elegant, inclined to be selfish, inconse-
quential, and that he reverenced the great; that he shot
birds for sport; that he was a plagiarist; that he was
the king of nature fakirs and a charlatan; that he never
propounded or answered a scientific question; and,

6 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

finally, that though at times he wrote a graphic and
charming style and showed occasional glimpses of pro-
phetic insight, he cannot be trusted; besides, he might
have been greatly indebted to unacknowledged aid re-
ceived from others.

These or similar charges were brought against
Audubon during his lifetime, as they have been made
against many another who has emerged quickly from
obscurity into world-wide renown. Many attacks upon
his character were assiduously repelled by his friends,
though seldom noticed publicly by himself; as if con-
scious of his own integrity, he was content to await the
verdict of time, and time in America has not been recre-
ant to his trust. Some of these charges it may be neces-
sary to examine at length, if found to be justified in
any degree, while others may be brushed aside as un-
worthy of even passing consideration. Evidence of
every sort is now ample, as it seems, to enable us to do
justice to all concerned, to penetrate the veil that has
hidden much of the real Audubon from the world, and
to place the worker and the man in the fuller light of
day.

The reader who follows this history may expect to
find certain blemishes in Audubon's character, for the
most admirable of men have possessed faults, whether
conscious of them or not. The lights in any picture
would lose all value were the shadows wholly with-
drawn. If we blinded ourselves to every fault and foi-
ble of such a man, we might produce a sketch more
pleasing to certain readers, but it would lack the vitality
which truth alone can supply. The more carefully his
character is studied, however, as Macaulay said of Addi-
son, the more it will appear, in the language of the old
anatomists, "sound in the noble parts, free from all

INTRODUCTION 7

taint of perfidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingrati-
tude, of envy."

In this attempt to present a true and unbiased
estimate of Audubon in relation to his time, we have
the advantage of dealing with a well rounded and com-
pleted life, not with a broken or truncated one. He
impressed many of his contemporaries in both Europe
and America with the force of his contagious enthusi-
asm and prolific genius, and their opinions have been
recorded with remarkable generosity. On the other
hand, "if a life be delayed till interest and envy are at
an end," said an excellent authority,1 "we may hope for
impartiality, but must expect little intelligence," because
the minute details of daily life are commonly so vola-
tile and evanescent as to "soon escape the memory, and
are rarely transmitted by tradition." Such details,
which often reveal character while they add color and
life to the narrative, have been amply supplied, as the
reader will find, by Audubon himself, not only in his
journals and private letters already published but in
the numerous documents of every sort that are now
brought to light.

If "the true man is to be revealed, if we are to know
him as he was, and especially if we are to know the
influences that molded him and so profoundly affected
him for good or evil, we must begin at the beginning
and follow him through his struggles, his temptations,
his triumphs." It might be better to start "in the
cradle," or even forty years before he was born, for,
as modern biology teaches us, nature is stronger than
nurture and race counts for much. Certainly this man
can never be understood if removed from the environ-
ment which time and circumstance gave him; he needs

1 Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. CO.

8 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the historical background, furnished in part by his con-
temporaries, some of whom were rivals with whom he
had often to struggle to make his way. In recounting
this history, in many cases hitherto unwritten, we must
recognize the proverbial difficulty of tracing human
motives to their proper source, and endeavor to form
no harsh judgments without ample basis in docu-
mentary or other evidence.

No more ardent and loyal American than John
James Audubon ever lived. His adopted country,
which he would fain have believed to have been that
of his actual birth, was ever his chief passion and pride,
and for him the only abode of sweet content. Few
have seen more of it, of its diversified races, climates
and coasts, its grand mountains, its noble lakes and
rivers, its virgin forests and interminable prairies, with
all the marvelous stores of animal and plant life which
were first truly revealed to the pioneer woodsman,
artist and naturalist. None has been more eager to
hand down to posterity, ere it be too late, a true tran-
script of its wild and untameable nature while, as he
would say, still fresh from the Creator's own hand.
Audubon's beneficent influence during his long en-
forced residence abroad, as a representative of Ameri-
can energy and capacity, can hardly be measured, while
in his own land few were more potent in bringing the
nation to a consciousness of its unique individuality and
power.

Audubon, as has been said, saw nature vividly col-
ored by his own enthusiasm, and he never looked at
her "through the spectacles of books." His writings,
however unpolished or written with whatever degree
of speed, have the peculiar quality of awakening en-
thusiasm in the reader, who, like the youth poring over

INTRODUCTION 9

Robinson Crusoe, feels within him a new ardor, in this
instance, for hunting and studying birds and for leading
a life of adventure in the wilderness. It would be as
unjust to judge of Audubon's rare abilities as a de-
scriptive writer from the letters, journal jottings and
miscellaneous extracts given in this work, as to weigh
his accomplishments as an artist from his itinerary por-
traits or his early sketches of animals in crayon point
and pastel. Those cruder products of his pen and brush,
however, as the reader will find, possess a high degree
of interest from the light which they throw on the de-
velopment of his character and art, as well as from
their personal and historical associations. His best and
only finished literary work, the Ornithological Biog-
raphy, in five large volumes, with the revisions and
additions which later appeared, abound in animated
pictures of primitive nature and pioneer life in America
as well as vivid portraits of the birds and other charac-
teristic animals.

A good illustration of Audubon's habit of blending
his own experiences with his biographies of birds is
found in the introduction to his account of the Common
Gannet :

On the morning of the 14th of June 1833, the white sails
of the Ripley were spread before a propitious breeze, and
onward she might be seen gaily wending her way towards the
shores of Labrador. We had well explored the Magdalene
Islands, and were anxious to visit the Great Gannet Rock,
where, according to our pilot, the birds from which it derives
its name bred. For several days I had observed numerous files
proceeding northward, and marked their mode of flight while
thus travelling. As our bark dashed through the heaving bil-
lows, my anxiety to reach the desired spot increased. At
length, about ten o'clock, we discerned at a distance a white

10 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

speck, which our pilot assured us was the celebrated rock of
our wishes. After a while I could distinctly see its top from
the deck, and thought that it was still covered with snow sev-
eral feet deep. As we approached it, I imagined that the at-
mosphere around was filled with flakes, but on my turning to
the pilot, who smiled at my simplicity, I was assured that noth-
ing was in sight but the Gannets and their island home. I
rubbed my eyes, took up my glass, and saw that the strange
dimness of the air before us was caused by the innumerable
birds, whose white bodies and black-tipped pinions produced a
blended tint of light-grey. When we had advanced to within
half a mile, this magnificent veil of floating Gannets was easily
seen, now shooting upwards, as if intent on reaching the sky,
then descending as if to join the feathered masses below, and
again diverging toward either side and sweeping over the sur-
face of the ocean. The Ripley now partially furled her sails,
and lay to, when all on board were eager to scale the abrupt
side of the mountain isle, and satisfy their curiosity.2

Audubon's accounts of the birds are copious, inter-
esting and generally accurate, considering the time and
circumstances in which they were produced. When at
his best, his pictures were marvels of fidelity and close
observation, and in some of his studies of mammals, like
that of the raccoon (see p. 182), in which seemingly
every hair is carefully rendered, we are reminded of
the work of the old Dutch masters and of Albrecht
Diirer; notwithstanding such attention to microscopic
detail, there is no flatness, but the values of light and
shade are perfectly rendered. In his historical survey
of American ornithology, Elliott Coues was fully justi-
fied in designating the years 1824-1853 as representing
the "Audubonian Epoch," and the time from 1834 to its
close as the "Audubonian Period." "The splendid

2 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. iv, p. %

in. ->

INTRODUCTION 11

genius of the man, surmounting every difficulty and dis-
couragement of the author, had found and claimed its
own. . . . Audubon and his work were one; he lived
in his work, and in his work will live forever." 3

There is no doubt that Audubon regarded an honest
man as the quintessence of God's works, and though he
sometimes set down statements which do not square
with known facts, this was often the result of lax habits,
or of saying what was uppermost in his mind without
retrospection or analysis. When memory failed or
when more piquancy and color were needed, he may
have been too apt to resort to varnish, but for every-
thing written on the spot his mind was as truth-telling
as his pictures. In considering the good intent of the
man, his extraordinary capacity for taking pains, and
his vast accomplishments, criticism on this score seems
rather captious. On the other hand, when it came to
dealing with his own early life, that was a subject upon
which he reserved the right to speak according to his
judgment, and in a way which will be considered later.

Audubon left England to settle his family finally
in America in the summer of 1839, when he was fifty-
four years old, and since he lived but twelve years
longer, probably few are now living who retain more
than a childish memory of his appearance in advanced
age. Many Londoners will recall an odd character, an
aged print dealer who used to sit alone, like a hoary
spider in its web, in his little shop in Great Russel
Street, close to the British Museum, and another of
similar type, who may still haunt a better known land-
mark, the old "naturalist's shop" in Oxford Street, not
far from Tottenham Court Road and but a min-

3 Elliot* Coues, Key to North American Birds, 4th ed., p. xxi (Boston,
1890).

12 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ute's walk from the spot where most of Audubon's
Birds were engraved. Both had seen the naturalist
walk the streets of London and had known him in busi-
ness relations. He occasionally strolled into the old
naturalist's shop, which has been occupied by father and
son for nearly a century. The son, then a young clerk,
is now (1913) the crabbed veteran who still waits on
customers but never waits long; should you hazard a
question before making a purchase, he will roar like
the captain of a ship and leave you to your own devices ;
but show him money and the change in his demeanor
is wonderful; his hearing improves, his tone softens,
and he may recount for you what he remembers of
times long past, which is not much. Audubon in the
thirties seemed to him like an aged man, an impression
quite natural to a youth. He also remembered seeing
Charles Waterton, Audubon's declared enemy and
supercilious critic, William Swainson, his one-time
friend, and William MacGillivray, his eminent assist-
ant; that they were great rivals expressed the sum of
his reflections. He recalled the time when Oxford
Street was filled, as he expressed it, with horses and
donkeys, and of course knew well the old Zoological
Gallery, No. 79 Newman Street, in which for a time
Robert Havell & Son conducted a shop in connection
with their printing and engraving establishment. The
latter, when moved by Robert Havell, Jr., to No. 77
Oxford Street, was nearly opposite the old Pantheon,
which still lingers, and not far from the corner of
Wrisley Street, the present site of Messrs. Waring &
Gillow's large store.

We already possess several biographies of Audu-
bon, and many of his letters of a personal or scientific
interest and most of his extant journals, though but a

INTRODUCTION 13

fraction of those which originally existed, have been pub-
lished. "America, my Country," has not forgotten him.
Mount Audubon rises on the northerly bound of Colo-
rado as an everlasting reminder of the last and grand-
est of all his journeys, that to the Missouri River in
1843. American counties and towns/ as well as parks
and streets in American cities, bear his name. At least
four of his beloved birds have been dedicated to him.
In 1885, thirty-four years after his death, the New
York Academy of Sciences began a popular movement
through which a beautiful cross in marble was raised in
1893 above his grave in Trinity Cemetery.5 The "one
hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary" 6 of the natural-
ist's birth was celebrated in New York in 1905, and at

4 Audubon, in Audubon County, Iowa, in Beeker County, Minnesota,
and in Wise County, Texas, as well as Audubon, Montgomery County,
Pennsylvania, in which his old farm, "Mill Grove," is situated. Audubon
Avenue is the first of the subterranean passages which lead from the
entrance of Mammoth Cave, and is noted for its swarms of bats. Audubon
Park, New York City, between the Hudson River and Broadway and ex-
tending from 156th, to 160th Streets, embraces a part of "Minnie's Land,"
the naturalist's old Hudson River estate, but is a realty designation and is
now almost entirely covered with buildings (see Chapter XXXVI).

5 The Audubon Monument Committee of the New York Academy of
Sciences was appointed October 3, 1887, and made its final report in 1893,
when this beautiful memorial was formally dedicated. Subscriptions from
all parts of the United States amounted to $10,5:25.21. The monument is
a Runic cross in white marble, ornamented with American birds and
mammals which Audubon has depicted, and surmounts a die bearing a
portrait of the naturalist, modeled from Cruikshank's miniature, with
suitable inscriptions, the whole being supported on a base of granite; the
total height is nearly 26 feet, and the weight 2 tons. It was presented
to the Corporation of Trinity Parish by Professor Thomas Eggleston, and
received by Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix. The cemetery has since been cut in
two by the extension of Broadway; the monument is in the northerly section,
close to the parish house of the Chapel of the Intercession.

The monument at New Orleans, mentioned below, was erected under
the auspices of the Audubon Association, at a cost of $10,000, most
of which was secured through the efforts of Mrs. J. L. Bradford, $1,500
having been contributed by residents of the Crescent City. The figure
is in bronze, and stands on a high pedestal of Georgia granite.

The beautiful bust of Audubon at the American Museum of Natural
History is by William Couper, of Newark, N. J.

6 As will later appear, this was in reality the 120th anniversary.

14 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the American Museum of Natural History an admirable
marble bust of Audubon was unveiled on a notable occa-
sion, December 29, 1906, when similar honors were paid
to Louis Agassiz, Spencer Fullerton Baird, Edward
Drinker Cope, James Dwight Dana, Benjamin Frank-
lin, Joseph Henry, Joseph Leidy, John Torrey, and
Alexander von Humboldt. On November 26, 1910, a
statue of Audubon, after an admirable design by the
veteran sculptor, Edward Virginius Valentine, of Rich-
mond, Virginia, was unveiled in Audubon Park, New
Orleans, where the naturalist, with pencil in hand, is
represented in the act of transferring to paper the like-
ness of a favorite subject. He also occupies a niche in
the Hall of Fame at New York University.

In recent times Audubon's name has become a house-
hold word through the medium of the most effective
instrument which has yet been devised for the conser-
vation of animal life in this or any country, the National
Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of
Wild Birds and Animals. This has become the coor-
dinating center for the spread and control of a great
national movement that received its first impulse in
1886.7 Launched anew ten years later, it has advanced

7 The first Audubon Society, devoted to the interests of bird pro-
tection, was organized by Dr. George Bird Grinnell, editor of Forest and
Stream, in 1886, and 16,000 members were enrolled during the first year;
Dr. Grinnell was also the fatber of the Audubonian Magazine (see
Bibliography, No. 190), which made its first appearance in January, 1887;
by the middle of that year the membership in the new society had in-
creased to 38,000, but with the disappearance of the Magazine in 1889 the
movement languished and came to a speedy end. In 1896 a fresh start
was taken by the inauguration of State societies in Massachusetts and
Pennsylvania, and the movement gathered greater force through the in-
auguration in 1899 of the admirably conducted magazine, Bird-Lore, as
its official organ. The State societies were federated in 1902, and the
National Committee then created gave place in 1905 to the National
Association. See Gilbert Trafton, Bird Friends, for an excellent summary
of the work of the Audubon Societies, and the "Twelfth Annual Report of
the National Association of Audubon SocK-Hes," Bird-Lore, vol. xviii (1916).

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INTRODUCTION 15

with ever increasing momentum, until now it is the gov-
erning head of twenty-nine distinct State societies, as
well as eighty-five affiliated clubs and similar organiza-
tions. In 1916 it counted a life membership of 356,
with 3,024 sustaining members, and realized a total in-
come of over $100,000. It should be added that during
the past six years over 2,900 Junior Audubon Clubs
have been formed in the schools, through which nearly
600,000 children have been instructed in the principles
of the Audubon Society. Well may it be that this ad-
mirable organization, with its successful efforts for re-
medial legislation in state and nation ; its initiative, with
the aid of the National Government, in establishing
Federal reservations or sanctuaries for the perpetuation
of wild life ; its educational activities through the exten-
sion of its influence to the pupils of the public schools;
and its watch and ward over all the varied interests of
its cause, will keep the name of Audubon greener to all
future time than the most cherished of his works.

Of Audubon's works the public now sees but little
and knows even less, all without exception having been
long out of print. His admirable plates of birds and
mammals have been widely copied and still serve for the
illustration of popular books, but most of his publica-
tions were projected on too large and expensive a scale
for general circulation, having been first sold to sub-
scribers only and often at great cost. No complete
reprint, revision or abridgment of his principal volumes
has been made for half a century (see Bibliography,
Appendix V). No complete bibliography of Audu-
bon has ever been prepared, and none will remain com-
pleted long, for it is hard to imagine a time when com-
ment on his life, his drawings, and his adventures will
altogether cease.

16 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

In May, 1834, William MacGillivray, who was as-
sisting him in the technical parts of the Ornithological
Biography, suggested that Audubon write a biography
of himself, and predicted a wide popularity for such a
work. Audubon entertained the idea but was then too
deeply immersed in The Birds of America to give it
much attention; yet in 1835 he wrote out a short sketch,
entitled Myself, addressing it in the fashion of that day
to his two sons, and then laid it aside. Mrs. Audubon
evidently had access to this manuscript when the life of
her husband, to be referred to later, was in course of
preparation, and thus it has furnished, directly or indi-
rectly, nearly all that has been published concerning the
naturalist's early life. This fragment, which extends
to about thirty printed pages, was characterized by
Audubon as a "very imperfect (but perfectly correct)
account of my early life," and though written with an
eye to its possible publication, which was clearly sanc-
tioned, it was evidently never revised. The manuscript
was long lost but eventually was "found in an old book
which had been in a barn on Staten Island for years";
it was first published by the naturalist's granddaughter,
Miss Maria R. Audubon, in 1893, and again in 1898.
As will later appear, this account is inaccurate in many
important particulars.

Audubon expressed the intention of extending his
personal history, which he promised to delineate with a
faithfulness equal to that bestowed on the birds, but
the task was never resumed. Yet more than most
writers have done, he wove the incidents of his own
career into the pages of his principal works, and this
strong personal flavor added much to their charm. Un-
fortunately, in giving such personal or historical details
he is most vulnerable to a critic, who insists first upon

INTRODUCTION 17

accuracy, for errors of various sorts and confused and
conflicting statements are far too common.

Of the more formal biographies of Audubon, the
first to appear was a slender volume entitled Audubon:
the Naturalist of the New World, by Mrs. Horace Steb-
bing Roscoe St. John, published in England in 1856.8
In the same year this work was expanded and reissued
by the publishers who at that time had charge of the
sale of Audubon's works in America.9 The American
publishers explained in their edition that inasmuch as
"the fair authoress in preparing her interesting sketch
of Audubon . . . appears not to have been aware of
the publication of his second great work, the Quadru-
peds of North America (which had not been advertised,
we believe, in Europe) they have taken the liberty of
giving some account of it and making numerous ex-
tracts from its pages." 10 Perhaps the most interesting
or valuable things in this little volume at the present
day are the woodcut on the title page showing Audu-
bon's house on the Hudson as it then appeared, sur-
rounded by tall trees, and, inserted on a flyleaf, a list
of all of Audubon's published works and the prices at
which they could be procured in New York just prior
to the Civil War (see Note, Vol. II, p. 204).

8 In this year Charles Lanman, writer, and at a later time librarian of
the Library of Congress, wrote to Victor Audubon as follows: "Are not
you and your family willing now to let me write a book about your
illustrious father? I feel confident that I could get up something very
interesting and which would not only help the big work, but make money.
I could have it brought out in handsome style, and should like to have
well engraved a portrait and some half dozen views in Kentucky, Louisiana,
and on the Hudson. Write me what you think about it." Lanman's letter
is dated "Georgetown, D. C, Oct. 8, 1856"; on November 1 Victor
Audubon replied, declining the proposal.

9 Messrs. C. S. Francis & Company, of 554 Broadway, New York.

10 The publishers in this instance do not appear to have been better
informed, for the text of the Quadrupeds, from which they quote, was
written by John Bachman, and the first volume of it was issued in London
in 1847; see Bibliography, No. 6.

18 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

In 1868 there appeared in England a work of com-
bined and confused authorship, commonly referred to
as "Buchanan's Life of Audubon/' the "sub-editor," as
he called himself, having since become better known as
an original, skilled and prolific writer of verse, drama,
fiction and literary criticism. At that time Robert
Buchanan was twenty-six years old, and had published
five volumes of poems in rapid succession, some of which
had been received with favor by the public. A second
and third edition of this Life followed in 1869. Finally
the work was resurrected and again sent to press, unre-
vised, in 1912, when it appeared in "Everyman's
Library," at a shilling a copy, with an introduction
which had served as a review of the work in 1869.

A recent biographer of Alexander Wilson speaks of
Buchanan as "commissioned by Mrs. Audubon to write
her husband's life," but the lady herself, as well as
Buchanan, has told a different story. It seems that in
about the year 1866, Mrs. Audubon prepared, "with the
aid of a friend," an extended memoir of her husband,
which was offered to an American publisher but with-
out success. The "friend," at whose home Mrs. Audu-
bon was then living, was the Rev. Charles Coffin
Adams,11 rector of St. Mary's Church, Manhattanville,
now 135th, Street, New York. The Adams manuscript;
which consisted chiefly of a transcript from the natural-
ist's journals, then in possession of his wife, was com-
pleted presumably in 1867. In the summer of that year
it was placed in the hands of the London publishers,

"Rev. Dr. Adams was rector of this parish for twenty-five years, from
1863 to his death in February, 1888; he was the author of three volumes on
religious subjects and various smaller tracts; from 1855 to 1863 he had
charge of a church in Baltimore, Maryland, and while there published
an anonymous pamphlet entitled "Slavery by a Marylander ; Its Institu-
tion and Origin; Its Status Under the Law and Under the Gospel"
(8 pp. 8vo. Baltimore, 1860).

INTRODUCTION 19

Messrs. Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, who without
any authority turned it over to one of their hard-pressed,
pot-boiling retainers, Robert Buchanan, poet and young
man of genius. Buchanan boiled down the original
manuscript, as he said, to one-fifth of its original com-
pass, cutting out what he regarded as prolix or unnec-
essary and connecting "the whole with some sort of a
running narrative." 12 Mrs. Audubon was unable to
recover her property from either publishers or editor
or to obtain any satisfaction for its unwarranted use.
Whatever defects the Adams memoir may have pos-
sessed, this is much to be regretted, since, as her grand-
daughter has said, Mrs. Audubon had at her command
many valuable documents, the originals of which have
since been destroyed.

Buchanan, like Audubon, had been reared in com-
parative luxury, "the spoiled darling of a loving
mother." After the failure of his father in various news-
paper enterprises about four years before this time, he
had gone up to London with but few shillings in his
pocket and had begun life there literally in a garret.
The reflection that Audubon had fought a similar but
much harder battle in that same London thirty years
before, and won, should possibly have awakened in him
a somewhat friendlier spirit than was then displayed.
It must be admitted, however, that Buchanan produced
a very readable story, although there was not a word
in his whole book which showed any real sympathy with

12 Buchanan said that the manuscript submitted to him was inordinately
long and needed careful revision; he added that "while he could not fail
to express his admiration for the affectionate spirit and intelligent sym-
pathy with which the friendly editor discharged his task, he was bound
to say that his literary experience was limited." After copying a passage
from one of Audubon's journals, this editor had the unfortunate habit
of drawing his pen through the original; in this way hundreds of pages of
Audubon's admirable "copper-plate" were irretrievably defaced.

20 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon's lifelong pursuits, any knowledge of orni-
thology, or any interest in natural science. Though ex-
pressing unbounded admiration for the naturalist, his
foibles and faults seem to have hidden from this biog-
rapher the true value of his distinguished services. In
respect to a knowledge of natural history it should be
added that Buchanan laid no claims, and of Audubon's
accomplishments in this field comparatively little was
said, the book, like the Adams' manuscript from which
it was drawn, being mainly composed of extracts from
the naturalist's private journals and "Episodes," as he
called his descriptive papers. It was here that Audubon
made the strongest appeal to this literary editor, who
concluded his preface with the following words of praise :
"Some of his reminiscences of adventure . . . seem to
me to be quite as good, in vividness of presentment and
careful colouring, as anything I have ever read."

Buchanan dilated on Audubon's pride, vanity and
self-conceit, faults which may have belonged to his youth
but which were never mentioned by his intimate friends
and contemporaries except under conditions which re-
flected rather unfavorably upon themselves. Com-
plaints on this score were spread broadcast by review-
ers of this work, seventeen years after the naturalist's
death and with the suddenness of a new discovery. They
were undoubtedly based on the unconscious and allow-
able egotisms of such personal records as Audubon
habitually made for the members of his family when
time and distance kept them asunder. Vanity and self-
ishness could have formed no essential parts of a char-
acter that merited the eulogy which follows :

Audubon was a man of genius, with the courage of a lion
and the simplicity of a child. One scarcely knows which to

INTRODUCTION 21

admire most — the mighty determination which enabled him to
carry out his great work in the face of difficulties so huge, or
the gentle and guileless sweetness with which he throughout
shared his thoughts and aspirations with his wife and children.
He was more like a child at the mother's knee, than a husband
at the hearth — so free was the prattle, so thorough the confi-
dence. Mrs. Audubon appears to have been a wife in every
respect worthy of such a man ; willing to sacrifice her personal
comfort at any moment for the furtherance of his great
schemes ; ever ready to kiss and counsel when such were most
needed ; never failing for a moment in her faith that Audubon
was destined to be one of the great workers of the earth.13

No one will deny, however, that Buchanan was right
in saying that in order to get a man like Audubon under-
stood, all domestic partiality, the bane of much biogra-
phy, must be put aside; but it is equally important to
make such allowances as the manifold circumstances of
time and place demand, and to be a reasoner rather than
a fancier. This work abounds in errors, but it is not
clear to what extent they were due to carelessness on
Buchanan's part.

It was certainly a mistake to attribute Buchanan's
attitude to partiality for Alexander Wilson, who, like
himself, was a Scotchman. It was a case of tempera-
ment only, for gloom and poverty had embittered his
life. As his sister-in-law and biographer 14 said of him,
"he was doomed to much ignoble pot-boiling. . . . He
had few friends and many enemies," and "had received
from the world many cruel blows," while "no man
needed kindness so much and received so little." Per-

13 Robert Buchanan, The Life of Audubon (Bibl. No. 72), p. vi.

14 See Harriet Jay, Robert Buchanan: Some Account of His Life,
His Life's Work, and His Literary Friendships (London, 1903). Robert
Williams Buchanan was born at Caverswell, Lancashire, August 18, 1841,
and died in London, June 10, 1901.

22 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

haps the best key to the sad history of this able writer
was given by himself when he said: "It is my vice that
I must love a thing wholly, or dislike it wholly." His
wife, we are told, was much like himself, and "like a
couple of babies they muddled through life, tasting of
some of its joys, but oftener of its sorrows." Undoubt-
edly Robert Buchanan was a genuine lover of truth and
beauty; he has written numerous sketches of birds and
outdoor scenes, but with no suggestion of nature as
serving any other purpose than that of supplying a poet
with bright and pleasing images.

It was with the purpose of correcting the false im-
pressions created by animadversions in Buchanan's Life
that Mrs. Audubon, with the aid of her friend, James
Grant Wilson, revised this work and published it in
America under her name as editor, in 1869. The
changes then made in Buchanan's text, however, were
of a minor character and most of its errors remained
uncorrected. The naturalist's granddaughter, Miss
Maria R. Audubon, was inspired in part by similar feel-
ings in preparing, with the aid of Dr. Elliott Coues, her
larger and excellent work in two volumes, entitled
Audubon, and His Journals, which appeared in 1898.
To her all admirers of Audubon owe a debt of gratitude
for giving to the world for the first time a large part
of his extant journals, as well as many new facts bear-
ing upon his life and character. Other briefer biogra-
phies of Audubon which have appeared have been taken
so completely from the preceding works, and have re-
peated and extended their errors to such an extent, as to
call for little or no comment either here or in the pages
which follow.

Through the discovery in France of new document-
ary evidence in surprising abundance we are obliged to

INTRODUCTION 23

draw conclusions contrary to those which have hitherto
been accepted, and the new light thus obtained enables
us to form a more accurate and just judgment of Audu-
bon the man, and of his work.

CHAPTER II

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY

Extraordinary career of the naturalist's father— Wounded at fourteen and
prisoner of war for five years in England — Service in the French mer-
chant marine and navy — Voyages to Newfoundland and Santo
Domingo — His marriage in France — His sea fights, capture and im-
prisonment in New York — His command at the Battle of Yorktown —
Service in America and encounters with British privateers.

Few names of purely Gallic origin are today better
known in America, or touch a more sympathetic chord
of human interest, than that of Audubon, and few, we
might also add, are so rare. John James Audubon first
made his family name known to all the world, and
though he left numerous descendants, it has become well
nigh extinct in America, and is far from common in
France. The great Paris directory frequently contains
no entry under this head; Nantes knows his name no
longer, and it is rare in the marshes of La Vendee,
where at some remote period it may have originated.

The lists of the army of five thousand which Rocham-
beau's fleet brought to our aid in the American War of
Independence show but a single variant of this euphoni-
ous patronym, in Pierre Audibon,1 a soldier in the regi-
ment of Touraine, who was born at Montigny in 1756;
but in the fleet of the Count de Grasse which cooperated
with our land-forces at the Battle of Yorktown, on
October 19, 1781, a ship was commanded by an officer
with whom we are more intimately concerned. This

*For similar spelling of the name of John James Audubon, see
Appendix I, Document No. 12.

24

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 25

was Captain Jean Audubon, who was later to become
the father of America's pioneer woodsman, ornitholo-
gist and animal painter.

By birth a Vendean, at the age of thirty-seven Jean
Audubon had plowed the seas of half the world, and
in the course of his checkered career, as sailor, soldier,
West Indian planter and merchant, had met enough
adventure to furnish the materials for a whole series of
dime novels. Short of stature, with auburn hair and a
fiery temper, he was then as stubborn and fearless an
opponent as one could meet on the high seas, and one
of the gamest fighting cocks of the French merchant
marine. How much Jean Audubon's son owed to his
French Creole mother will never be known, but to this
self-taught, thoroughly capable, and enterprising sailor
we can surely trace his restless activity, his versatile
mind and mercurial temper, as well as an inherent ca-
pacity for taking pains, which father and son possessed
to a marked degree.

The true story of Jean Audubon's career has never
been told, but even at this late day it will be found an
interesting human document; and what is more to our
purpose, it throws into sharp outline much that has
hitherto remained obscure in the life of his remarkable
son. The first Audubon to leave any imprint, how-
ever faint, upon the history of his time, this honest,
matter-of-fact sailor, would have been the last to wish
to appear in the garb of fiction, and we shall base our
story solely upon the unimpeachable testimony of public
and private records, which researches in France had
happily brought to light before the beginning of the
war in 1914. 2

2 For notice of these records of Jean Audubon and his family, see the
Preface, and for the most important documents, Appendix I.

26 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Jean Audubon came by his sailor's instincts and
fighting prowess naturally, for his father, Pierre Audu-
bon of Les Sables d'Olonne, was a seaman by trade.
Like his son he captained his own vessel, and for years
made long voyages between French ports in both the
old and the new worlds. Pierre Audubon, the paternal
grandfather of John James Audubon, and the first of
that name of whom we have found any record,3 lived
at Les Sables d'Olonne, where with Marie Anne Martin,
his wife, he reared a considerable family in the first half
of the eighteenth century.

Les Sables, at the time of which we speak, was a
small fishing and trading port on the Bay of Biscay,
fifty miles to the southwest of Nantes, but is now be-
come a city of over twenty thousand people. Lying on
the westerly verge of the Marais, or salt marshes and
lakes of La Vendee, the inhabitants of the district, and
more particularly of the Socage, or plantations, to the
north and northeast, were noted from an early day for
their conservatism, as shown in a firm adherence to
ancient law and custom, as well as for their unswerving
loyalty to the old nobility and to the clergy. Like their
Breton neighbors on the other side of the Loire, the
Vendeans were honest, industrious, and faithful to their
civic obligations ; they were also independent, resource-
ful, and knew no fear. When the neighboring city of
Nantes planted trees of liberty and displayed the Na-
tional colors in 1789, the Vendeans were stirred to indig-
nation and later to arms, while the Chouans on the right
bank of the river were quick to follow their example ; in
short, the rebels of La Vendee raised such a storm that

3 Pierre Audubon's service in the merchant marine of France is un-
doubtedly recorded in the archives of the Department of Marine in
Paris, but all researches in that direction were suddenly halted by the
war.

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 27

for months the very existence of the infant Republic
was threatened. This spirit of revolt to the newer order,
the Chouanerie, as it came to be called, was stamped
out for the time, but a few smoldering embers always
remained, ready to burst into flame at the slightest
provocation; recrudescent symptoms of this tendency
had to be suppressed even as late as 1830, when Charles
X, the last Bourbon king, lost his crown. Pierre Audu-
bon's family, no doubt, shared many characteristics of
their Vendean and Breton neighbors, but as the sequel
will show, one at least did not approve of their political
course, for he took up arms against them, and presum-
ably against many of his own kith and kin.

Jean Audubon was born at Les Sables on October
11, 1744, and was christened on the same day, his god-
father being Claude Jean Audubon, in all probability
an uncle after whom he was named, and his godmother,
Catharine Martin, presumably an aunt. Twenty-one
children, according to the naturalist, blessed the union
of Pierre Audubon and his wife, and were reared to ma-
turity. Whether this statement is strictly accurate, or
what became of so large a family cannot now be ascer-
tained.4

4 Jean Audubon had a brother Claude, and on February 27, 1791, he
wrote to him, asking for 4,000 francs, which he needed for the purchase
of a boat. It was probably this brother who lived at Bayonne, and left
three daughters, Anne, Dominica, and Catherine Francoise, who married
Jean Louis Lissabe, a pilot (see Vol. I, p. 263). If this inference be correct,
and the sum referred to was demanded in payment of a debt, it may
explain a statement of the naturalist that his father and his uncle were
not on speaking terms.

Another brother is said to have been an active politician at Nantes,
La Rochelle and Paris from 1771 to 1796, when he dropped out of sight
for a number of years. When heard of again he was living at La
Rochelle in affluence and piety. This was ajjparently the Audubon to
whom the naturalist referred in certain of his journals and private letters
as one who, possessing the secret of his birth and early life, had done
both him and his father an irreparable injury (see Vol. I, p. 270).

A sister, Marie Rosa Audubon, was married in 1794 to Pierre de

28 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Pierre Audubon was engaged by the French Gov-
ernment to transport the necessities of war to Cape
Breton Island in 1757, when the world-wide struggle
between France and Great Britain for supremacy in the
New World was at hand. The French were deter-
mined at all hazards to hold their great fortress of
Louisburg, which had been taken by the English but
again restored to the French not many years before.
This was the strongest and most costly fortress on the
American continent, as well as a great center for the
valuable trade in salted fish. By a coincidence, or pos-
sibly out of compliment to his wife, Pierre's ship bore
the name of La Marianne, and when he sailed from his
home port of Les Sables d'Olonne on April 15, 1757,
he took with him his own son, Jean, as cabin-boy, when
the lad was but thirteen years old. In the following
May Great Britain threw down the gauntlet to France,
and the terrific seven years' struggle began. The great
fortress of Louisburg fell in the following year to the
English fleet, and was left a heap of ruins. His father's
ship, the Mary Ann, was involved, and young Jean
Audubon, who thus began his fighting career at four-
teen, was wounded in the left leg and made a prisoner.
With many of his compatriots he was taken to England,
landing on November 14, 1758, where he remained in
captivity for five years ; he was released but a short time

Vaugeon, a lawyer at Nantes; their only son, Louis Lejeune de Vaugeon,
was living at Nantes as late as 1822, when he deeded his former home to
Henri Boutard. (The substance of this and the preceding paragraph
is based partly upon data furnished by Miss Maria R. Audubon.)

Jean Audubon gave his daughter, Rosa, the name of her aunt, but
in later life seems to have broken off all relations with his brothers.
Upon his death his will was immediately attacked by Mme. Lejeune de
Vaugeon, of Nantes, and by the three nieces from Bayonne (see Chapter
XVII). The naturalist does not give the name of the aunt who, as he
said, was killed during the Revolution at Nantes, but I have found no
reference to any other.

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 29

before the treaty of peace was signed at Paris, February
10, 1763. Apart from her interests in the West Indies,
France was stripped at this time of all her vast pos-
sessions in America, save only the two little islands of
Saint Pierre and Miquelon.

Whether Pierre Audubon shared the fate of his son
we are unable to say, for at this point he drops out
of our records and we do not hear of him again. It
is certain that he never made another voyage with
Jean, who returned to his native town with his passion
for the sea unabated, and at nineteen reentered the mer-
chant marine as a novice. His next voyage, on the ship
La Caille, Captain Pigeon, was to execute a govern-
mental commission at the Island of Miquelon. Five
golden years of his youth had been spent in captivity;
if productive of nothing else they had given him a knowl-
edge of the English tongue, but they had also engen-
dered bitter hatred of the English race, a feeling which
his son confessed to have shared in his youthful days.5

The period from 1766 to 1768 was occupied in four
voyages to Newfoundland, probably in the interest of
the codfish trade, first as sailor before the mast in Le
Printemps, and then as lieutenant in a ship called also
La Marianne, with alternate sailings from, and to, La
Rochelle and Les Sables d'Olonne. On his third voyage
to Newfoundland, which was made in 1767, when he
was twenty-three years old, Jean Audubon ranked as

5 This was recalled by the naturalist on March 5, 1827, when he
wrote: "As a lad I had a great aversion to anything English or Scotch,
and I remember when travelling with my father to Rochefort in January,
1800, I mentioned this to him. . . . How well I remember his reply. . . .
'Thy blood will cool in time, and thou wilt be surprised to see how gradually
prejudices are obliterated, and friendships acquired, towards those that
we at one time held in contempt. Thou hast not been in England; I have,
and it is a fine country.' " (See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and His
Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i, p. 216).

30 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

lieutenant of his vessel, but in the summer of 1768 he
shipped again from Les Sables as sailor before the mast
for a short trading cruise on the coast of France; in
this instance the vessel, called Le Propre, was captained
by Pierre Martin, who was possibly an uncle. At this
juncture Jean Audubon enlisted in the French navy
(service for the State) as a common sailor, and made
two voyages on governmental business from the port of
Rochefort, serving altogether nearly nine months
(1768-9). After the termination of this last engage-
ment nothing is heard of Jean for over a year, when
in 1770 he makes his first appearance at Nantes, the
city that was to know him in many capacities for nearly
half a century. There he reentered the merchant ma-
rine, and on November 1, 1770, began a series of eight
voyages, lasting as many years, to the island of Santo
Domingo, the western section of which was then in pos-
session of France.

Since much of the mystery which hitherto has
shrouded the early life of John James Audubon is in-
volved in the West Indian period of his father's career,
we shall now trace this history in considerable detail.

The great export trade of French Santo Domingo
in those days was in brown and white sugar, then known
as the "Muscovado" and "clayed" sorts, which for the
year 1789 amounted to over 141,000,000 pounds, valued
at more than 122,000,000 francs; and in coffee, which
in the same year totaled nearly 77,000,000 pounds, esti-
mated to be worth nearly 52,000,000 francs.6 While all

8 In 1789 over 7,000,000 pounds of cotton and 758,628 pounds of
indigo were exported from the French side of the island, while further
products of that year, including smaller amounts of cocoa, molasses, rum,
hides, dye-woods, and tortoise shell, swelled the grand total of exports to
205,000,000 livres or francs. Bryan Edwards, however, whose deductions
were based on official returns, placed the average value of all exports
from French Santo Domingo for the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, at

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 31

such estimates were no doubt very crude, they serve to
illustrate the richness of the prize that attracted French-
men by hundreds to the colony, an island that to many
seemed a paradise in prospect, but which proved to be a
purgatory in disguise.

Jean Audubon's voyages were all made in the in-
terest of this valuable trade. Since they commonly
lasted from six months to nearly a year, they became
doubly hazardous to a French sailor after the outbreak
of the American Revolution, for if he escaped his
Scylla, the inveterate pirate, he might expect to en-
counter an equally formidable Charybdis in an Eng-
lish privateer. Though the northwestern corner of
Santo Domingo was the center of their forays, Jean
never lost a ship to the buccaneers, and though some-
times caught by the English, he never surrendered. He
made three successive voyages from 1770 to 1772 in
La Dauphine, commanded by Jean Pallueau, first as
lieutenant and later as captain of the second grade, but
on his last five voyages to the West Indies he captained
his own ships, known as Le Marquis de Levy (1774),

171,544,000 livres in Hispaniola currency, or £4,765,129 sterling; this would
be equivalent to about $23,158,426, and imply a purchase value of the French
livre or franc of about 13 14 cents in American money.

The number of plantations of every kind in the French colony was
estimated by Edwards in 1790, at the outbreak of the Revolution, at
8,536; there were over 800 sugar plantations, over 3,000 coffee estates, to
mention two such resources. If to these items we add nearly half a
million slaves, the total valuation of the movable and fixed property of
the French planters and merchants of this period would reach 1,557,870,000
francs. In 1788, 98 slave ships entered the six principal ports on the
French side, and landed 29,506 negroes; Les Cayes received 19 of these
ships, which delivered at that port 4,590 blacks. These slaves were sold
for 61,936,190 livres, or at the rate of 2,008.37 livres each; according to
Edwards this was equivalent to £60 sterling, or to about $291.60 in
American money, at the rate of 141/, cents to the livre or franc. See
particularly Francis Alexander Stanilaus, Baron de Wimpffcn, A Voyage
to Santo Domingo in the Years 1788, 1789, and 1790, translated by J.
Wright (London, 1817); and also Bryan Edwards, An Historical Survey of
the French Colony in the Island of San Domingo (London, 1797).

32 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Les Bons Amis (1775-6), and Le Comte d'Artois
(1777-8).

Captain Audubon was married on August 24, 1772,
at Paimbceuf, to Anne Moynet,7 a widow of some prop-
erty, who had been born at Nantes in 1735 and was thus
nine years his senior. Her married name was Ricordel.
She possessed several houses at Paimbceuf, and acquired
one in 1777, which was rented to the Administration at
the time of the Revolution (see Vol. I, p. 80) , as well as
a dwelling at Nantes, where she lived while her roving
sailor of a husband was in Santo Domingo or the United
States. Madame Audubon was a woman of simple
tastes, devoted to culture, and, as we shall see, possessed
of a kind heart.

When Captain Audubon left Les Cayes, Santo
Domingo, on his last trading voyage, in the spring of
1779, bound for Nantes with a valuable cargo, his ship,
Le Comte d'Artois, was attacked by four British cor-
sairs and two galleys. With the odds overwhelmingly
against him, he fought until his crew were nearly all
killed or disabled, and after an abortive attempt to
blow up his vessel, tried to escape in his shallop. For
the second time he was made a prisoner by the English,
who in this instance took him to New York, then in the
possession of British troops. He was landed in that
city on May 12, 1779, and was held there as a prisoner
of war for thirteen months. If our inference be correct,
he finally owed his release to the efforts of the French
Ambassador, Monsieur de la Luzerne, the same, we
believe, who had been a Governor of Santo Domingo,
and who in 1790 became its Minister of Marine. As

7 As signed by herself, but variously spelled "Moinet," or "Moynette"
in family documents of the period. On August 28, four days after their
marriage, they drew up and signed a mutual contract regarding the
disposition of their property in case children should be born to them.

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 33

will be seen presently, this diplomat again exerted him-
self in Captain Audubon's behalf.

It is interesting to find that on this occasion Jean
Audubon was fighting not only for his life, but for his
property. His vessel, Le Comte d'Artois, was very
heavily armed. Though of only 250 tons, she carried
no less than ten cannon, four of which were mounted
on gun carriages, and ten bronze pivot guns, which
might imply that she was originally designed as a priva-
teer. The ship was not destroyed when her captain was
made prisoner, but was taken by the English to Ports-
mouth, New Hampshire (?), and burned there before
December 15 of the following year.8 Before starting on
this disastrous voyage Captain Audubon had sold the
vessel and his interest in her cargo to the Messrs. La-
croix, Formon de Boisclair and Jacques, with whom
later he had extensive dealings in slaves ; but he was not
paid, and though an indemnity seems to have come from
the British Government, he was never able to obtain a
satisfactory settlement of the Formon claim.5

9

8 The destruction of Le Comte d'Artois is noticed in a document
bearing date of January 19, 1782; the name of the town only is given,
but it is probable that it refers to the United States.

9 For repeated reference to this unsettled claim, see his letter of
1805 to Francis Dacosta (Chapter VIII), where the name is written
"Formont."

The bill of sale of Le Comte d'Artois was drawn on February 21,
1779, when Jean Audubon appeared "before the notaries of the king in
the seneschal's court of Saint Louis," and was described as "resident at
Les Cayes, opposite the Isle a Vaches." The document, which in my
copy is incomplete, reads in part as follows:

"The present M. Jean Audubon, captain-commander of the ship Le
Comte d'Artois, of Nantes, armed for war and now laden with mer-
chandise, anchored in this roadstead of Les Cayes, dispatched, and at
the point of departure for France; armed by the Messrs. Coirond Brothers,
merchants at the said city of Nantes, acting in his own name as one
interested in the armament and cargo of the vessel, as well as in his
capacity as captain; [he] acting as much also for the said furnishers of
arms as for the others interested in the said armaments, and the mer-
chandise, which will be hereafter mentioned, in consideration of the rights
of each, promises to have these presents accepted and approved in due

34 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Jean Audubon's release from captivity in New
York, in June, 1780, probably marks the period of his
first intimate acquaintance with the United States.
We know only that he did not return immediately to
either Santo Domingo or France, but became an en-
thusiast for the American cause, and sought the ear-
liest opportunity to avenge his wrongs at the hands of
the British. He did not have long to wait, for through
the exertions of the Ambassador de la Luzerne, he was
placed in command of the corvette Queen Charlotte.
With her, in October, 1781, he joined the fleet of the
Count de Grasse before Yorktown,10 where he soon
witnessed the surrender of Cornwallis and the humilia-
tion of his enemies. After this turning point of the
war Captain Audubon remained in the United States,
and in April, 1782, commanded a merchantman called
JL 'Annette}1 in which he was also personally interested,
and delivered a cargo of Virginia tobacco at the port
of Nantes. Shortly after his return to America in the

time; which said person, appearing in said names, in the quality afore-
said, by these presents has sold, ceded, given up, transferred, and re-
linquished all his legal rights in the aforesaid ship, to the business-asso-
ciates Lacroix, Formon de Boisclair & Jacques, three merchants in partner-
ship, living in this town, purchasers conjointly and severally, for them-
selves and the assigns of each, to the extent of one third; To wit: the
said ship Le Comte d'Artois, of the said port of Nantes, of about two
hundred and fifty tons, at present anchored in this roadstead of Les
Cayes, dispatched, and at the point of departure for France, with all its
rigging, outfit, and dependences, which consist among other things of two
sets of sail, complete, and newly fitted out, all the tools, and the reserve
sets of these, with the munitions of war, consisting of ten cannon, four
of them mounted on gun carriages, and all that goes with them. . . ."
(Translated from the French original in possession of Monsieur Lavigne.)

10 The fact that Captain Audubon did not accompany Rochambeau's
fleet which assembled at Brest in April, 1780, and reached Newport in mid-
July, may account for the omission of his name from the lists that have
been recently published. See Les Combattants Franqois de la Guerre
Americaine, 1778-1783 (Paris, 1903).

"Others interested in this vessel were Messrs. David Ross & Com-
pany, with whom Captain Audubon later had financial difficulties (see
Chapter VIII).

JEAN AUDUBON AND HIS FAMILY 35

same year he was placed in command of an American
armed vessel The Queen and sent on another mission
to France. Near the Chaussee des Saints he was at-
tacked by a British privateer, but after a stubborn fight
at close quarters he sank his enemy and entered the
port of Brest. Nothing is said of the taking of pris-
oners on such occasions, and there were doubtless few
survivors among the defeated crew. This command
Jean Audubon held until peace was concluded between
Great Britain and her former colonies in America, prob-
ably until the close of 1783. The hostile army was dis-
banded in the spring of that year, the treaty of peace
was made definitive in September, and on November
25, 1783, the last British troopers left the city of New
York.

CHAPTER III

JEAN AUDUBON AS SANTO DOMINGO PLANTER AND

MERCHANT

Captain Audubon at Les Cayes — As planter, sugar refiner, general mer-
chant and slave dealer, amasses a fortune — His return to France
with his children — History of the Santo Domingo revolt — Baron de
Wimpffen's experience — Revolution of the whites— Opposition of the
abolitionists — Effect of the Declaration of Rights on the mulattoes —
The General Assembly drafts a new constitution — First blood drawn
between revolutionists and loyalists at Port-au-Prince — Oge's futile
attempt to liberate the mulattoes — Les Cayes first touched by revolu-
tion in 1790, four years after the death of Audubon's mother — Emanci-
pation of the mulattoes — Resistance of the whites — General revolt of
blacks against whites and the ruin of the colony.

After the American struggle for liberty had been
finally won, Captain Audubon resigned his commission
held in the United States and returned to his home at
Nantes, but town or country could not hold him long.
Lured by the prospects of great wealth which Santo
Domingo offered to the merchant of those days, and
having learned by long experience in her ports the devi-
ous methods by which fortunes were attained, he de-
cided to give up the sea and embark in colonial trade.
For six years, from 1783 to 1789, he lived almost con-
tinuously in the West Indies, and as merchant, planter,
and dealer in slaves amassed a large fortune. Mean-
while his wife, who had seen little of him since their
marriage in 1772, remained at Nantes.

Captain Audubon traveled through the United States
early in 1789, and again late in that year when on his
way to France, probably in the first instance returning

36

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 37

to Santo Domingo by way of the Ohio and the Mis-
sissippi. Symptoms of unrest were already prevalent
in the northern provinces of the island but had caused
no serious alarm in the south. Jean Audubon's aim
seems to have been to collect debts due him in the United
States and to leave the capital invested there. At all
events it was on this occasion that he purchased the farm
of "Mill Grove," near Philadelphia, the history of which
will be given a little later (see Chapter VII). He had
no intention, however, of living in Pennsylvania, for he
immediately leased this estate to its former owner and
hurried away.

July 14, 1789, found the elder Audubon enlisted as
a soldier in the National Guards at Les Cayes. These
colonial troops, which were originally militia organiza-
tions modeled after similar bodies in France, were reor-
ganized at this time to meet any possible emergencies.
Affairs in the southern provinces of Santo Domingo
had followed, up to this moment, their normal course,
and Jean Audubon, who could have learned nothing of
what had transpired at home, decided to entrust his
various interests to the hands of agents and return to
France. This was probably in late August or early
September, 1789, as we know that he first returned to
the United States and visited Richmond, Virginia, at
the close of that year.1 Strangely enough, on the twen-
tieth day of the former month the National Assembly at
Paris had voted the celebrated Declaration of Rights,
which was destined to upturn the whole social system
of Santo Domingo and to convert that island into a
purgatory of the direst anarchy, strife, and bloodshed
which the world had ever known, or at least remem-
bered ; but fully six weeks must have elapsed before news

1 See letter +o Dacosta, Vol. I, p. 121.

38 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

of this grave decision could have reached the colony.

At this time Jean Audubon was no doubt regarded
as a very rich man, and though he happened to leave
Les Cayes at a critical moment, little could he have
dreamed of the disaster that awaited him there as well
as in his beloved France. His personal affairs during
this eventful period, involving as they necessarily do
the early life of his distinguished son, have hitherto been
shrouded in the dark and sinister history of that ever
smiling but ever turbulent island. Now, however, the
veil of mist that has settled over the page can be pene-
trated at the most important points. In this and sub-
sequent chapters we shall follow the life of father and
son through the course of events which has been thus
briefly summarized.

To return to the earlier threads of our narrative,
at about the close of 1783 Captain Audubon was en-
gaged by the Coirond brothers, colonial merchants at
Nantes, to take charge of their foreign trade, which
centered chiefly at Les Cayes,2 Santo Domingo, then a
most thriving and populous town, as it is today the
largest seaport on the southern coast of the Republic
of Haiti. Their ships brought sugar, coffee, cotton and
other West Indian products to France, and laden with

2 The proper name of this seaport town, as given by all French cartog-
raphers and writers, is Les Cayes, meaning "the cays" or "keys" (small
islands, Spanish cayos) ; omitting the article it is often simply written
"Cayes." French residents on the island, however, when dating or ad-
dressing a letter or receipting a bill would naturally write "aux Cayes,"
meaning of course "at The Cays," where the document was signed or where
the person by whom the letter was addressed resided (see the Sanson bill,
and bills of sale of negroes, Appendix I, Documents Nos. 1, 4, 5, and 6).
It was thus an easy step for Englishmen, in ignorance or disregard of
the French usage, to call the town "Aux Cayes"; even as early as 1797,
Bryan Edwards, though giving the name correctly on his map, which doubt-
less had a French source, wrote "Aux Cayes" in his text; the corruption
has survived, and is occasionally found in standard works, but is too
egregious to be tolerated.

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 39

fabrics, wines and every luxury known to the colonists
of that day, returned to Les Cayes, as well as to Saint
Louis, an important port a little farther to the east,
where these merchants also possessed warehouses and
stores.

In a short time Jean Audubon had acquired an in-
dependent business of his own, both as a planter and
merchant. He made his home at Les Cayes, but ex-
tended his enterprises to Saint Louis and possibly to
other points. From this time onward he commonly
described himself as negotiant,3 or merchant, and his
son, when writing to his father from America, addressed
him in this way. His business letters and other docu-
ments of the period refer to his house at Les Cayes, his
plantations of cane and his sugar refinery, his exporta-
tion of colonial wares, his purchases of French goods,
particularly at Nantes, and to his trade in black slaves
which eventually assumed large proportions. How im-
portant his sugar plantations may have been is not
known, but a tax-receipt shows that at one time he pos-
sessed forty-two slaves.4 The naturalist said that his
father acquired a plantation on the He a Vaches, an
island of considerable importance at the southern bound
of the roadstead of Les Cayes and nine miles from the
town, but we have found no other reference to it.

Great numbers of negroes must have passed through
Jean Audubon's hands, as shown by his bills of sale,
which strangely reflect the customs of a much later and
sadder day on the North American continent (see Ap-
pendix I, Documents Nos. 4-6). In one of these bills,

3 And sometime as rnarchand, more strictly a retailer.

4 Since a colonist's wealth was estimated upon the numher of slaves
he could afford, and since a slave was regarded as equivalent to a return
of 1,500 francs a year, Jean Audubon's income on this basis would have
been 63,000 francs.

40 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

dated at Les Cayes, September 16, 1785, Jean is cred-
ited with one-half the net proceeds of the sale of forty
negroes, bought originally of M. Th. Johnston for the
sum of 60,000 francs, and sold by Jean Audubon and
Messrs. La Croix, Formon & Jacques for 71,552 francs;
after deducting 183 francs for food and treatment, the
net returns became 71,369 francs, and Jean's profits,
on a half-interest basis, 5,684 francs, or about 142
francs per head. The prices of these slaves, which were
sold to planters on the island when not retained for
their own use, ranged from 1,500 to 2,100 francs, or
from $300 to $420, at the present rate of exchange. It
is interesting to notice that while these negroes were held
for sale, the exact period of which is not stated, they re-
ceived as food eighty bunches of bananas and three beef
heads; though under the care of a physician, it is not
surprising to find that one of them died. Another bill,
bearing date of August 7, 1785, records the sale to Jean
Audubon of ten negroes and three negresses for a total
sum of 26,000 francs; 16,000 francs of this amount was
paid in sugar, but what is particularly interesting now
is the fact that a balance of 2,000 francs was finally can-
celled on June 9, 1788, a year or more after Jean Audu-
bon, according to the accepted accounts, is supposed to
have lost his wife and his property and to have fled from
the island. Mme. Anne Moynet Audubon never visited
America, and her husband, as we have seen, left Santo
Domingo in 1789, before the outbreak of the revolu-
tion. His property remained substantially intact until
after 1792, and in some years, it is believed, yielded
him in rents 90,000 francs, which at present rates in
American money would be equivalent to $18,000. In
giving his certificate of residence at Nantes in that
eventful year, Captain Audubon publicly declared that

I.ES CAYES, HAITI: THE WHARF AND POST OFFICE; AT THE T.EFT IS SEEK A PILE

OF LOGWOOD AWAITING SHIPMENT.

WtTI

LES CAYES, HAITI: THE MARKET AND CHURCH OF SACRE CCEUR.

After photographs made at Les Caves in June, 1917, and obtained through

the kindness of Mr. Ferdinand Lathrop Mayer, Secretary of

Legation, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 41

he possessed a dwelling, a sugar refinery, and ware-
houses or stores at both Les Cayes and Saint Louis.
Moreover, his West Indian estate was not completely
settled until 1820, two years after his death.

Slaves were regarded in Santo Domingo as an in-
dispensable commodity, as they had been in Virginia
and the Carolinas for a century past, and were still to
be for three-quarters of a century to come; the "friends
of the blacks" as the abolitionists were called, were con-
sidered by most planters as the enemies of the whites.
Degradation and cruelty, ever attendant upon a system
that drew its chief support from the self-interest of a
class, were all too common in the island, yet there were
many who earnestly strove to soften the lot of their
slaves. Though a born fighter, Jean Audubon was hu-
mane, and the evidence, so far as it goes, shows that
his own slaves were treated with kindness and consid-
eration.

This period in Santo Domingo, particularly from
the year 1785 to 1789, not only is important for our
story, but happened to mark a crisis in French sover-
eignty in America. It will be necessary, therefore, to
follow certain events in a history which can serve only
as a warning to mankind, for it contains little to satisfy
the understanding and nothing to excite the fancy or
gladden the heart. It is to be noticed first, however,
that according to the accepted accounts, John James
Audubon was born of a Spanish Creole mother, in Lou-
isiana, in 1780. Shortly after his birth, his mother is
said to have gone to Santo Domingo, where she perished
in a local uprising of the blacks, when Jean Audubon's
plantations and property were totally destroyed; Jean
managed to escape with only his two children, a few
faithful slaves, and a part of his money and valuables,

42 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

to New Orleans, whence he subsequently went to
France. Investigation of existing records has proved
that these statements are not in accord with the facts,
but before entering into further personal details it will
be well to examine those conditions on the island of
Santo Domingo which led many into easy fortune only
to involve them later in a ruin as complete and irre-
trievable as it was unforeseen and unnecessary.

For nearly a hundred years the western half of Santo
Domingo had been held by France, and to every out-
ward appearance it had enjoyed such unbounded and
steadily increasing prosperity that it was regarded with
envy on every side; in fine, it seemed to be one of the
richest and most desirable colonies in the whole world.
Historians, said an observer of a later day,5 were "never
weary of enumerating the amount of its products, the
great trade, the warehouses full of sugar, cotton, coffee,
indigo and cocoa; its plains covered with splendid
estates, its hillsides dotted with noble houses; a white
population, rich, refined, enjoying life as only a luxuri-
ous colonial society can enjoy it." Few could then see
the foul blot beneath so fair a surface, or realize that
what had been bought by the misery and blood of a
prostrate race would demand an equivalent, and that a
settlement might be forced.

Negroes had been imported into Santo Domingo
from the African coasts in incredible numbers, first by
Spain after she had succeeded in exterminating the in-
offensive native Caribs, and later by France. One hun-
dred thousand blacks of all ages were entering the col-
onies each year, and to secure this number of bossals,
as the native Africans were called, involved the death

5 See Sir Spencer St. John, Hayti, or the Black Republic, 2d ed. (New
York, 1889).

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 43

of nearly as many more, either through the fighting that
preceded their capture on land, or from the terrors of
pestilence or shipwreck that awaited them at sea. By
1790 the blacks of Santo Domingo outnumbered the
whites sixteen to one, and the number of blacks then in
the island was estimated at 480,000, in contrast to 30,800
whites, and about 24,000 free mulattoes or "people of
color."

Under French rule the blacks had been subjected,
as many believed, to a system of slavery unsurpassed
for cruelty and barbarity. No doubt there were French-
men who, in their fierce struggle to become rich, worked
their slaves beyond human endurance and did not hesi-
tate to terrorize them with the severest punishment upon
the first symptoms of revolt; but, on the whole, such
sweeping denunciations were probably unjust. An
impartial observer and historian of that day, himself an
Englishman,6 declared that the French treated their
slaves quite as well as the English did theirs, and
clothed them better. He believed that the lot of the
Santo Domingo blacks at the period of which we speak
would compare favorably with that of the peasantry of
Europe, a comment made familiar to American ears
when applied to the slave population of the South. The
real trouble came from the more enlightened disaffec-
tion of the mulattoes and free negroes, fanned by the
fanatic zeal of abolitionists abroad, particularly of those
who formed the society of Les Amis des Noirs in
France, who were determined to carry out their policies
by any means and at whatever cost.

The mulattoes were really in worse plight than the
actual slaves, for they were virtually slaves of the State

6 Bryan Edwards, Esq., M.P., F.R.S., &c, An Historical Survey of the
French Colony in the Island of San Domingo (London, 1797).

44 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and had no master to whom they could appeal, being
subject to military service without pay, to the corvee
or labor upon the highways, the hardships of which
were insupportable, as well as to a constant and galling
tyranny. The law was invariably framed in favor of
the white man, who, if he struck a mulatto, was subject
to a trivial fine, while retaliation by the man of color
might cost him his right hand. It should be added,
however, that custom was usually more lenient than the
law, and that such atrocious enactments were generally
a dead letter.

As might have been expected in the circumstances,
the mulattoes took their revenge on the despised blacks,
whom they were permitted to hold as slaves. They
were notoriously the hardest taskmasters in the island,
and in return they were naturally envied and hated by
the ignorant mass of black humanity. The whites, to
complete the discord, were divided among themselves,
the Frenchmen from Europe affecting a superiority
over the white Creoles, the seasoned natives of the
island, a condition that never made for good feeling.
Moreover, the white planter, who endeavored to gain a
foothold by producing sugar, cotton or coffee, seems to
have had a just grievance against the merchants whom
the law favored and who set the price for negroes and
all other commodities that had to be bought in exchange
for produce. Such at least was the conviction and ex-
perience of a keen observer, Francis Alexander Stanis-
laus, Baron de Wimpffen,7 who went to Santo Domingo
in 1788, tried to establish himself as a coffee planter at
Jaquemel, on the southern coast not far from Les
Cayes, and after three years of fruitless effort, gave up
the attempt in disgust, glad to escape, as from the flames

1 See Note, Vol. I, p. 31.

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 45

of purgatory, to the United States, where he settled
in Pennsylvania. Baron de Wimpffen's lack of success
no doubt colored his impressions of the country to some
extent, but after making due allowance on this score,
we find in his letters, beyond a doubt, an essentially
true picture of Santo Domingan society and plantation
life at the very time and place with which our story is
most intimately concerned. A sketch of the picture
which the Baron has drawn, though in brief outline,
will enable us better to understand the real condition of
affairs.

The prevailing taste in Santo Domingo, according
to this observer, was creolian tinctured with boucan, or
with the characteristics of the buccaneers. White so-
ciety on the island was divided into governmental or
town officials, merchants, and planters, the several
classes having their own interests, which were often con-
flicting. The planters were concerned only with ne-
groes, their sugar, their cotton or their coffee, and could
talk of nothing else; values were reckoned in negroes,
or in sugar, for which slaves were commonly exchanged.
The laxity of morals, the absence of schools, and the
total lack of books were patent on every hand. After
sunset dancing was the chief form of amusement in the
towns, and handsome mulattoes were the acknowledged
Bacchantes of the island. It was from this class that
housekeepers were usually chosen by the greater part of
the unmarried whites. They had "some skill," said
Baron de Wimpffen, "in the management of a family,
sufficient honesty to attach themselves invariably to one
man, and great goodness of heart. More than one
European, abandoned by his selfish brethren, has found
in them all the solicitude of the most tender, the most
constant, the most generous humanity, without being in-

46 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

debted for it to any other sentiment than benevolence."
Expense of cultivation at this time is said to have
risen out of all proportion to the value of the product.
While negro service was a prime necessity to the planter,
the African mine was becoming exhausted; even then
slave dealers were penetrating a thousand leagues or
more from the Guinea coast. Added to the cost of
slaves, which was yearly increasing and had already
reached to 2,000 or even 3,000 francs per head, the Gov-
ernment exacted a ruinous capitation tax, which bore
with special weight on the planter.8 Physicians and
lawyers, however ignorant, exacted exorbitant fees;
masons and carpenters, however inefficient, demanded
an unreasonable wage; they, we are told, with the mer-
chant and official governmental class, were the only
money makers on the island. The merchant whom we
have seen taking the planter's produce at his own price,
in exchange for slaves again at his own price, had the
advantage in every business transaction; the planter, as
a result, was his chronic debtor, and at usurious rates.

Subject to an enervating climate, which Europeans
with their intemperate habits could seldom endure for
long, the planter, though weak and sick himself, was
often obliged to be overseer, driver, apothecary, and
nurse to his negroes, the slave of his slaves. In spite
of every care, out of one hundred imported negroes the
mortality was nearly twenty per cent in the first year.
Where less oversight was given to their food, the slight-
est scratch was likely to degenerate into a dangerous
wound, while the most dreaded disease, then known in
English as the "yaws" and in French as la grosse verole

8 The Superior Council, sitting at Port-au-Prince, in 1780 fixed the tax
for the parish of Les Cayes at the rate of 2 francs, 10 centimes per
head, which in this instance was certainly trifling. (Note furnished by
M. L. Lavigne.)

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 47

(to distinguish it from the smallpox, la petite verole),
was a scourge for which no remedy had then been found.
Every slave was branded with a hot iron on the breast,
with both the name of his master and that of the parish
to which he belonged, but notwithstanding such pre-
cautions desertions were far from uncommon.

The Santo Domingan blacks were put to work in
the morning with a crack of the arceau, a short-handled
whip, delivered on their backs or shoulders, and so ac-
customed had they become to the regularity of this
stimulus that they could hardly be set in motion with-
out it. How to manage the true bossal, as distinguished
from the African Creole, with humanity and success was
a problem to which many considerate planters must
have addressed themselves in vain, if, as this one de-
clared, the black's ruling passion was to do nothing, and
he was by nature a thief, to whom indulgence was weak-
ness and injustice a defect of judgment that excited
both his hatred and his contempt.

Stanilaus further observed that the soil of Santo
Domingo was then already becoming exhausted, and he
believed that the day of rapid fortunes for the planter
had passed. "Calculate now," said he, "the privations
of every kind, the commercial vicissitudes, the perpetual
apprehensions, the disgusting details, inseparable from
the nature of slavery; the state of languor or anxiety
in which he vegetates between a burning sky, and a soil
always ready to swallow him up, and you will allow
with me that there is no peasant, no day-labourer in
Europe, whose condition is not preferable to that of a
planter of San Domingo." "I never met," he adds,
"a West Indian in France who did not enumerate to
me with more emphasis than accuracy, the charms of a
residence at Saint Domingo; since I have been here, I

48 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

have not found a single one who has not cursed both
Saint Domingo, and the obstacles, eternally reviving,
which, from one year to another, prolong his stay in
this abode of the damned."

Having followed De Wimpffen to this point, the
reader is entitled to hear his parting epigrams. "The
more I know," he said, of the inhabitants of Saint Do-
mingo, "the more I felicitate myself on quitting it. I
came hither with the noble ambition of occupying myself
solely in acquiring a fortune; but destined to become a
master, and consequently to possess slaves, I saw, in
the necessity of living with them, that of studying them
with attention to know them, and I depart with much
less esteem for the one, and pity for the other. When a
person is what the greater part of the planters are, he
is made to have slaves : when he is what the greater part
of the slaves are, he is made to have a master."

Whether Jean Audubon's long experience would
have confirmed all that has just been said is doubtful,
for he was primarily a merchant or dealer and thus be-
longed to the favored class. But what especially inter-
ests us now is that both he and De Wimpffen were
owners of plantations in the southern province of Santo
Domingo at the same time. The one who wished to
retain a valuable property followed the custom of the
time by confiding the management of his affairs to an
agent, either at a fixed salary or on a profit-sharing
basis; while the other, who stayed long enough to dis-
cern the trend of events, was glad to sell his land anc
his slaves and shake the dust of the island from his feet

forever.9

Before resuming the intimate details of our narra-

9 Baron de Wimpffen sailed from Port-au-Prince for Norfolk, Virginia,
in July, 1790, about a year after Jean Audubon had left the island.

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 49

tive, we must follow the whirlwind of political events
already set in motion in the island colony. In the spring
of 1789 the white colonists of Santo Domingo took ad-
ministrative matters into their own hands, and without
vestige of legal authority, elected and dispatched eight-
een deputies to the States-General, then sitting in
France. These men reached Versailles in June, a month
after that body had declared itself the National Assem-
bly, but only six were ever admitted to its counsels.
For a long time opposition to the planters had been
fomented in Paris by the "Friends of the Blacks," the
abolition society to which we have referred; stories of
cruelty to the slaves, colored and intensified in passing
from mouth to mouth, as invariably happens when
atrocity tales are used as partisan weapons, added to
the arrogance and extravagant habits of many planters
when resident in the mother country, did not tend to
soften the prejudice of the public towards their class.
The planters could get no consideration at home, and,
as we have seen, the Declaration of Rights followed
promptly in August, while a legislative Assembly was
ordered in September. Meantime the mulattoes on the
island were clamoring for the political rights which the
decree had promised them, and, to make matters worse,
some of the influential whites espoused their cause, even
preaching the enfranchisement of the blacks, from whom
up to this time little had been heard. In short, the
whites were divided as effectually as were blacks and
mulattoes.

The dominant party in Santo Domingo, led by the
Governor-General, were determined to uphold the old
despotic regime, while the General Assembly, which met
at Saint Marc in obedience to orders from the mother
country, on April 16, 1790, drafted a new constitution.

50 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The clash came in July of this year, and in the northern
province, where the first blood of the revolution was
drawn at Port-au-Prince. On October 12, 1790, James
Oge, a mulatto, inspired, financed and equipped by the
"Friends of the Blacks" in Paris, landed secretly in
Santo Domingo, established a military camp at Cap
Francois and called all mulattoes to arms. His plan
was to wage war on the whites as well as upon all mulat-
toes who refused to join his standard of revolt; but Oge
and his company were quickly suppressed, and this in-
competent leader, who fled to Spanish territory, was
later extradited and broken on the wheel. This episode
naturally infuriated the whites against all mulattoes,
who took up arms at Les Cayes and at other points.
The whites also armed, and a skirmish occurred at Les
Cayes, Jean Audubon's old home, where fifty persons
on both sides lost their lives, but a temporary truce was
immediately effected. This was the first serious inci-
dent in which the town of Les Cayes figured in the
bloody revolution of Santo Domingo; it occurred, we
believe, in the late autumn of 1790. Audubon's mother
had then been dead four years, and her son, the future
naturalist, had left the country in the fall of 1789; in
order to bring out these facts clearly it has seemed neces-
sary to enter into this detail.

Later events in Santo Domingo now moved in a
direction and with a velocity which few then were able
to comprehend. The danger and the potency of the
volcano that had long been muttering beneath their
feet needed but a few touches from without to reveal
its full explosive power. These were furnished not only
by the mulattoes, many of whom, after having fought
under French officers in the American Revolution, had
returned to the island and there spread wide the spirit

PLANTER AND MERCHANT 51

of disaffection and revolt; but also by the National
Assembly in France, which by its vacillating policies
destroyed every hope of reconciliation. In March, 1790,
this Assembly granted to the citizens of Santo Domingo
the right of local self-government, but only a year later,
on May 15, 1791, tore up this decree and emancipated
the mulattoes. When the news reached the island six
weeks later, the colony was thrown into the utmost con-
sternation; the whites as a class refused point-blank to
accept the decision and summoned an Assembly of their
own, which met in August. The mulattoes again took
up arms, and the blacks, who by this time had been won
to their side, started a general revolt which had its origin
on a plantation called "Noe," in the parish of Acul,
nine miles from Cap Francois. They began by burning
the cane fields and the sugar houses and murdering their
white owners. Thenceforth Santo Domingan history
becomes an intricate and disgusting detail of conspira-
cies, treacheries, murders, conflagrations, and atrocities
of every description. The only ray of light comes from
the first genuine leader of the blacks, the gallant but
unfortunate Toussaint, in 1793.

As has already been intimated, Jean Audubon's
Santo Domingo property suffered long after he left the
island, and certainly after 1792 when, as we shall soon
see, revolutions were demanding his attention and all
his energies at home.

CHAPTER IV

AUDUBON'S BIRTH, NATIONALITY, AND PARENTAGE

Les Cayes— Audubon's French Creole mother — His early names— Discovery
of the Sanson bill with the only record of his birth — Medical practice
of an early day — Birth of Muguet, Audubon's sister — Fougere and
Muguet taken to France — Audubon's adoption and baptism — His as-
sumed name — Dual personality in legal documents — Source of pub-
lished errors — Autobiographic records — Rise of enigma and tradition —
The Marigny myth.

Santo Domingo, though repeatedly ravaged by the
indiscriminate hand of man, is a noble and productive
land, which, for the diversity and grandeur of its scenery
and the rare beauty of its tropical vegetation, was justly
regarded as one of the garden spots of the West Indies
and worthy to be in truth a "Paradise of the New
World." For every lover of birds and nature this semi-
tropical island, and especially Les Cayes, upon its south-
westerly verge in what is now Haiti, will have a pe-
culiar interest when it is known that there, amid the
splendor of sea and sun and the ever-glorious flowers
and birds, the eyes of America's great woodsman and
pioneer ornithologist first saw the light of day.

Jean Audubon met somewhere in America, and
probably at Les Cayes, a woman whom he has described
only as a "creole of Santo Domingo," that is, one born
on the island and of French parentage, and who is now
known only by the name of Mile. Rabin.1 To them was

i From a land-owning family in the northern part of what is now the
Republic of Haiti.

52

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 53

born, at Les Cayes, a son, on the twenty-sixth of April,
1785. This bov, who was sometimes referred to in earlv
documents as "Jean Rabin, crcole de Saint-Domingue,"
and who again was called "Fougere" (in English,
"Fern"), received the baptismal name of Jean Jacques
Fougere six months before his sixteenth birthday.

The bill of the physician, Doctor Sanson of Les
Cayes, who assisted at young Audubon's birth still
exists, and as the reader will perceive, it is a highly
unique and interesting historical document.2 Written
in the doctor's own hand, it is receipted by him, as well
as approved and signed by Jean Audubon himself.
This tardy discovery, along with other pertinent records
in the commune of Coueron, in France, finally resolves
the mystery which has ever hedged the Melchizedek of
American natural history. The child's name, of course,
is not given in the bill, but authentic records of Audu-
bon's subsequent adoption and baptism agree so com-
pletely in names and dates as to establish his identity
beyond a shadow of doubt. Much other documentary
evidence which also has recently come to light is all in
harmony with these facts, and further shows that the
natal spot and time as given in the Sanson bill can refer
only to this talented boy. But before turning to these
legal documents we must examine the personal record
of Jean Audubon's physician.

Dr. Sanson's carefully itemized account, to the
amount of 1,339 francs, extends over a period of nearly
two years, from December 29, 1783, to October 19,
1785 ; it was accepted and signed by Captain Audubon
on October 12, 1786, and receipted by the doctor when

2 For photographic reproduction see p. 54; and for transliteration
and translation, Appendix I, Documents Nos. 1 and la; for "Fougere"
see Appendix I, Documents Nos. 2 and 3; and for "Jean Rabin," Docu-
ments Nos. 14, 16, 17 and 18.

54 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

paid on June 7, 1787. The bill is interesting as a com-
mentary on the medical practice of an early day, as well
as for the light which it throws on Jean Audubon's
Santo Domingan career, his establishment at Les Cayes,
and his treatment of black slaves and dependents. This
quaint document, moreover, tends to confirm a remark
of Baron de Wimpffen to the effect that every doctor in
Santo Domingo grew rich at his profession, and also
recalls what he said in regard to the household remedies
of the period. "Every colonist," to quote this observer
again, "is commonly provided with a small chest of
medicines, of which the principal are manna, salts, and
rhubarb ; the country itself produces tamarinds, and the
leaves of the cassia tree, a slight infusion of which, with
a little orange juice, makes as good a purge as a mixture
more scientifically composed."

This physician's chief resources are seen to have
been ipecacuanha, purgative decoctions, including such
as the tamarind tree provided, manna, mineral waters,
lotions, plasters, and kino, an astringent juice derived
from different leguminous plants, which gave a red color
to the saliva, not to speak of "other medicines," the na-
ture of which is not revealed, which were liberally sup-
plied to whites and blacks, both old and young, alike.
It will be noticed further that the slaves of African
birth when not named are referred to as "bossals,"
though many young blacks and mulattoes are called
"Joue";3 that a cooper, attached presumably to the

3 The word "Joue," which occurs eleven times in this document — as
"mulatto Joue," "Joue mulatto," "negro bossal named Joue," and "little
negro Joue" — suggests the English equivalent "Cheek," but no such usage
appears to be authorized. It is evidently a proper name, and is more
likely to prove the French rendering of a word common to one of the
negro dialects of the island. On the other hand it might represent a
corrupted pet name, like "joujou" or "bijou," bestowed by the French
Creoles of Santo Domingo upon their favorite negrillons or petits nhgres,

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FIRST PAGE OF THE BTIX RENDERED BY DR. SANSON, OF LES CAYES, SANTO DOMINGO, TO
JEAN AUDUBON FOR MEDICAL SERVICES FROM DECEMBER 29, 1783, TO

OCTOBER 19, 1785.

Alter the original document in possession of M. L. Lavigne, at Coueron. The note

in upper left-hand corner, "tres curieux ISIlle. Rahin & son enfant,"

has been added bv a later hand.

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SECOND PAGE OF THE SANSON BILL. BEARING, IN THE ENTRY FOR APRIL 26, 17S5, THE
ONLY RECORD KNOWN TO EXIST OF THE DATE OF AUDUBON'S BIRTH.

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THIRD PAGE OF THE SAXSON BILL, SIGNED AS ACCEPTED BY JEAN AUDUBON, 0CTOI1ER 12,
178(), AND RECEIPTED BY THE DOCTOR, WHEN PAID, JUNE 7, 1787.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 55

Audubon sugar refinery, was dosed thrice daily with
kino on four days in succession; and that this favorite
treatment was repeated a month later. A clerk in the
establishment, Monsieur Aubinais, is mentioned as re-
quiring frequent attention, as well as Jean Audubon
himself, who was once bled at the arm.

In the entry for March 27, 1784, there is this inter-
esting reference: "Inoculated Caesar, Jupiter, and
Rose, at thirty francs each, ninety francs"; and if there
were any doubt why Caesar had been inoculated, a hint
is immediately given under May 11: "For attention,
visits, and remedies, during the smallpox (la petite
verole) of the mulatto Joue, sixty francs"; again we
read: "June 30, inoculated a little negro bossed, named
Joue, thirty francs." Every fresh batch of negroes
landed in the colonies led to a new outbreak of this
terrible scourge, and but one other disease, la grosse
verole,4 was more common or more fatal among the
blacks. For a long period it had been a common prac-
tice to inoculate both whites and blacks directly with
the smallpox in order to secure some degree of protec-
tion against its most virulent form, but this method of
fighting the devil with fire had its disadvantages. By
the end of the eighteenth century opinion was about
equally divided upon the advisability of continuing the
measure, since induced variola or smallpox was apt to
be virulent, and was often quite as infectious as when
manifested in the usual and natural way. Then came
Edward Jenner's grand discovery, made twelve years
before this date but not announced until 1798, that vac-
cinia would prevent variola. Almost immediately vac-

which played a more or less ornamental role in many households, whether
as footmen or servants. In any case the use of this word is doubtless
purely local.

4 See Vol. I, p. 46.

56 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

eination spread like wild fire over Europe, and it has
never been appreciated more fully or more highly lauded
by the best representatives of the medical profession
everywhere than at the present day.

The most interesting references in this historic
document are to "Mile. Rabin," whose name occurs no
less than seventeen times, beginning May 21, 1784, and
closing with the entry for the seventeenth of August,
1785. We learn that the physician spent the nights of
April 24 and 25, 1785, at the woman's bedside, and that
her child was born on the twenty-sixth day of that
month, probably in the morning. It will be noticed fur-
ther that she had been bled previously at the arm, that
she had suffered also from the erysipelas, and that later
she was treated for abscesses. These frequent attentions
of the physician, extending over several months, the last
record being for August 17, show only too clearly that at
this time Audubon's mother was in feeble health. All
that is further known about her is that she died either at
the close of 1785 or in 1786, when her infant son was
probably less than a year old.5

A daughter of Jean Audubon, Rosa, who was first
called Muguet (in English, "Lily of the Valley"), was
also born in Santo Domingo, and probably at Les Cayes,
on April 29, 1787. Her mother, Catharine Bouffard,
" creole de Saint-Domingue" who subsequently went to
France, had another daughter, born also at Les Cayes,
named Louise, who was living at La Rochelle in 1819.6

BIt was stated in the act of adoption, which was drawn up in March,
1794, that Audubon's mother had then been dead "about eight years,"
and the testimony of the Sanson bill shows that she was alive as late as
October, 1785.

8 The following letter of inquiry concerning Louise was written by
Rosa's husband when Jean Audubon's will was being attacked in the courts
at Nantes. It is dated at Coueron, June 26, 1819, and is addressed to
"Monsieur Carpentier Chesse, engraver, place Royale, Nantes:"

"Following the friendly offer that you made me, I have the honor of

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 57

When Captain Audubon finally left the West Indies
in the autumn of 1789, he took with him, in the care of
trustworthy slaves, these two children, Fougere or Jean
Rabin, aged four and a half years, and Muguet or
Rosa, an infant of less than two. We know that he
visited Richmond, Virginia, to collect a long outstanding
claim against David Ross, then engaged in an iron in-
dustry near that city (see Chapter VIII, p. 121), and
it is possible that he traveled by way of New
Orleans and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. After
spending some time at the close of this year in the
United States, he went to France and made -a home
for his children at Nantes. This city became essen-
tially their permanent abode until their father's retire-
ment from the navy on January 1, 1801, when he finally
settled in the little commune of Coueron, on the north
bank of the Loire. The storm that burst over Nantes
soon after their arrival revealed the true colors of Jean
Audubon's patriotism, and the man was seen at his best,
as will be related in the following chapter.

Madame Audubon, who had no children of her own,
tenderly received the little ones, thus wafted from over
the sea to her door in the Rue de Crebillon.7 As the

asking you to undertake, at your next visit to La Rochelle, the following
inquiries:

"1. There should be at La Rochelle (it is thought at the home of
the widow Scipiot) a Miss Louise Bouffard, born at Les Cayes, Santo
Domingo, in America.

"What is her position? What is she doing? What is her conduct? In
short I should like to know absolutely all about her, being charged by
the Madame, her mother, to make all inquiries."

(Translated from original in French, Lavigne MSS.)

7 A principal street in the old quarters of Nantes, leading from the
Place Royale to Place Graslin. Jean Audubon named this street as his
place of residence in 1792, when he was living in a house belonging
to Citizen Carricoule. He made his home also at No. 39, rue Rubens, a
short street, with many of its houses still intact, in the same quarter; this
was rented of Francoise Mocquard for five years, beginning June 24, 1799
(le 6 Messidor, an 7 ), at four hundred francs per annum. He also dwelt

58 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

story proceeds we shall see that she was a most kind,
if over-indulgent, foster mother, and became excessively
proud of her handsome boy. "The first of my recol-
lective powers," said the naturalist when writing of him-
self in 1835,8 "placed me in the central portion of the
city of Nantes . . . where I still recollect particularly
that I was much cherished by my dear stepmother . . .
and that I was constantly attended by one or two black
servants, who had followed my father to New Orleans
and afterwards to Nantes."

Jean Audubon, who spent a good part of his life at
sea and in a country almost totally devoid of morals,
must be considered as the product of his time. He was
better, no doubt, than many who made greater profes-
sions, better certainly than a Rousseau, who gave excel-
lent advice to parents upon the proper methods of
rearing their children but sent his own offspring to
orphan asylums. As most men have their faults, said
the son, the father "had one that was common to many
individuals, and that never left him until sobered by a
long life"; but, he added, "as a father, I never com-
plained of him ; his generosity was often too great, and
his good qualities won him many desirable friends."
Whatever his faults, Jean Audubon was just, generous
and possessed of a kind heart. He was in reality a truer
father than many who give their children their name
but deny them sympathy and a wise oversight. Jean

at various times at No. 5, rue de Gigant, and in the rue des Carmes,
where his wife possessed a house, as well as in the rue des Fontenelles
and the rue Saint-Leonard. Very likely "La Gc-betiere" at Coueron was
occupied intermittently, especially in summer, after the outbreak of the
Revolution and his reverses in fortune; even after his retirement there in
1801, he still kept a lodging (pied-a-terre) at Nantes, where, as it chanced,
he died, though it was not his usual stopping-place. See Note, Vol. I, p. 86.
8 See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and His Journals (Bibl. No. 86),
VOl. i, p. 8.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 59

Audubon not only cherished the two children but made
them his heirs. On March 7, 1793, Fougere at the age
of eight and Muguet at six were legalized by a regular
act of adoption in the presence of witnesses at Nantes
as the children of Jean and Anne Movnet Audubon.
This step was taken at the very moment when the
storm had burst over La Vendee, when the fate of
Nantes was trembling in the balance and the life of her
citizens was most insecure. The act of adoption reads : 9

Extract from the registers of births of the sections of La Halle
and Jean Jacques of the commune of Nantes, department
of the Loire inferieure, on the seventh of March, 1794, the
second year of the Republic, one and indivisible, at ten
o'clock in the morning.

Before us, Joseph Theulier, public officer, elected to deter-
mine the public status of citizens, have appeared in the town
hall, Jean Audubon, commanding the war sloop Cerberus, ves-
sel of the Republic, aged forty-nine years, native of Les Sables
d'Olonne, department of La Vendee, and Anne Moinet his wife,
aged fifty-eight years, native of the former parish of Saint-
Leonard, of this commune, who, assisted by Rene Toussaint
Julien Beuscher, manufacturer, aged twenty-five years, living
in the section of La Halle, Rubens Street, and by Julien Pierre
Beuscher, marine surgeon, aged twenty-four years, living in
the section of La Fraternite, Marchix Street, and employed
steadily in the said war sloop Cerberus, have declared before me
that they do adopt and recognize from this moment as their
lawful children, to wit:

A male child named Fougere, born since their marriage, which
took place on the twenty-fourth of August, 1772, in the com-
mune of Paimboeuf, in this department, to him, Jean Audubon,
and a woman living in America, who has been dead about eight
years, and a female child, named Muguet, born also since the

9 For the original text of this act, here given in translation, see
Appendix I, Document No. 2.

60 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

marriage aforesaid, to him and another woman living in Amer-
ica, named Catharine Bouffard, of whose fate he is ignorant.
The two children being present, the first aged nine years,
that will expire on the 22d of next April, the second aged
seven years, that will also expire on the 26th of April next, and
both having been born in America, according to this declara-
tion that the witnesses above mentioned have signified as true,
I have drawn up the present act, which the natural father and
the mother by adoption, as well as their witnesses have signed,
together with myself in this said day and year.

It will be noticed that in this legally attested docu-
ment, Bouffard, the true name of Muguet's mother, is
given, while the name of the mother of Audubon is sup-
pressed. It might therefore be inferred that the name
Rabin, which appears later, was assumed, but as already
remarked, such evidence is not conclusive.

Fougere, who was also called Jean Rabin, was bap-
tized on October 23, 1800, by a priest of the church of
Saint-Similien at Nantes. The archives of this church
for the period in question have disappeared, but Jean
Audubon's copy of the record has survived, and reads
as follows:10

The Act of Baptism of Jean Audubon-Rabin
October 23, 1800
We, the undersigned, certify to have baptized on this day
Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon, adoptive son of Jean Audu-

10 Research at Nantes in 1915 revealed that the baptismal records of
the parish of Saint-Similien were wanting for the period from 1792 to
1803, so it is probable that they were destroyed in the Revolution. The
municipal archives of Nantes possess a book of baptismal records of the
city without distinction of parishes, but this shows the names of neither
"Fougere," "Rabin," nor "Audubon," for the year in question.

The Abbe Tardiveau was un prtitre assermente, or one of those priests
who had sworn in 1790 to recognize the civil constitution of the clergy.

For copy of the act of baptism in the French original, see Appendix
I, Document No. 3. It is impossible to say whether the heading as
given in my copy of this act was in the original or not.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 61

bon, lieutenant of a frigate of the Republic, and of AnneMoinet,
his legitimate wife, who being present bear witness that the
adoption of the said Fougere, made by them, is in accordance
with the present act.

[Signed] Tardiveau, priest of Saint-
Similien, of the town of Nantes.

The act of adoption was drawn at a time when Cap-
tain Audubon could have had little leisure to consult
records had he been disposed to do so, but the dates
of birth which he then gave for these two children were
correct both as to the year and month. Fougere, how-
ever, was born on the twenty-sixth, instead of the twen-
ty-second of April, and Muguet, on the twenty-ninth,
instead of the twentv-sixth, of that month. Audubon's
mother's name is indicated in numerous legal documents
of later date, and, as will appear, in every instance her
son's identity is clearly established.

Young Audubon, who disliked the names of Fougere
and Rabin, and naturally wished to be rid of their early
associations, adopted the fanciful name of "La For-
est," 1X but used it only sporadically and for a short time.
Some of his drawings of birds made at Nantes or Coue-
ron as early as 1805, and in New York in 1806 and 1807,
and possibly others of slightly later date, are signed
"J. L. F. A.," or "J. J. L. Audubon." 12

Jean Audubon and his wife are said to have settled

"An English writer once gave the name of Audubon's mother as
Mile. La Foret.

"Audubon's signature underwent frequent variations during the first
twenty-five years of his life, but after 1830 he almost invariably signed
himself "John J.," or "J. J. Audubon." In the record of the civil
marriage of his sister, at Coueron in 1805, his name appears as "J. J. L.
Audubon;" in the "Articles of Association" with Ferdinand Rozier, signed
at Nantes in 1806, it is "Jean Audubon," and in the release given on the
dissolution of this partnership, at Ste. Genevieve, in 1811, the English
form, "John Audubon," appears.

62 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

some property upon "Jean Rabin, Creole de Saint Do-
mingue" which he refused to accept, saying, "my own
name I have never been permitted even to speak ; accord
me that of Audubon, which I revere, as I have cause
to do." 13 The reference in this instance was, I believe, to
the final will of Lieutenant Audubon,14 according to
which his property, after being held in usufruct by his
wife during her lifetime, was to be equally divided be-
tween their two adopted children. In his first will the
son was referred to as "Jean Audubon," but in the sec-
ond and last document, executed in 1816, two years be-
fore the testator's death, he appears as "Jean Rabin."
Madame Audubon drew four wills; in the first, dated
December 4, 1814, her adopted son is called "Jean Au-
dubon"; in the next, of 1816, he is "Jean Rabin, Creole
de Saint-Domingue" while in a draft written December
26, 1819, he is styled simply "Jean Rabin"; finally, in
her fourth and last testament of July 16, 1821, the word-
ing is "Jean Audubon, called 'Jean Rabin.' It is
thus very plain that Audubon's foster parents consid-
ered it advisable to have his identity clearly set forth
in legal documents. In one of his autobiographical
sketches Audubon remarked that his own mother was
said to have been as wealthy as she was beautiful, and
if this were true, such caution might be explained and
a key found to certain other enigmatical conditions
which seemed to hedge his early life. But to such pos-
sibilities it will be necessary to revert at a later point of
our story.15

This dual personality was set forth by the naturalist
himself, but in a more curious form, in a power of attor-

13 This statement was made to me by Miss Maria R. Audubon in 1914.
11 For full text of the six wills drawn at different times by Jean
Audubon and his wife see Appendix I, Documents Nos. 13-18.
35 See Chapter XVII.

tartly . &tedu,vo:

J805

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•0 ^-^^ 00

<c£*WVO.

Wl

/807

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/s/z

/SS6

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audubon's signature at various periods from 1805 to 1847.

The first, fourth and sixth are from early drawings; the second from Audu-
bon and Rozier's "Articles of Association"; the fifth from a release
given to Rozier; and the remainder from letters.

63

64 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ney16 executed at Henderson, Kentucky, on July 26,
1817, in favor of his brother-in-law, Gabriel Loyen du
Puigaudeau. This measure was taken more than a year
after Audubon's father had drawn up his last will, in
which the son was referred to as "Jean Rabin," and was
evidently designed to facilitate any settlement of this
will which events in France might render necessary.
The naturalist was then engaged in his famous but dis-
astrous financial enterprises on the Ohio River,17 but
whether any intimation had come to him of possible legal
troubles, which later actually ensued in France, cannot
be stated.

19 This unique document reads as follows :

"To all to whom these presents may come: know ye that I, John
Audubon, having special trust and confidence in my friend, G. Loyen Du
Puigaudeau, of the Department of Loire and [sic] Inferieure, and Parish
of Coueron, near Nantes, in the kingdom of France, [do constitute him]
my true and lawful attorney, and the true and lawful attorney in fact of
Jean Rabin, husband of Lucy Bakewell, of the County of Henderson
and State of Kentucky, in the United States of America, for us [?], the
said Jean Rabin, and in our name to our use and benefit, to ask, demand,
sue fcr, recover, and receive all and every part of the Real and Personal
Estate, that is to say Lands, Tenements, Grounds, Chattels, and credits,
which I have, or either of us, in the Department of Loire and [sic]
Inferieure in the kingdom of France, aforesaid, and to make sale of the
same, either at auction, or by contract of the said Lands and Tenements,
Goods, Chattells, and Credits, to receive the money arising from said
sale, to give any Receipt, acquittance, or other discharge for the said
money or any part thereof, if money or specie shall be received, or for
any property he may receive in exchange or barter for said Real and
personal Estate, and our said attorney, or the attorney of Jean Rabin
aforesaid, is hereby authorized and empowered to make, give, execute, and
deliver any Deed, Covenant, or transfer of said Real and Personal Estate
to the purchaser of all or any part thereof for us, or for the said
Jean Rabin, in as full and ample a manner as he, the said Jean, could
do, was he personally present in said Department, in the Kingdom. In
testimony whereof the said John Audubon has hereunto set his hand and
affixed his seal the Twenty Sixth day of July, Anno Domini One thousand
& Eight hundred and Seventeen.

Johx J. Audubon [Seal within]

On the back of the preceding is the notary's certificate that Jean Audu-
bon appeared before him; seal affixed, and dated July 26, 1817.

Signed, "A[mbroze] Barband,
Notary of Henderson County, Kentucky."
"See Chapter XVI.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 65

In reading the published accounts of Audubon's
early life many have been puzzled by the absence of defi-
nite dates, as well as by the numerous contradictions in
which they abound. It is needless to burden this nar-
rative with a tedious reference to all these errors or to
attempt to trace their origin, which no doubt had many
sources, but since we have given the first true account
of the naturalist's birth, we cannot pass these matters
without a word of comment. The situation is somewhat
involved, since we should possibly differentiate between
what Audubon at different times believed to be true, and
what he wished to make known to his family or to the
public; possibly also we should discriminate between
what he actually published over his own signature dur-
ing his lifetime and the material which has appeared
since his death, even though originally written by his
own hand.

The first definite date which Audubon ever gave con-
cerning his own life was that of his marriage in 1808,
when he was twenty-three years of age, and all that
he ever published of a biographical nature is to be found
in his Ornithological Biography.18 In the introduction
to this work he simply said that he had "received light
and life in the New World," and further that he returned
to America from France, whither he had gone to receive
the rudiments of his education, at the age of seventeen.
Since Audubon's first return to America was in the
autumn of 1803, when he was actually about eighteen
and one-half years old, this statement is not so wide of
the mark as to imply that the date of his birth was not
then well understood. Moreover, the record of his adop-
tion, which was certified to at the time of his baptism in
1800, was carefully preserved among the family docu-

3 Vol. i, p. v; see Bibliography, No. 2.

66 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ments, and there is no reason to suppose that knowledge
of his age was ever withheld from him. Nevertheless,
Audubon was inclined to overestimate his years, a char-
acteristic rare in these days; when at Oxford in 1828
he was asked for his autograph, and was begged to in-
scribe also the date of his birth; "that," he said in record-
ing the incident, "I could not do, except approximately,"
and his hostess was greatly amused that he should not

know.

While going down the Ohio River in 1820, bound for
New Orleans, Audubon took advantage of a rainy day
to write in his journal something about himself that he
thought his children at some future time might desire
to know. This brief record may or may not have been
at hand when in 1835 he wrote the more extended ver-
sion that finally saw the light in 1893.19 Since the manu-
script of the later sketch was presumably in possession
of Mrs. Audubon when the biography of her husband
was prepared in New York about the year 1866, that
account in its various versions has furnished biograph-
ers with practically all of the available material, not
purely conjectural, concerning the naturalist's early life.
Such additions as were made subsequently have proved
to be very inaccurate.

In the first of these sketches, which, so far as it goes,
is more in strict accord with facts, Audubon said nothing
of his birth, and of his mother remarked only that he
had been told that she was "an extraordinary beauti-
ful woman," who died shortly after he was born. His
father, he added, saw his wealth torn from him, until
there was left barely enough to educate his two chil-
dren, all that remained of the five, his three elder broth-

19 Published by Maria R. Audubon (Bibl. No. 78) in Scribner's
Magazine, vol. xiii (1893).

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 67

ers20 having been "killed in the wars." He then believed,
as he said, that his first journey to France was made
when he was two years old.

The later and fuller biography, referred to above as
written in 1835 and published in 1893, begins with these
words :21

The precise period of my birth is yet an enigma to me,
and I can only say what I have often heard my father repeat
to me on this subject, which is as follows: It seems that my
father had large properties in Santo Domingo, and was in the
habit of visiting frequently that portion of our Southern States
called, and known by the name of, Louisiana, then owned by
the French Government.

During one of these excursions he married a lady of Spanish
extraction, whom I have been led to understand was as beauti-
ful as she was wealthy, and otherwise attractive, and who bore
my father three sons and a daughter, — I being the youngest of
the sons and the only one who survived extreme youth. My
mother, soon after my birth, accompanied my father to the
estate [sic] of Aux Cayes,22 on the island of Santo Domingo,
and she was one of the victims during the ever-to-be-lamented
period of the negro insurrection of that island.

My father, through the intervention of some faithful ser-
vants, escaped from Aux Cayes with a good portion of his
plate and money, and with me and these humble friends reached
New Orleans in safety. From this place he took me to France,
where having married the only mother I have ever known, he
left me under her charge and returned to the United States in
the employ of the French Government, acting as an officer
under Admiral Rochambeau. Shortly afterward, however, he

20 Whether Jean Audubon had other sons born in Santo Domingo is
not recorded, and this reference of the naturalist, which was repeated in
his later sketch, cannot be verified.

21 See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and His Journals (Bibl. No. 86),
vol. i, p. 7.

22 See Note 2, Vol. I, p. 38.

68 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

landed in the United States and became attached to the array
under La Fayette.

The true history of Jean Audubon's commercial,
naval, and civic career is given in the preceding and fol-
lowing chapters.

The naturalist, in his letters and journals, made fre-
quent allusions to his age, but, as his granddaughter re-
marked, with one exception, no two agree; hence, his
granddaughter concluded that he might "have been born
anywhere from 1772 to 1783." In the face of such
uncertainty she adopted the traditional date of May 5,
1780, adding that the true one was no doubt earlier.
Audubon was thus five years younger than his biograph-
ers supposed, and twenty-one years were added to the
age of his father, who actually lived to be only seventy-
four years old, while his son died in his sixty-sixth

year.

Wherever there is mystery there tradition is certain
to raise its head, and though the naturalist carried his
"enigma" to the grave, others, building upon his story,
have fixed upon the very house in Louisiana in which
he is said to have been born. Indeed, advocates of
more than one house in that state as the probable scene
of Audubon's nativity have arisen in recent times. We
are obliged, therefore, to examine somewhat farther the
now universally received but thoroughly erroneous idea
that John James Audubon was a native of Louisiana
at a time when that Commonwealth was part of a prov-
ince of France.

Upholding a tradition of rather recent growth, Au-
dubon's granddaughter has expressed the belief that the
naturalist was born in a house belonging to the famous
Philippe de Marigny and known as "Fontainebleau."

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 69

This was a sugar plantation on the north side of Lake
Pontchartrain, three miles east of what is now the vil-
lage of Mandeville and twenty-five miles due north of
New Orleans.

Pierre Enguerrand Philippe de Mandeville, Ecuyer
Sieur de Marigny,23 at one time owner of vast estates in
and about New Orleans, was born in that city in 1750,
and served as its alcade or mayor for two years. A
lavish dispenser of hospitality, in 1798 he entertained
in great state the Duke of Orleans, later known as
Louis Philippe of France, together with his two broth-
ers who accompanied him. He died at New Orleans,
leaving five sons, of whom the third, Bernard Marigny,
later became the owner of "Fontainebleau," which it
has been mistakenly assumed was inherited from his
father. At the time of the Duke of Orleans' visit just
mentioned Jean Audubon had been out of the country
nine years; there is no evidence of his ever having
owned property at New Orleans, or ever having sus-
tained any relations with the Marigny family.

Before following the Marigny myth further, it will
be interesting to notice a late echo of the "Fontaine-
bleau" story. In 1910 the Reverend Gordon Bakewell,
then in his eighty-ninth year, gave some interesting rem-
iniscences of Audubon, and spoke very definitely con-
cerning both the time and place of his birth. Dr. Bake-
well was a nephew of Mrs. Audubon, and as a youth, in
1834, had passed some time at her home in London.
John W. Audubon, with his father's assistance, painted
at that time a portrait of young Bakewell, who at a

23 See J. W. Crozart, "Bibliographical and Genealogical Notes Con-
cerning the Family of Philippe de Mandeville, Ecuyer Sieur de Marigny,
1709-1S00," Louisiana Historical Society Publications, vol. v (New Orleans,
1911). The portrait referred to below now hangs in the H. Sophie New-
comb Memorial College, New Orleans.

70 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

later day was welcomed in their home on the Hudson.
Dr. Bakewell's contribution was as follows:24

The uncertainty as to the place of Audubon's birth has been
put to rest by the testimony of an eye witness in the person
of old Mandeville Marigny now dead some years. His re-
peated statement to me was, that on his plantation at Mande-
ville, Louisiana, on Lake Ponchartrain, Audubon's mother was
his guest ; and while there gave birth to John James Audubon.
Marigny was present at the time, and from his own lips, I have,
as already said, repeatedly heard him assert the above fact.
He was ever proud to bear this testimony of his protection
given to Audubon's mother, and his ability to bear witness as
to the place of Audubon's birth, thus establishing the fact that
he was a Louisianian by birth.

We do not doubt the candor and sincerity of the
excellent Dr. Bakewell, but are bound to say that the
incidents as related above betray a striking lapse of
memory and an even greater misunderstanding of re-
corded facts. Singularly a footnote to the paragraph
quoted shows that the Marigny to whom he refers was,
as must have been the case, Bernard Mandeville de Ma-
rigny, who was born in 1785, the same year as the nat-
uralist. Since both were in the cradle at the same time,
he is hardly available as a witness. Moreover, the official
records of the United States Government prove that
the estate called "Fontainebleau" was not in possession
of the Marigny family at the time of Audubon's birth.
The land in question was granted to a Creole named
Antonio Bonnabel, on January 25, 1799, by Manuel
Gayoso de Lemos, Governor-General of the Province of
Louisiana and West Florida. Bonnabel sold his tract

24 Gordon Bakewell (Bibl. No. 90), ibid., p. SI.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE 71

to Bernard Marigny in 1800, and Congress confirmed
his title to it by a special act in 1836. 25

Bernard Marigny served in the French army towards
the close of the Napoleonic period, and his return to the
United States from France, about 1818, is said to have
been hastened by a duel which he fought with one of
his superior officers. On his return he named Bonna-
bel's old tract on Lake Ponchartrain "Fontainebleau,"
in remembrance of the place where his regiment had
been assigned for duty in France, and eventually built
upon the estate a sawmill and a sugar-house, and planted
sugar cane, living meanwhile on another plantation two
and one-half miles away. The latter estate was allotted
by him in 1832, when he gave it the name of Mandeville ;
the settlement thus started has since grown to a village
of some 1,500 people. Here a summer house which be-
longed to Bernard's father still exists, although in al-
tered form; it has been raised to accommodate a lower
story, and is now known as the "Casino." According to
those who have most carefully investigated existing rec-
ords, this is the only house in Mandeville which belonged
to the elder Marigny at the time of which we speak.

25 See Laws of the United States, Treaties, Regulations, and Other
Documents Respecting the Public Lands, vol. i, p. 301 (Washington, 1836).
In Number 756, entitled "An Act for the Relief of Bernard Marigny, of
the State of Louisiana," Marigny is mentioned as assignee of Antonio
Bonnabel, and his claim, which was confirmed, is described as follows: a
tract of land of 4,020 superficial arpents, in the State of Louisiana, parish
of St. Tammany, "bounded on the southwest by Lake Ponchartrain, and
on the northwest by lands formerly owned by the heirs of Lewis Davis."

I am informed by Mr. Gaspar Cusachs, president of the Historical
Society of Louisiana, who has carefully investigated the titles of this
property and to whom I am indebted for much information concerning
it and its owners, that the tract described above included the estate of
"Fontainebleau." Marigny's claim included also a smaller tract of 774
arpents in the same parish. This land was bounded on the southwest
by Lake Ponchartrain, on the north by Castin Bayou, and on the south
by the tract acquired from Bonnabel; it was granted to the heirs of
Lewis Davis in 1777, and certain of them filed a claim for it in 1812.

72 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Bernard Marigny was one of those who befriended
Audubon when he was in desperate straits at New Or-
leans in 1821, by advancing him money in return for
portraits or drawings of birds. He died in that city in
1868, when in his eighty-third year, a poor and honest
man.

CHAPTER V

LIEUTENANT AUDUBON AS REVOLUTIONIST

Background of Audubon's youth — Nantes in Revolution — Revolt in La
Vendee — Siege of Nantes — Reign of terror under Carrier — Plague rob-
bing the guillotine — Flight of the population — Execution of Charette —
The Chouan raid — Citizen Audubon's service — He reenters the navy and
takes a prize from the English — His subsequent naval career — His
losses in Santo Domingo — His service and rank — Retires on a pension —
His death— His character and appearance.

The ancient city of Nantes, long famed for the beauty
of its situation on the banks of a noble river, within
easy reach of the sea, as well as for its importance in
the arts of war and peace, numbered at the time of the
Revolution 70,000 souls. The modern visitor to this
favored spot will find quiet and orderly streets adorned
with monumental statues (one of these representing
Guepin, the revered historian of the city ) , the old build-
ings nearly all replaced by better, the Loire spanned by
handsome bridges, and the ancient bounds of the town
extended until it has become the sixth city of the Re-
public. Since Nantes formed a somber background to
Audubon's youth, we shall follow in brief some of the
ordeals through which his family, in common with thou-
sands of other Nantais, were destined to pass during
those eventful years which witnessed the close of the
eighteenth century in France.

When Captain Audubon reached Nantes presumably
not far from the beginning of 1790, he found the city
in a state of the greatest turmoil and agitation. The

73

74 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

commons, or third estate, included hundreds of its rich
and influential citizens, and their demands for a fair
hearing and a representation equal to that of the other
orders had then passed the stage of open revolt, for they
had planted their "liberty tree" and were sworn to de-
fend it. In August of 1789 a permanent Committee
of Public Safety had been constituted at Nantes, and
by the end of that month 1,200 had volunteered for serv-
ice in the National Guard. There were many loyalists
in the city but they could not crush the ardent spirit
of this revolt, and when in September money was needed
to equip the revolutionary soldiery, young school chil-
dren raised large sums for the popular cause. Jean
Audubon immediately cast his lot with the revolution-
ists and joined the National Guard, but how much serv-
ice he saw in the field cannot now be determined; it is
known, however, that he was with these troops in the
spring of 1792. 1

In March, 1793, the loyalists of La Vendee rose to
arms, and marching on Nantes under the able leadership
of Charette, threatened to put its garrison to the sword
if it were not surrendered within six hours. The Na-
tional Guard met these invaders outside the walls and
left the citizens to shift for themselves. Thus thrown
upon their own resources, the Nantais showed that they
could help themselves. They requisitioned and used for
defense everything at hand; they exhumed the leaden
coffins in their grand cathedral and appropriated water-
spouts for ammunition, while their church bells were
molded into cannon. Though held in check, the Ven-
deans laid siege to the city, and but for the resolution
of its mayor, Baco, Nantes would probably have fallen
— in which event Audubon would have had a different

JOne period of this service bears date of May 31.

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 75

history and would probably never have become a pio-
neer naturalist in America. Baco, disregarding the
advice of his military chiefs, immediately placarded the
walls of Nantes decreeing death to any who should
suggest capitulation, and called all the inhabitants to
arms, sparing neither woman nor child. The Vendeans
had met their match, for they were dealing with many
of their own blood, but though the siege began in early
March, they were not effectually dispersed until the end
of June, and then only after much bloodshed without
the walls. When the immediate crisis had passed, the
Constitution of the Republic was unanimously accepted
by the eighteen sections of Nantes, on the twenty-first
day of July, 1793.

A few months later in that fateful year a more ter-
rible calamity befell the city, when the reign of terror
under the notorious ultra-revolutionist, Jean B. Carrier,
began. Carrier reached Nantes on October 8 and at
once proposed to exterminate both the Vendean royal-
ists and their Nantais sympathizers. He reorganized
the entire administration to suit his purposes, and to
carry out his plans recruited from the lowest classes a
revolutionary army to spy upon, denounce and arrest
private citizens, many of whom were sent to Paris for
trial when not secretly dispatched. The whole district
was soon paralyzed by the barbarity of the crimes then
committed, and the unhappy Vendeans were dragged to
Nantes, to be shot, guillotined or drowned, in such num-
bers that the city was unable to bury its dead or the
river to discharge them to the sea. Thus perished thou-
sands, uncounted if not unknown, and the pestilence of
typhoid fever that immediately followed claimed an-
other heavy toll regardless of political sympathies.
While these dire scenes were being enacted, Jean Jacques

76 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Fougere Audubon, then a lad of eight years, was living
in the heart of Nantes, and his father was one of its
leading revolutionists. An aunt of the future orni-
thologist, according to his account, who was one of these
wretched victims of revolutionary fury, was dragged
through the streets of Nantes before his eyes, but appar-
ently she did not actually meet her death at that time.2

That Jean Audubon moved his family out of Nantes
during the revolutionary crisis is possible, and Coueron
would have been available as a place of refuge. Many
Nantais are known to have fled to Lorient on the coast
of Brittany, where they found in the heroic youth Jul-
ien the ardent and fearless patriot who was destined
to become the real savior of their stricken city. Young
Julien denounced Carrier in his letters to Robespierre,
and when one of these was intercepted, defied him in
person. When his stirring appeals finally reached the
Tribunal at Paris, its misnamed representative was re-
called, and left Nantes under cover of night on Febru-
ary 14, 1794. During his mad reign of four months,
Carrier had gone far towards carrying out his theory
of republican government, that should begin, as he
openly avowed, by "suppressing" half of the population
of France. The records show that nearly nine thou-
sand bodies were buried in Nantes in a little over three
months, from January 15 to April 24, 1794. The plague
of fever no doubt accounted for many of these, but the
wide reaches of the Loire never told their full story.

Though the most grievous affliction of Nantes passed
with the recall of Carrier, the city had no lasting peace
until the execution of the Vendean leader, Charette, in
March, 1796; "Poor Charette," said Audubon, writing
in his journal at Liverpool, December 24, 1827, "whom

2 See Note 4, Vol. I, p. 27.

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 77

I saw shot on the place de Viarme at Nantes." This
virtually ended the war in the Vendee, but the Chouans,
under their intrepid chief, Dupre, the miller, called
"Tete-Carree," managed to furnish considerable excite-
ment, and raided Nantes in 1799. Dupre's followers
stole in secretly at three o'clock on the morning of Octo-
ber 19 and left before daylight, after liberating fifteen
royalists from the prison, which seems to have been their
chief purpose. The cannon of alarm was fired from
the Chateau ; the tocsin sounded, calling the city to arms ;
there was much street fighting, but it was too foggy and
dark«to distinguish friend from foe, and when the Na-
tional Guard was finally assembled, the enemy had
vanished. This brief attack cost the city twenty-one
deaths and wounds for twice the number,3 but it was
only a passing incident in comparison with events that
had gone before. Thenceforth the history of the town is
blended with that of the nation.4

We have only slight indications of Jean Audubon's
activities from the close of 1789, when, according to his
own statement, he was in the United States, to the period
of his service in the National Guard at Nantes in the
spring of 1792 ; he was then living in the house of Citizen
Carricoule, rue de Crebillon, and the lease of his "Mill
Grove" farm, which was renewed in October, 1790, was
dated at Nantes. We may safely assume that he was

3 The mayor, Saget, at the moment he was crossing the Place Egalite
(the Place Royale of today) received point-hlank a ball in his right thigh
and another in his left leg, and lost both limbs.

4 For the revolutionary history of Nantes I am chiefly indebted to
M. A. Guepin's excellent Histoire de Nantes, 2d ed. (Nantes, 1839); Hipp.
Etiennez, Guide du Voyageur a Nantes, et aux Environs (Nantes, 1861);
A. Lescadien et Aug. Laurent, Histoire de la Ville de Nantes, t.2 (Nantes,
1836) ; F. J. Verger, Archives curieuses de la Ville de Nantes et des
Departments de I'Ouest, t. 5 (Nantes, 1837-41); and to a scholarly mono-
graph by Dugast-Matifeux, entitled Carrier a Nantes: Precis de la Conduite
patriotique et revolutionnaire des citoyens de Nantes (Nantes, 1885).

78 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

engaged in revolutionary business during most of this
interval: his name begins to appear in the written rec-
ords of Nantes and of the department of the Lower
Loire in January, 1793, and existing documents5 show
that he was engaged as a commissioner and member of
the Department and as a member of the Council of the
Navy until the twenty-fifth of June, when he enlisted for
active service in the navy of the Republic. Jean Audu-
bon served also on various republican committees, his
duties comprising the enlistment of recruits, organizing
the National Guard, soliciting funds and food supplies
for Nantes, finding cannon and other military or naval
materials, posting proclamations, administering the oath
of allegiance, and watching the movements of loyalist
troops in the district. We have seen that the father
of the naturalist was a game and determined fighter, and
there is ample written testimony to prove that in the
commune of Nantes he was regarded as an ardent
patriot, who could be relied upon to act with tact, and
if necessary with force.

Having been appointed a Civil Commissioner by the
Directory of the Department on January 17, 1793, Citi-
zen Audubon was sent to Savenay, a town of some im-
portance twenty-five miles to the northwest of Nantes.
His instructions on this mission were to gather useful

6 The unpublished documents of this Department are preserved in the
archives of the Prefecture at Nantes, and through the courtesy of their
custodians I was enabled to examine them freely. These documents
deal with all the revolutionary changes in church and state consequent
upon the breaking down of the old regime, and with the enrollment of vol-
unteers and the dispatch of armed forces to centers of disturbance
throughout that district. The present manuscripts are said to represent
but a fraction of those which originally existed, the archives having been
subjected to repeated raids, thefts, and wanton destruction by fire and
other means. The most important have been listed and published by the
Government in summary form under the title, Les Archives du Departement
de la Loire Inferieure, 1790-1799, Serie L. (Nantes, 1909).

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LIEUTENANT JEAN AUDUBON

ANNE MOYNET AUDUBON

AFTER OIL PORTRAITS PAIXTED BETWEEN' 1801 AXD 180(3, XOW IX POSSESSIOX" OF

M. L. LAVIGXE, AT C0UER3X.

JEAN AUDUBON

AFTER AX OIL PORTRAIT PAIXTED BY THE AMER-
ICAX ARTIST POLK, AT PHILADELPHIA, ABOUT
1789, XOW IX POSSESSIOX OF MRS. MORRIS
FRAXK TYLER. PUBLISHED BY COUR-
TESY OF MISS MARIA R. AUDUBOX.

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 79

information on the civil, moral and political state of the
district, "in order to bring a remedy," and to administer
the oath of allegiance to all administrative and judicial
bodies. Jean began operations without delay, and his
report, which was kept in journal form and embraces
the period from January 19 to September 10, 1793, is
an interesting document ; it covers fifty-one large fools-
cap pages, written now in a fine and again in a bold,
regular hand, in the course of which his characteristic
signature6 occurs no less than twenty-two times, each

ONE OF JEAN AUDUBON'S SIGNATURES IX HIS REPORT TO THE DIRECTORY, 1793.

From the original in the archives of the prefecture at Nantes.

section of the report having been signed as completed.
In one section of this journal he wrote: "Our opera-
tions having been finished, we assembled around the tree
of liberty, and there sang the hymn of the Marseillaise,
which was interrupted with frequent shouts of 'Vive la
republique!/ 'Vive la nation!/ and more than one charge
of musketry."

Jean Audubon with eight others was charged with or-
ganizing the National Guard in the canton of Pellerin,
and ordered to accompany the detachment that marched
to the relief of Pornic, March 27, 1793. The Citizen
was busy also in other directions. He said in his report:

a During the Revolution Jean Audubon always added to his signature
the cabalistic sign of three dots between parallel lines, which possibly
stood for the three watchwords of the Republic — "Libertc, EgaUte, Fra-
ternite."

80 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

In virtue of the power conferred upon us by the Central
Committee, on the ninth of April we were transported to the
parish of Coueron, where we arrived at seven o'clock in the
morning. Proclamations were posted both at Coueron and at
Port Launay close by, while some were sent across the river to
Pellerin. We availed ourselves on this occasion of the services
of two officers of a corsair, who demanded that we aid in re-
moving from Pellerin four cannon with four-pound balls, and
we succeeded in putting to flight a small barque and four
men, who an hour later returned with cannon. . . . The parish
of Coueron appears very tranquil, and is in a better mood than
[at first] seemed to us.

A little later Jean proceeded to PaimDoeuf on a simi-
lar errand. His letters to the citizen-administrators of
that commune are dated at Nantes on the seventeenth
of April and the fourteenth of May ; in one of these he
refers to "the sum of four hundred francs" due from
the Administration "for one year's rent of my house in
calle Rondineau (a la calle rondino), which you have
taken for a corps de garde" (see Vol. I, p. 32) .

In July and August of this second year of the Repub-
lic, Citizen Audubon was sent to his native town of Les
Sables d'Olonne to follow the movements of the loyalist
generals Westermann and Boulart,7 a mission which

7 In the published orders and correspondence of the royalist General
Boulart the following letter, given here in translation, is addressed to
Citizen Audubon: "I give you notice, Citizen, that my aide-de-camp will
arrive immediately from Niort. I beg you to do all in your power to
come this evening to confer with me, since I have something to ask
you of the utmost importance. I also inform you that there has arrived
at Les Sables Citizen Anguis, the people's representative. Perhaps it
would be more advantageous that you should see him this evening, and
that tomorrow early we attempt to bring all three together. You could
depart in the morning for Nantes." [Signed] "The General Boulart."
Jean Audubon filed this letter from the enemy with his Department, but his
answer is not given. See Ch. L. Chassin, Etudes Documentaires sur La
Revolution Frangaise: La Vendee Patriote, 1793-1800, vol. ii, p. 306, t. 1-4
(Paris, 1894-1895).

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 81

could hardly have been agreeable if, as seems to have
been the case, some of his own people were loyal to the
old regime. Correspondence by sea between Les Sables
and Nantes, which was open before the siege, was not
broken at this time, for the royalists had named one of
their representatives, Benoit, as a delegate "to fraternize
with the citizens of Nantes, to invite the authorities to
correspond, and beg them to send food if they had more
than they required." Four of Jean's letters, dated at
Les Sables on the fifth and eighth of July and the sixth
of August, besides one from La Rochelle on the four-
teenth of July, all addressed to the Administration of
the Loire Inferieure, have been preserved.

In the manuscript records of the Department for
1793 is found also a notice of Jean's appointment as Spe-
cial Commissioner, with a memorandum of all the money
paid to reimburse him for the expenses of his numerous
journeys. Thus, it is noted that he had been paid 145
francs for a service of twenty-nine days, which would
represent the modest allowance of a dollar a day. An-
other item shows that he had received 100 francs for a
tour of ten days; a note which was added to this item
to explain the Directory's sanction for the payment of
another forty-five francs and ten sous reads as follows:
"by its order of the sixth of March last, the Council had,
in effect, named Citizen Audubon as its Commissioner,
to visit the coasts and to secure signatures, with full
power to treat with all people, to acquire materials
for the navy and other objects of his mission; if this
mission did not prove successful, it was solely through
force of circumstances, and not from any lack of zeal
on his part." 8

8 Dclibfrratiom-Arretes de Directoire du Departement. In MSS. pp.

107-108.

82 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

On the twenty-fifth of June, 1793, while engaged in
duties to which we have just referred, Jean Audubon
was appointed, with rank of ensign, to command the
Republican lugger named the Cerberus.9 During this
charge, which lasted until the twenty-second of Novem-
ber of the following year, he fought one of the stiffest
engagements of his career. On the twelfth of July he
encountered the Brilliant, an English privateer of four-
teen cannon which had captured an American ship laden
with flour ; and after a desperate battle which lasted three
hours, in the course of which Jean was wounded in the
left thigh, the Englishman, beaten and obliged to sur-
render his prize, was glad to escape under cover of night.
Jean towed the American into the port of La Rochelle,
and afterwards sent to the Administration a full account
of the engagement.10 Ensign Audubon's next command
was a dispatch boat called UEveille ("The Awak-
ened"), on which he served for nearly nine months, from
November 23, 1794, to August 14, 1795. He was then
detailed for port duty at La Rochelle from August 15,
1795, to January 24, 1797. His last ship was L'lnsti-
tuteur ("The Institutor" ) , which he commanded with
the rank of ensign-commander from January 25 to
October 3, 1797, while he was engaged in govern-
mental business between the ports of La Ro-
chelle and Brest.

The financial losses which Lieutenant Audubon sus-
tained at Les Cayes in consequence of the revolution
in Santo Domingo were a crushing blow to him ; he never
recovered his fortune, later estimated by his son-in-law

9 Jean was actually in command of this war vessel in March of that
year, as shown by a document given in full in Chapter IV (p. 59).

10 These records are on file in the archives of the Department of
Marine at Paris, but access to them will doubtless be denied until peace
is restored in Europe.

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 83

at a sum which at that day would have been fabulous.11
The business house in which he was interested failed ; his
plantations, refinery, houses and stores, the rents from
which, as we have seen, in certain years after 1789, had
yielded 90,000 francs, were presumably ravaged and
partially destroyed. When the news of this misfortune
reached him after 1792, his hands were tied by revolu-
tions at home. Though he applied to his Government
for relief, as undoubtedly did a host of other losers, he
was eventually granted only a small indemnity, not
exceeding 30,000 francs.

Friends of Jean Audubon at Nantes had made re-
peated demands of the Ministry of Marine that he be
given a rank more in accord with his patriotism and effi-
cient service to the State, and on October 11, 1797, he
was commissioned lieutenant-commander (lieutenant de
vaisseau),12 one grade below that of captain. He held
this rank for three years, during which he was engaged
in vigilance service at Les Sables d'Olonne and in mili-
tary duty at Rochefort, or until he was retired from
the navy for disability, January 1, 1801 (le 11 nivose,
an 9), at the age of fifty-seven.13 He had served the

11 M. L. Lavigne writes that he possesses a copy of a letter addressed
by M. G. L. du Puigaudeau to a lawyer in Paris, in which it is stated
that Lieutenant Audubon's losses amounted to 1,500,000 francs. After
making due allowance for the psychological tendency to overestimate losses,
especially when sustained in remote and romantic lands, the true amount
was no doubt large.

12 Or "lieutenant of a frigate," and corresponding to "mate" in the

merchant marine.

13 The certificate which Lieutenant Audubon received at the time of
his discharge is preserved among the Lavigne manuscripts and docu-
ments at Coueron, and is headed:

Port ETAT des Services du Citoyen Jean Audubon natif des

DE Sables d'Ollonne Departement de La Vendee age de

Rochefort. 58 ans.

It is signed by the Chief of Administration, Daniel, the Naval Com-
mander-in-Chief of the District, Martin, and by the naval commissioner
and clerk, February 26, 1^01 (le sept Veniose, an 9 de la Republique).

84

AUDUBON. THE NATURALIST

.E.TAT da Services du Ckojcn • /run Cfniiu/u

natif Acs . /ultt-1 D '0//v/n»iu Departement dc /a. "Vtndtts
age* tie S8 Ott^

'to ft.

/norm*

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE OF LIEUTENANT JEAN AUDUBON, FEBRUARY 26, 1801.

From a photograph of the original in the Lavigne MSS.

State for over eight years, and his total period of active
duty on sea and land when employed in the merchant
marine and navy of France, as estimated from port to
port, amounted to nineteen years, nine months and
twelve days, while it had extended with interruptions
over more than forty years.14 After this long period

14 Jean Audubon was 11 years, 6 months and 25 days in the service of
the merchant marine of France (service au commerce), in the course of

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 85

of service, when, suffering from a pulmonary affection,
he applied to his Government for a pension, he received
the paltry annuity of 600 francs or $120.

With this modest pension and a property yielding
an income not above $2,000 a year,15 Lieutenant Audu-
bon retired to his quiet villa of "La Gerbetiere," at Coue-
ron, where he could indulge his taste for country life and
for raising his favorite fruits and flowers; he is said to
have kept some live stock, but could have been a farmer
only on a modest scale. Meanwhile he continued to
maintain a house, or at least rooms, at Nantes, whither
he went periodically to conduct his correspondence and
business affairs. The following letter of attorney, issued
by Lieutenant Audubon a year after he had retired from
the navy, shows that he still had interests in Santo Do-
mingo, and was endeavoring to collect rents, long over-
due, from houses and stores that belonged either to
himself or to his clients. Whether through the dishon-
esty of agents or from what other cause, this property
which the elder Audubon held in his own right seems
gradually to have melted away:

The 19th pluviose, in the eleventh year of the Republic,
one and indivisible [January 7, 1802], before the public no-
taries of the department of Loire inferieure, who reside in
Nantes and Doulon, the undersigned have seen present the

which he rose to the rank of captain of the first grade in 1774. He
served in the French navy (service a Vetat) 8 years, 2 months and 17
days, ranking successively as sailor, ensign-commander, and lieutenant-
commander (lieutenant de vaissean); 8 months and 22 days of this period
(1768-1769) were in intervals of peace, and 7 years, 5 months and 25 days
(1793-1801), in times of war. Any conflict which may seem to occur in
titles must be attributed to this double service.

15 This property was evidently encumbered to a considerable extent,
for he repeatedly filed with the Department letters for the removal of
restrictions placed upon it (lettres pour obtenir la main levee). I can-
not give the dates of these letters, but believe that they were drawn in
1801 or shortly after.

86 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

citizen Jean Audubon, lieutenant of frigate, retired, and pro-
prietor at Santo Domingo, aged 59 years, infirm and unable
in consequence of his infirmities to go himself to attend to his
business affairs in Santo Domingo, living in Rubens Street, in
the Mocquard house,10 No. 39, in the city and commune of
Nantes, department of Loire inferieure:

Who has made and constituted for his general and special
attorney Jean Francois Blanchard, merchant, and originally
from the commune of Chataubriand, department of Loire in-
ferieure, living at the town of Les Cayes, in the southern section
of the island of Santo Domingo, opposite He a Vaches, to whom
he gives full and complete powers to revoke for him, and in
his name, every preceding bill of attorney, for the purpose of
managing the stores [magazins] at Les Cayes, in the southern
part of Santo Domingo, opposite He a Vaches : To demand and
obtain all accounts from the holders of said properties, who
have had or still have charge of them there; to examine the
said accounts, to debate, close up and stop them ... to lease
the said properties, without the power of making any exten-
sive repairs to them whatsoever, about which he had not in-
formed the constituent in France, and that he has not author-
ized him there to do, at least by a special letter, it being under-
stood that the actual tenant is obliged to make all the neces-
sary repairs to the said houses and stores to the extent of
15,000 francs, and he should not use more than 4,000 francs
yearly for the space of five years, counting from the month of
thermidor, year 8 [July 19-August 17, 1800].

It is demanded of citizeness Fauveau, or of her assigns, to
know the reason why she has failed, to the present moment, to
pay to the constituent in France for the domicile of the citi-
zeness Coyron,17 the twelve thousand six hundred francs that

16 This house was rented at the time to Francoise Mocquard (see
Note 7, Vol. I, p. 57), hut it is prohahle that Lieutenant Auduhon had
reserved rooms which were occupied during his visits to the city while
his permanent home was at Coueron. In the power of attorney issued
by Jean Audubon, his wife, and Claude Francois Rozier, at Nantes, April
4, 1806, the senior Audubon gave his residence as "rue Rubens, No. 39.

17 Presumably a widow of one of the Coyrons Cor Coironds), mer-

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 87

she should annually pay to him, according to the act of July
15, 1788, as given by Domergue, notary at Les Cayes. You
will satisfy them with the state of the dwelling house in the
plain of Jacob, opposite He a Vaches.

This was sold by the said act to the said citizeness Fauveau
and to her late husband by the said constituents, to whom he
will report regularly on the state of affairs, at least twice in
the year. . . .

[Signed at Nantes] J. Royer [one of
the undersigned notaries]

Lieutenant Jean Audubon died at Nantes,18 when on
a visit to that city, on February 19, 1818, at the age of
seventy-four, "regretted most deservedly," said his son,
"on account of his simplicity, truth, and perfect sense
of honesty"; "his manners," he continues, "were those of
a most polished gentleman . . . and his natural under-

chants at Nantes, whose business interests in Santo Domingo were en-
trusted to Jean Audubon's hands in 1783 (see Chapter III, p. 38).

"The following extract from the registry of deaths at Nantes, which
is here given in translation, indicates that Lieutenant Audubon passed
away suddenly, since his death did not occur in his own apartments (for
original see Appendix I, Document No. 19):

"In the year 1818, on the 19th day of February, at eleven o'clock
in the morning, in the presence of the undersigned, deputies and officers
of the civil service, delegates of Monsieur the Mayor of Nantes, have
appeared the Messrs. Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, gentleman of leisure,
son-in-law of the deceased, residing hereafter at Coueron, and Francis
Guillet, grocer, living on the Quai de la Fosse, of legal age, who have
certified in our presence that on this day, at six o'clock in the morning,
Jean Audubon, retired ship-captain, pensioner of the State, born at Les
Sables d'Olonne, department of La Vendee, husband of Anne Moinet,
died in the house of Mlie. Berthier, in the Chaussee de le Madeleine, No.
24, 4th Canton.

"The witnesses have signed with us the present act, after it was
read to them. The deceased was 74 years of age."

[ Gabriel Loyex du Puigaudeau,
"Signed in the register: -j Guillet, and Joseph de la

[ Tullaye, deputy."

The Audubons and Du Puigaudeaus were probably buried in one of
the large cemeteries at Nantes, since no trace of their graves has been
found at Coueron by M. Lavigne.

88 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

standing had been carefully improved both by observa-
tion and by self education." Jean Audubon's means in
France had been reduced partly by bad debts, for he
seems to have been generous in lending money to his
friends; Madame Audubon found herself greatly ham-
pered by lack of ready money, although, as her son-
in-law remarked, her hands were full of notes.

When Jean Audubon applied for nomination to the
naval service of the Republic in 1793, we find a descrip-
tion of his previous life and habits recorded as a part
of the information required by the Committee of Pub-
lic Safety. The commune of Nantes at that time gave
a flattering testimonial to his patriotism, in which he
was described as an officer of merit, who had acquired
through long experience at sea an extensive knowledge
of navigation, who was a man of honor, and devoid of
any inclination to vice or gambling ; his nautical experi-
ence had been chiefly gained in American waters, the
voyages of his choice being those to Santo Domingo and
the United States.

At the age of forty-eight the elder Audubon thus
briefly described himself : short in stature, measuring five
feet, five inches; face, oval; eyes, blue; nose and mouth,
large; eyebrows, auburn; hair and beard turned gray.
Contrary to the naturalist's expressed belief, there seems
to have been little or no physical resemblance between
father and son. At a corresponding age, John James
Audubon, according partly to his own account, stood
five feet, ten inches in stockings; his hair was dark
brown; he had sunken, hazel eyes, flecked with brown,
and of remarkable brightness; while his clean-cut profile
showed an aquiline nose. "In temper," said the son, to
continue the comparison, "we much resembled each other,
being warm, irascible, and at times violent, but it was

LIEUT. AUDUBON, REVOLUTIONIST 89

like the blast of a hurricane, dreadful for a time, when
calm almost instantly returned."

Though passionate at times, Jean Audubon was a
man of force and decision, as his career amply shows.
If he does not loom large in the history of his time or
was but little known beyond the limits of his province,
it must be remembered that the time called forth thou-
sands of the ablest men of his nation.

CHAPTER VI

SCHOOL DAYS IN FRANCE

Molding of Audubon's character — Factor of environment — Turning failure
into success — An indulgent stepmother — The truant — His love of
nature — Early drawings and discipline — Experience at Rochefort —
Baptized in the Roman Catholic Church.

It is now commonly believed that of the three great
factors which mold character — environment, training
and heritage, the last is the most important, since it alone
is predetermined and unalterable. Environment may
be uncertain or unsuitable, training defective or de-
ferred, but blood is the one possession of which the
child cannot be robbed; and since it sets the limits to
possibility, in no small degree must it determine the ac-
quisitions and accomplishments of a lifetime. This,
however, is not the whole truth. Race may account for
much, but it does not account for everything; the child
is effectually robbed whenever it is not permitted to
realize to the full upon its inheritance. To be able to
convert possibilities into actualities it must receive fit
training and right incentives, and if at critical times the
proper spur is wanting, its patrimony may be sadly
wasted. The "good environment" for the youth, too
often thought to be the soft conditions of an easy life,
is in truth that only which provides the proper and
necessary stimulus. This may be now fear or pride, now
hard necessity or bitter want ; again, an awakened sense
of responsibility or ambition to excel may be induced

90

SCHOOL DAYS IN FRANCE 91

by concrete examples and fostered, as it often is, by
lofty purposes and the uplift of a high ideal.

Audubon's life affords a striking proof of the power
which environment can exert in awakening dormant
capacity, in developing talents to their full and calling
into use every force held in reserve. When we consider
what his life work finally became, and what he eventu-
ally accomplished in a field for which he had no train-
ing, except in drawing, we find it easier to wonder
at the man than to criticize him. With a formal school-
ing in France of the slenderest sort, in which the writ-
ing of his own language was never completely mastered,
at eighteen he came to America and adopted a new
tongue, which he first heard from the Quakers. Twenty
years more were to elapse before he had a definite plan, —
during which his environment was mainly that of a
trader and storekeeper in the backwoods, never remote
from the white man's frontier, hardly the soil one would
seek for the development of budding talents in art, lit-
erature or science. Failure in trade was one of the
spurs which started Audubon on his ultimate career,
for it led to the immediate development of the talents
which he possessed ; the encouragement which he received
from his wife was undoubtedly another. When he final-
ly emerged, like a somewhat wild but well ripened fruit,
at the age of forty, rich in experience, ready to absorb
what from lack of earlier motives or opportunities he
had failed to acquire, and with the determination to
succeed, he won recognition as much through his person-
ality and enthusiasm as by his extraordinary versatility
and talents.

In an early sketch of his life Audubon said that his
father had given both him and his sister an education
appropriate to his purse; his teachers were possessed of

92 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

agreeable talents, and he might have stored up much
had not the continental wars in which France was then
engaged forced him from school at an early age, when,
much against his will, he entered the navy as midship-
man, at Rochefort. This naval experience terminated,
as he then recorded, in 1802, during the short peace
between England and France; he was then seventeen
years of age.1 This was the year following his father's
retirement, and the year previous to his first independent
visit to the United States.

More details of this early period were given later,
when the naturalist spoke with great affection of his
foster mother, to whom his education had been mainly
entrusted. "Let no one speak of her as my step-moth-
er," said he; "I was ever to her as a son of her own flesh
and blood, and she was to me a true mother." His every
idle wish was gratified, he tells us, and his every whim
indulged, in accordance with the notion that fine clothes
and full pockets were all that were needed to make the
gentleman: "She hid my faults, boasted to every one
of my youthful merits, and, worse than all, said frequent-
ly in my presence, that I was the handsomest boy in
France."

If Madame Audubon broke the prevailing tradition
and bjr going to the other extreme did her best to spoil
this affectionate boy, some allowance must be made for
parental over-indulgence. In 1793, when the future
naturalist was eight years old, the public buildings of

1 Audubon said that he was at the time fourteen years old, which
could not have been the case, but when writing in 1835 he placed this
experience at shortly before his return to America, which would have
been in the winter of 1805-6; "I underwent," to quote this later account,
"a mockery of an examination, and was received as a midshipman in the
navy, went to Rochefort, was placed on board a man-of-war, and ran a
short cruise. On my return, my father had in some way obtained pass-
ports for Rozier and me, and we sailed for New York."

SCHOOL DAYS IN FRANCE 93

his city had been converted into prisons and its streets
were both unsanitary and unsafe, while in the following
year, as we have seen, a mortal plague began to rob
the prisons and the guillotine. Many had lost their all
in the tempest that swept over them; many more had
fled, and public schooling at Nantes must have been at a
stand or disorganized for a considerable period.

Young Audubon could not have tasted much school-
ing before the outbreak of the Revolution, when he was
seven years old, and but little after it, since this dis-
cipline practically terminated in 1802. His passionate
love of nature, which was undoubtedly innate, was mani-
fested at an early day. Living things of every descrip-
tion which he found by the banks of the Loire or along
the stonewalls and hedgerows of Coueron gave him the
greatest pleasure, but birds were his early favorites.
These he soon began to depict with pencil and crayon,
but to the dryer discipline of the school he ever turned
with laggard feet.

When the versatile Lord Avebury, who became one
of the greatest modern students of the powers of ants
and other social insects, was four years old, his mother
made this record in her diary: "His great delight is in
insects. Butterflies, Caterpillars or Beetles are great
treasures, and he is wTatching a large spider outside my
window most anxiously." The same boy at eight, when
writing home from school, added this postscript to a
letter: "I am a favorite with most of the boys because
I do not care about being laughed." The boy who has
a good inheritance, follows his own bent, and does "not
care about being laughed," may be on the road to success
and with talents may achieve distinction. John James
Audubon was one of those boys, although his path was
never strewn with the roses that many have imagined.

94 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The naturalist tells us that his father hoped that he
would follow in his footsteps, or else become an engineer,
and he saw that his son was instructed in the elements
of mathematics, geography, fencing and music. But as
Lieutenant Audubon was continually on the move, su-
pervision in those matters fell to the over-indulgent step-
mother, with the result that, instead of doing his duties
at school, young Audubon took to the fields. Every
night, he said, he would return with his lunch basket well
laden with the spoils of the day — birds' nests, eggs, and
curiosities of every sort destined for the museum into
which his room had already been transformed. He was
then in the "collecting stage," when that sense of pos-
session dominates the heart of the boy, which, if well
directed, can be turned to excellent account.

Lieutenant Audubon encouraged his son's taste for
natural history and for drawing, but did not regard such
accomplishments as a substitute for what he considered
more serious subjects. He himself had suffered too
much from lack of a formal education and was resolved
to give his children the best opportunities within their
reach. "Revolutions," he once remarked, according to
his son, "were not confined to society, but could also
take place in the lives of individuals," when they were all
"too apt to lose in one day the fortune they had before
possessed; but talents and knowledge, added to sound
mental training, assisted by honest industry," could
"never fail, nor be taken from any one when once the
possessor of such valuable means."

When the elder Audubon returned from one of his
periodic cruises, "my room," said the naturalist, "made
quite a show," and the father complimented him on his
good taste ; but upon being questioned in regard to the
progress made in his other studies, he could only hang his

SCHOOL DAYS IN FRANCE 95

head in silence. His sister Rosa, on the contrary, who
was also called to account, was warmly commended upon
the improvement shown in her musical exercises. The
next morning at dawn a carriage was drawn up before
the Audubon door, and with the father and son, together
with the latter's trunk and violin, was soon proceeding
in the direction of Rochefort. The sailor had laid his
plans and was about to execute them in his own way.
Presently, said the son, his father drew forth a book
and began to read, thus leaving him to his own resources.
In this way they traveled for a number of days, not an
unnecessary word being spoken during the entire jour-
ney, until the walls of Rochefort had been passed, and
they alighted at the door of the father's house in that
city. When they had entered, the naturalist continues,
"my father bade me sit by his side, and taking one of my
hands, calmly said to me: 'My beloved boy, thou art
now safe. I have brought thee here that I may be able
to pay constant attention to thy studies; thou shalt
have ample time for pleasures, but the remainder must
be employed with industry and care. This day is en-
tirely thine, and as I must attend to my duties, if thou
wishest to see the docks, the fine ships-of-war, and walk
around the wall, thou mayest accompany me.'

The youth accepted his father's proposal with good
grace, and was presented to the officers whom they met,
but he soon found that he was like a prisoner of war
on parade. He was enrolled at once in the military
school, where he was placed under the immediate care
of Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, his future brother-in-
law. It was not long, however, before young Audubon
gave his guardian the slip; he jumped from the window
of his prison and made for the gardens of the Marine
Secretariat, but a corporal, whom he had recognized as

96 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

a friend, suddenly nipped his plans in the bud ; he was
ordered, he said, aboard a pontoon, then lying in port,
and there was obliged to remain until his father, who
was absent at the time, finally released him, "not without
a severe reprimand." The following record, written
long after, is reminiscent of this period: "This day
twenty-one years since I was at Rochefort in France.
I spent most of the day at copying letters of my father
to the Minister of the Navy. . . . What has happened
to me since would fill a volume. . . . This day, January
first, 1821, I am on a keel boat going down to New
Orleans, the poorest man on it."

Audubon's stay at Rochefort, the date of which is
no doubt correctly given in the journal just quoted, was
lestined to be short. After a year he returned to Nantes,
and later to "La Gerbetiere," where as before he spent
all of his leisure in roaming the fields and looking for
birds, their nests, their eggs and their young. At about
this time, when fifteen years of age, Audubon began
to make a collection of his original drawings of French
birds, which was greatly extended in 1805 and 1806.

He has recorded that at the behest of his foster moth-
er, who was an ardent Catholic, he was confirmed in that
Church when "within a few months of being seventeen
years old"; he was surprised and indifferent, but "took
to the catechism, studied it and other matters pertaining
to the ceremony, and all was performed to her liking."
Since no record of this act has been found, it is probable
that the ceremony in question was confused with that
of his baptism, which, as we have noticed, occurred on
October 23, 1800, six months before he attained his
sixteenth birthday.

After having seen something of the character of Au-
dubon's early training in France, it will not be surpris-

SCHOOL DAYS IN FRANCE 97

ing to find that when, at the age of forty-five, he first
seriously began to write for publication and in English,
which was not his mother tongue, he found himself han-
dicapped in many ways. In after life he wrote that the
only school which he had ever attended was that of Ad-
versity, and that his tuition there had been of a pro-
longed and elaborate character. Though this statement
was made under the stress of present feeling, it was
not wholly devoid of truth.

CHAPTER VII

FIRST VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES, AND LIFE AT

"MILL GROVE"

Audubon is sent to the United States to learn English and enter trade —
Taken ill— Befriended by the Quakers— Settles at "Mill Grove" farm-
Its history and attractions — Studies of American birds begun — En-
gagement to Lucy Bakewell — Sports and festivities.

If there were ever a time when Lieutenant Audubon
wished to see his son following the victorious eagles of
Napoleon, whom he is said to have idolized, the hated
conscription of that day, which was robbing every home
in France of its best blood, might well have brought
counsels of prudence. Little could the father have
thought that by following other eagles of his own choice,
his son was destined to add a far greater luster to the
family name. Whatever may have turned the scale, in
1803 a decision was quickly reached, and the issue was
fortunate for the future of natural science in America;
it was decided that young Audubon should emigrate
at once to the United States, with what end in view we
shall soon see expressed in the sailor's own words. Ac-
cordingly, to his "intense and indescribable pleasure,"
the future naturalist, who had now passed his eighteenth
birthday, eagerly prepared for the journey, the first of
many that were later to become memorable in the annals
of American science. No record of this voyage has been
preserved, but from evidence derived from a variety of
sources we can fix the time as the autumn of 1803.1

1 Audubon, writing in 1820, described himself at this time as "a
young man of seventeen, sent to America to make money (for such

98

LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" 99

Audubon's introduction to the country of his adoption
proved most inauspicious, for, to follow his account,
when walking to Greenwich in Connecticut, some thirty
miles from New York, to cash the letter of credit that
his father had given him, he was seized with the yellow
fever.2 Fortunately at this critical moment his captain
came to his aid, and placed him in the care of two Quaker
ladies who kept a boarding house at Morristown in New
Jersey. To the faithful ministrations of these kindly
sisters the naturalist believed that he owed his life.

When Jean Audubon finally left the United States
not far from the beginning of 1790, he placed his busi-
ness interests in America in charge of an agent, named
Miers Fisher, "a rich and honest Quaker of Philadel-

was my father's wish), brought up in France in easy circumstances;"
but in the same journal he said that he did not reach Philadelphia until
three months after landing, and that "shortly after" his arrival at "Mill
Grove" the Bakewell family moved to "Fatland Ford." Mr. G. W. Bake-
well, the historian of his family, states that in the spring of 1804, William
Bakewell, Audubon's future father-in-law, with his son, Thomas, traveled
through Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland in search of a farm; they
purchased "Fatland Ford," which was then the property of James Vaux.
Audubon's account of the Pewee (Ornithological Biography, vol. ii, p. 124)
shows that he was at "Mill Grove" before April 10, when "the ground
was still partially covered with snow, and the air retained the piercing
chill of winter." If these various statements are correct, they would indi-
cate that Audubon left Nantes about the middle of November, 1803,
and that he finally reached "Mill Grove" not far from the end of
March, 1804. On the other hand, Mr. W. H. Wetherill, the present
owner of "Mill Grove," informs me that his records indicate that the
Bakewells occupied "Fatland Ford" in January, 1804. If this were the
case, young Audubon could not have left France later than August,
1803. Too much weight, however, should not be attached to such references
of a biographical character in Audubon's own writings; for in the account
referred to above Audubon said that after his first visit to the United
States he remained two years in France and returned to America "early
in August;" while we know that his sojourn in France lasted but little
more than a year and that he landed in New York on the 28th of May.
2 A plague of genuine yellow fever had visited New York in 1795,
but in 1804 and 1805 the city suffered from a malignant fever of another
type, and to such an extent that 27,000 persons, or one-third of the
entire population, are said to have fled to escape the pestilence. This
was possibly the malady which seized young Audubon not far from the
beginning of the former year.

100 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

phia," and to the hands of this trustworthy man he now
confided his son. Accordingly, when young Audubon
had been nursed back to health, word was sent to his
father's friend, who came in his carriage and drove the
lad to his own home in the outskirts of Philadelphia. To
follow the account which the naturalist gave, when writ-
ing of this visit a quarter of a century later, his host,
finding his charge to be a comely youth, and having a
daughter "of no mean appearance," proposed that he
should remain with them and become one of the family.
Audubon seems to have suspected that this was a pre-
meditated scheme to entangle him in marriage, and as
he had no liking for the severity of Quaker manners,
determined to make his escape. This, he said, was finally
accomplished by appealing to his own rights and to the
honest Quaker's sense of duty in seeing him established
on the estate which his father had designed for him.
Though effective for the time, as will presently appear,
this appeal was quite fanciful, for Jean Audubon's ideas
concerning the future of his son were of a more practical
character, and he had no intention at this time of estab-
lishing him at "Mill Grove," which was soon to be sold.
The friend to whom the following letter was addressed
is implored to aid in finding a good American family
in which his son could acquire the English language as
a step to entering trade:3

This will be handed to you by my son, to whom, I request
}rou will render every service in your power, wishing that you
slid, join Mr. Miers Fisher to procure him a good and healthy
place where he might learn english. I come to point out to

3 The rough draft of a letter in English, evidently written by Lieutenant
Audubon to be delivered by his son to the ship's captain, and probably
in duplicate to his agent, Miers Fisher, but bearing no name or date.
(Lavigne MSS.)

LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" 101

you Morristown, and look for a good and decent familly in that
place to recommend him to her as your own Son. This service
from you will deserve my everlasting gratitude. I am Sir, with
consideration.

Yr Mo ob Ser — .

Mr. Miers Fisher, who evidently received a copy of this
letter, no doubt considered his own family as good as
the best, and in detaining young Audubon at his home,
we must credit him with the desire of following the in-
structions thus received.

"Mill Grove," which was finally reached in the spring
of 1804,4 was a new-found paradise to the young natu-
ralist. Here, however, he was destined to spend but little
over a year, though it was doubtless the happiest year
of his life. The farm was then conducted by a Quaker,
named William Thomas, who was installed as tenant
with his wife and family. It was arranged, said Audu-
bon, that he should receive from them a quarterly allow-
ance in ready money, in a sum that "was considered
sufficient for the expenditure of a young gentleman." 5
Well might any youth fond of wild life in the country
have fallen in love with this secluded spot, the beauty
and charm of which are suddenly revealed to the visitor
of today as he approaches it from the old Philadelphia
road. Standing high on the rugged banks of the Perkio-
ming Creek, which empties into the Schuylkill River
just below this point, the old house, facing west, com-
mands a wide and diversified scene, extending from the
living waters below, over bottom lands of the valley, to
the dim, undulating lines of the Reading hills in the far-

4 See Note, Vol. I, p. 98.

6 The yearly rent of "Mill Grove" in 1804, according to the accounts
of Francis Dacosta, who had then acquired a half interest in it, amounted
to $353.34.

102 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ther distance. This old landmark G of Colonial times re-
mains today in perfect preservation, thanks to the never-
failing care and interest of the present owner,7 who has
done all in his power to maintain its historic associations,
and to keep the memory of the naturalist green in one
of the few spots in America where material landmarks
of his career have not been completely effaced. The
place has had an interesting history, and though Audu-
bon's occupancy was brief, it affected, as we shall see,
his whole after-life.

Audubon thought nothing of walking to and from
Philadelphia when no conveyance was at hand, but to-
day the railroad brings the traveler within a mile and
a half of his old farm. Not far to the south, beyond
the present railway station of Protectory, lies Valley
Forge and the wooded hills where Washington's ragged
veterans passed in log huts the ever memorable winter of
1777-8. Audubon fancied that his father had made the
acquaintance of General Washington at that date, but
this was eleven years before the place had come into the
possession of his family, and at that time Captain Audu-

6 "Mill Grove" farm is in Montgomery County, twenty-four miles
northwest of Philadelphia, in the town known, after 1823, as Shannonville,
hut in 1899 rechristened "Audubon;" Norristown is five miles to the east.

7 Mr. William H. Wetherill of Philadelphia, whose hospitality I have
enjoyed and to whom I am indebted for many interesting facts and
records pertaining to "Mill Grove." Samuel Wetherill, Mr. W. H.
Wetherill's grandfather, was one of the first to bring "black rock," or coal,
from Pleading to Philadelphia. Samuel Wetherill, Junior, who is said to
have started the first woolen mill in the country and to have produced the
first white lead made in the United States, purchased "Mill Grove" for
the sake of its minerals in 1813, the war having put a stop to all importa-
tions from England at that time. He actually succeeded in extracting se:
eral hundred tons of lead from the "Mill Grove" mines, doing better, it is
thought, than any who preceded or followed him. Samuel Wetherill, Junior,
died in 1829, and was succeeded in the lead and drugs industry by his four
sons, of whom Samuel Price Wetherill became the owner of "Mill Grove"
in 1833. The farm remained in the hands of the Wetherill family until 1876,
and returned to them again, when the present owner came into possession,
in 1892.

"mill grove" in 1835, showing the mills on the bank of perkiomi.nu

creek, the farmhouse, and the old smelting works (built by

samuel wetherill), then in disuse.

After a water-color painting by Charles Wetherill, son of Samuel Wetlierill,
and uncle of William H. Wetlierill, the present owner of the estate.

MILL GROV]

AS IT Al'l'EARS TO-DAY.

The above from photograph by, and this published bv courtesy of,

Mr. W. H. Wetherill.

LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" 103

bon was sailing the seas (see Chapter II, p. 32) . Equal-
ly fanciful also was the idea that his mother had once
lived there, which he expressed in a letter (quoted in full
in Chapter XXXIII) written from New York on Feb-
ruary 10, 1842, to young Spencer F. Baird, at Carlisle,
Pennsylvania. The naturalist was assuring his young
friend that the slow but beautiful "Little Carlisle" was
to be preferred to "Great New York, with all its hum-
bug, rascality, and immorality," and added: "It is now a
good long time since I was young, and resided near Nor-
ristown in Pennsvlvania. It was then and is now a very
indifferent place as compared with New York ; but still
my heart and my mind oftentime dwell in the pleasure
that I felt there, and it always reminds me that within
a few miles of that village, my Mother did live."

The soil of this farm region is of a dark red color,
owing to a friable shale which outcrops everywhere.
The high, wooded bank of the Perkioming abounds in
caves, scooped out by the hand of nature or man, as
well as in great pits and shafts, for deep down under its
shale, "Mill Grove" was rich in minerals, particularly
the sulphide of lead, associated with copper and zinc, to
reach which many excavations have been made. The
lead mines of this farm are said to have been famous
in Revolutionary times, and have been worked sporad-
ically for a hundred years ; if traditions are trustworthy,
many a winged bullet that laid a Red-coat low in the
War of Independence was a messenger from "Mill
Grove." In some of the old conveyances, which go
back to the time of Penn, the place was commonly desig-
nated as the "Mill Grove Mines Farm." It is recorded
that the original tract of two thousand acres, extending
from the Schuylkill to the Perkioming as far as the
mouth of Skippack Creek, was sold to Tobias Collett by

104 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

William Perm in 1699 for fifteen shillings. We shall
soon see that the mineral wealth which "Mill Grove"
was supposed to hide beneath its rugged slopes was a
source of no little trouble to the Audubons, the Roziers,
and their successors for many a year.

At the foot of the declivity towards the west, half
hidden by foliage, stood a picturesque stone mill, at a
point where a solid rampart had been thrown across the
stream to divert its power to the use of man. Hard by
was the miller's house, which antedates the mansion,
and which was built and first occupied by James Mor-
gan, who came into possession of the property in 1749.
It was this old mill site, originally distinct from the
farm, that gave the name to the place. Behind the
gristmill an extensive sawmill, built over the mill race,
was also in operation. Today the dam is broken
through, and the great mill wheel of wood and iron,
twelve feet in diameter and fifteen feet wide, has come
to rest after turning for more than a century.

Like the mill, the original house on the hilltop was
built of rough-hewn native stone, which is brown or
red and very hard. It consists of two stories, with cen-
tral hall, and a curiously divided attic with dormer win-
dows, which Audubon is said to have converted into a
museum. A marble slab in the south gable bears the
date of 1762; an addition of the same rough stone was
built on the north side, but at a considerably lower level,
in 1763, and the commemorative tablet in this instance
bears the initials "J. M.," proving that the construction
of the buildings of "Mill Grove" was due to the old
miller, James Morgan. The interior, with its odd chim-
ley-corner, low ceilings, bold fireplace and hand-wrought
iron-work, bears witness to a time when honest, substan-
tial construction and pride in workmanship received the

LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" 105

first consideration. The present owner of "Mill Grove"
has added attractive porches at the front and back.
Ampelopsis climbs over the walls, which are shaded by
handsome trees ; one of these, a fine black walnut at the
easterly porch, which in August bore its great green
balls in full clusters, must have been vigorous in Audu-
bon's day, and possibly suggested the introduction of
sprays of this full-fruited tree into some of his plates.

While on a visit from Santo Domingo in 1789, con-
cerned with his business interests, Captain Audubon
spent some time in Philadelphia. On March 28, 1789,
he purchased the "Mill Grove" property, at that time
consisting of 2841/> acres of land, mansion house, mill,
barns, furniture, tools and live stock, from Henry Au-
gustin Prevost 8 and his wife, for the sum of 2,300 Eng-
lish pounds, in gold and silver. He never lived there,
and that he never intended to make it his immediate resi-
dence is shown by the fact that in less than a fortnight
he leased the farm in its entirety, as already noticed, to
its former owner, and gave him a mortgage which stood
for seventeen years.9

8 In 1761 James Morgan, the first miller and builder, conveyed one-half
of the mill site of five acres to Roland Evans, who came into possession
of the other half, with the adjoining farm, in 1771; the property was
sold to Governor John Penn in 1776; it passed to Samuel C. Morris in
1784, and to the Prevosts in 1786.

9 The lease, which was drawn up in English, April 10, 1789, reads in
part as follows: "This indenture, made on the tenth Day of April in
the Year of our Lord, One thousand Seven hundred & Eighty nine, Be-
tween John Audubon, of the Island of St. Domingo, Gentleman, now
being in the City of Philadelphia, of the one party, and Augustine
Prevost. . . ." The lease included the messuages, grist mills, saw mills,
plantation and tract of land, which is described, tools, implements, stock,
and furniture of the mills and farm, and was drawn for one year; it
was signed in the presence of Miers Fisher, agent and attorney for Jean
Audubon.

In the inventory were included one windmill, one pair of scales, with
weights of 56, 28 and 7 pounds, "skreen," four bolting cloths, two hoisting-
tubs, and one large screw and circle for raising the millstones. This lease
was renewed in October, 1790, when Jean Audubon, who was then living

106 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Young Audubon lived at "Mill Grove" from the win-
ter of 1804 to the spring of 180.5, and again for a few
months in the summer of 1806, the year of its final sale
by the Audubons and Roziers (see p. 148). In his
journal of 1820 the naturalist wrote that his father had
once the honor of being presented to General Washing-
ton, and also to Major Crogan, of Kentucky, "who was
particularly well acquainted with him." Jean Audubon
left at "Mill Grove" oil portraits of himself and of
Washington, both by an inferior American artist named
Polk,10 and it is probable that the one of himself was
painted while he was at Philadelphia in the spring of
1 789 ; the drawing is hard and flat, but the appearance
of the face clearly indicates a man past middle life, and
Captain Audubon had then reached his forty-fifth year.

Young Audubon, we may be sure, lost no time in
exploring the resources of this fine estate, where every
bird, tree and flower came to him as a new discovery.
In following the Perkioming above the mill dam he
found a cave, carved out of the rocks, as he thought, by
nature's own hand, which was a favorite haunt of the
unpretentious but friendly pewees, the first American
birds to attract his serious attention. So delighted was
the youthful naturalist that he decided to make the pe-
wees' cave his study; thither accordingly he brought his
books, pencils and paper, and there made his first studies
of American bird life, in the spring of 1804, in the third

at Nantes, agreed to keep the house in good repair from that time onward.
It was the Prevost mortgage that Miers Fisher paid but forgot to cancel
(see Vol. I, p. 122) ; it was finally cleared up by Dacosta in October, 180G.

Miers Fisher's Philadelphia residence, called "Ury," which Audubon
often visited, was near Fox Chase, now in the Twenty-third Ward. See
Witmer Stone, Cassinia, No. xvii (Philadelphia, 1913).

10 For a photograph of this portrait of Lieutenant Audubon here repro-
duced, I am indebted to Miss Maria R. Audubon; the originals of both
portraits are now in possession of Audubon's granddaughter, Mrs. Morris
F. Tyler.

LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" 107

year of the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. It was
early in the season when Audubon chanced upon this
quiet retreat; the buds were swelling and maples had
already burst into bloom, but snow still lingered in
patches through the woods, and the air was piercing chill.
The pewees were not yet at home, but one of their nests,
fashioned of mud and finest moss, was fixed above the
vaulted entrance; their coming was not long delayed,
and Audubon, marking the very night or day's dawn
when the first pewee arrived, saw them beginning to re-
store their old home on the tenth of April.

Strange to say, almost at that very time another pio-
neer in American ornithology, Alexander Wilson, who
will enter this history later, was teaching a rough coun-
try school at Gray's Ferry, Kingsessing, also on the
Schuylkill, and not over twenty-five miles away.
Though Audubon's early studies were very desultory,
both naturalists began their observations at about the
same time, for on June 1, 1803, Wilson wrote to a
friend that many pursuits had engaged his attention
since leaving Scotland in 1794, and that then he was
"about to make a collection of all our finest birds."

It must be set down to Audubon's credit that in the
little cave on the banks of the Perkioming, in April,
1804, he made the first "banding" experiment on the
young of an American wild bird. Little could he or any
one else then have thought that one hundred years later
a Bird Banding Society would be formed in America to
repeat his test on a much wider scale, in order to gather
exact data upon the movements of individuals of all
migratory species in every part of the continent. After
a few trials, "I fixed," said he, "a light silver thread on
the leg of each, loose enough not to hurt the part, but
so fastened that no exertions of theirs could remove it."

108 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

In the following spring he had the satisfaction of catch-
ing several pewees on their nests farther up the creek,
and of "finding that two of them had a little ring on the
leg," proving that the young of a migratory bird, steer-
ing by the "compass" which is carried in its brain, did
sometimes return to its home region, if not to the actual
cradle or home site.

Across the Philadelphia road, which today leads to
the little railway station, and not more than a quarter
of a mile from Audubon's farmhouse, stood another but
more pretentious mansion of the Colonial era, called
"Fatland Ford," pertaining to an extensive farm of
that name which was noted for the fertility of its alluvial
acres. A road from the present village of Audubon to
the Schuylkill River and the ford runs through the "Fat-
lands of Egypt," as the most productive parts of this
old farm were then called. From the house could be seen
the camping grounds of the Revolutionary soldiers,
and James Vaux, its owner and builder, is said to have
entertained General Howe at breakfast and to have
shown him the room which General Washington, his
guest of the previous day, had left just in time to avoid
an introduction.

Shortly before Audubon reached "Mill Grove,"
William Bakewell, an Englishman who had emigrated
to New Haven in 1802, bought this farm, and with his
wife and family took possession in the winter or spring
of 1804.11 Of the six Bakewell children, the two eldest,
Lucy Green and Thomas Woodhouse, were but three
years younger than the naturalist. The senior Bake-
well, said Audubon, called at "Mill Grove" to pay his
respects, but being then from home/and having brought
with him a Frenchman's dislike for everything English,

11 See Note, Vol. I, p. 99.

LIFE AT "MILL GROVE" 109

he failed to respond. In the autumn, however, when
grouse had become plentiful in the woods, a chance
meeting brought them together, and young Audubon,
who was a great admirer of his neighbor's expert marks-
manship and well trained dogs, duly apologized for his
neglect and forthwith paid a visit to "Fatland Ford."

We shall let the naturalist tell in his own words of his
first meeting with the young woman who afterwards
became his wife:

Well do I recollect the morning, and may it please God that
I may never forget it, when for the first time I entered Mr.
Bakewell's dwelling. It happened that he was absent from
home, and I was shown into a parlor where only one young lady
was snugly seated at her work by the fire. She rose on my
entrance, offered me a seat, and assured me of the gratifica-
tion her father would feel on his return, which, she added, would
be in a few moments as she would despatch a servant for him.
Other ruddy cheeks and bright eyes made their transient ap-
pearance but, like spirits gay, soon vanished from my sight;
and there I sat, my gaze riveted, as it were, on the young girl
before me, who, half working, half talking, essayed to make
the time pleasant to me. Oh ! may God bless her ! It was she,
my dear sons, who afterward became my beloved wife, and your
mother.

When Mr. Bake well returned, his daughter, Lucy,
presided at the tea that was served, and Audubon re-
ceived his first experience of hospitality in the English
style, that was to be repeated in Britain at a later day
on a more lavish scale. A hunting expedition was ar-
ranged and the men started out at once. Festivities of
various sorts, and, later, skating parties, became the
order of the day, and it was not long before hospitali-
ties were exchanged, when Audubon, having secured,

110 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

with the aid of his tenant's son, as many partridge as
possible, had the whole Bakewell family to dinner under
his roof at "Mill Grove."

Audubon's choice of a wife, thus quickly made,
marked a turning-point in his career, and the curious
fact remains that while he might have ransacked the
country from Florida to Maine, as he afterwards re-
peatedly did in his search after birds, and woefully blun-
dered, the woman who by her sterling qualities of mind
and heart was the one to recognize and call forth the
best that was in him, should have been placed by circum-
stances close by his door. Whatever the world has
ever owed to Audubon is a debt due ta Lucy Bakewell,
for every leaf of oak that is plaited for his brow, another
of lavender should be twined for hers.

During this gay but brief period of his life, Audubon
has described himself as inordinately fond of dress, often
cutting, as he said, an absurd figure by shooting in
black satin breeches and silk stockings, and wearing the
best shirts which the Philadelphia market could afford ;
he took pride, he adds, in riding the best horse that he
could procure, and in having his guns and fishing tackle
of the most expensive and ornate description. "Not a
ball," he said, "a skating match, a house or riding party
took place without me."

While freely acknowledging his follies at this time,
he was able to say that he was addicted to no vices. His
usual custom was to rise with the dawn, when his bird
studies would begin, in the early hours which are best
for this purpose. According to his own account, Audu-
bon was extremely abstemious in his youth, for he de-
clared that he had lived on fruits, vegetables and milk,
with only an occasional indulgence in game and fish, and
that he had not swallowed a single glass of wine or

"mill grove" farmhouse, west front, facing perkioming creek.

"FATLAXD FORD," THE GIRLHOOD HOME OF LUCY BAKEWELL AUDUliOX.

This and the above after photographs of August 16, 1914.

LIFE AT "MILL GKOVE" 111

spirits until his wedding day. This was the more re-
markable in a youth coming from a country which flowed
with good wine, where school children are still served
with watered wine for lunch, and where the cooks, as
Goldsmith believed, could concoct seven different dishes
out of a nettle-top, and who, if they had enough
butcher's meat (a want that has since been abundantly
supplied), would be the best purveyors in the world.
Audubon attributed his iron constitution to this simple
regimen, which had been followed, he said, from his
earliest recollection, though he admitted that while in
France it was extremely annoying to all about him;
for this reason he would not dine out when his peculiar
habits were likely to be the subject of unpleasant com-
ment. To follow this account of himself:

Pies, puddings, eggs, milk and cream, was all I cared for
in the way of food, and many a time I have robbed my ten-
ant's wife, Mrs. Thomas, of the cream intended to make butter
for the Philadelphia market. . . . All this time I was as fair
and rosy as a girl, though as strong, indeed stronger than most
young men . . . and why have I thought a thousand times,
should I not have kept to that delicious mode of living, and why
should not mankind in general be more abstemious than man-
kind is ? 12

William Gifford Bakewell, a younger brother of
Lucy, has left this interesting record of a visit paid to
"Mill Grove" in the summer of 1806:

Audubon took me to his house where he and his companion,
Rozier, resided, with Mrs. Thomas, for an attendant. On en-
tering his room, I was astonished and delighted to find that it
was turned into a museum. The walls were festooned with all

12 For this and the preceding quotation, see Maria R. Audubon, Audubon
and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i, pp. 18 and 27.

112 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

kinds of birds' eggs, carefully blown out and strung on a
thread. The chimney-piece was covered with stuffed squirrels,
racoons, and opossums ; and the shelves around were likewise
crowded with specimens, among which were fishes, frogs, snakes,
lizards, and other reptiles. Besides these stuffed varieties,
many paintings were arrayed on the walls, chiefly of birds.
He had great skill in stuffing and preserving animals of all
sorts. He had also a trick in training dogs with great per-
fection, of which art his famous dog, Zephyr, was a wonder-
ful example. He was an admirable marksman, an expert swim-
mer, a clever rider, possessed of great activity, prodigious
strength, and was notable for the elegance of his figure and
the beauty of his features, and he aided nature by a careful at-
tendance to his dress. Besides other accomplishments he was
musical, a good fencer, danced well, and had some acquain-
tance with legerdemain tricks, worked in hair, and could plait
willow baskets.

CHAPTER VIII

DACOSTA AND THE "MILL GROVE" MINE

Advent of a new agent at "Mill Grove" — Daeosta becomes guardian to
young Audubon and exploits a neglected lead mine on the farm —
Correspondence of Lieutenant Audubon and Daeosta — Quarrel with
Daeosta — Audubon's return to France.

If young Audubon was playing the role of a prodigal
son at the "Mill Grove" farm, which in a certain sense
was doubtless true, an episode soon occurred which put
a check to his carefree existence. Not long after the
naturalist had arrived, William Thomas, the tenant,
called his attention to the lead-ore deposits, which he
thought had been discovered by a Mr. Gilpin in 1791,
and the news of this prospect was promptly communi-
cated to the elder Audubon in France. Though the
presence of this mineral at "Mill Grove" had been
known, as we have seen, at a much earlier day, its redis-
covery excited great interest, and may have been a factor
of influence in the steps which were soon to be taken. It
should be noticed, however, that before May, 1803, a
young Frenchman from Nantes, bearing the Portuguese
name of Francis Daeosta, had preceded young Audubon
to "Mill Grove," and apparently had acquired at that
time a certain interest in the farm.1 Daeosta soon suc-

1 In Dacosta's final statement of his account, which was disputed, car-
ried into court, and eventually settled by arbitration at Philadelphia, on
August 1, 1807, these items occur: "Omitted, $300.00, paid by Francis
Daeosta to Miers Fisher, on May 24, 1803;" and "Ditto $176.67, the pro-
portion of Francis Daeosta in the rent of the first year, which has not
been paid to him." (See Appendix I, Document 11a; MSS. in possession
of Mr. Welton A. Rozier.)

113

114 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ceeded Miers Fisher as Jean Audubon's agent, and
becoming enthusiastic over the lead mine, was anxious to
exploit it. Acting also upon the senior Audubon's re-
quest, he assumed a sort of guardianship over the son.
Dacosta began to dig for ore in the following year.
News of his enterprise spread rapidly, and this long
neglected mine was heralded in the newspapers as "one
of the first discoveries yet made in the United States."2
On December 15, 1804, Dacosta purchased a one-half
undivided interest in "Mill Grove,"3 giving, as we be-
lieve, a mortgage, and hoping to pay for his share out
of the profits of the lead mine. Thereafter for about
two years he continued to conduct the farm and develop
the mine, upon the basis of a one-half interest, in addi-

It seems probable that Dacosta was sent to this country by Lieutenant
Audubon to act as his agent for the disposition of "Mill Grove,'' and to
succeed Miers Fisher in the conduct of his business affairs. Interest in
the neglected and forgotten mine may have diverted them from their
original plans.

2 The following notice, copied from Relf's Gazette, appeared in the
New York Herald for Saturday, November 17, 1804:

"The lead mine discovered on Perkiomen creek, in Montgomery county,
Pennsylvania, the property of Francis Dacosta, has been lately opened, and
attended with great success. The vein proves to be a regular one, and
of long continuance. Its course is N.N.E.; its direction is nearly per-
pendicular, and its thickness from one foot to 15 inches. Two tons of
that beautiful ore were raised in a few hours, and one ton more at
least was left in the bottom on the pit, which is yet but nine feet deep.
From the situation of this mine, its nearness to navigation and market,
its very commanding height, its richness in metal, and the large scale it
forms on; it is thought by judges to be one of the first discoveries yet
made in the U. S.

"From the analysis made of 100 parts, it contains:

Oxyd of lead 85

Oxyd of iron 1

Sulphuric acid 13

Water 1

100
"The lead being coupelled, has proved to contain 2y2 oz. fine silver to

100, which is nearly 3 dollars worth of that metal."

3 For the sum of 31,000 francs, cr $6,200, a slight advance on the cost

to Jean Audubon, when he had taken over the farm fifteen years before

(see Vol. I, p. 105).

DACOSTA AND THE MINE 115

tion to a small salary.4 In case the mine proved a suc-
cess, it was understood that young Audubon was to
be taken into the business and thus obtain a means of
self-support.

Dacosta was at first averse to forming a company, but
the Quaker tenant, William Thomas, who caught the
fever, and who was thought to possess more knowledge
of the mine than he was ready to divulge, seems to
have been taken conditionally into the partnership. Da-
costa made full reports of his progress to the old sailor
at Coueron, who came regularly to Nantes to send back
to America his well considered answers and candid ad-
vice. Dacosta also called persistently for money, but
as Lieutenant Audubon was unable to meet these de-
mands, he applied to his friend Francois Rozier, a
wealthy merchant at Nantes, to supply the needed capi-
tal. Rozier invested 16,000 francs, and to complicate
matters took a mortgage upon one-half of the value of
"Mill Grove," in which the earlier proprietor, John
Augustin Prevost, as well as Francis Dacosta, was also
interested. Jean Audubon, Dacosta and Rozier thus
became partners in an enterprise which seems to have
swallowed up all of the money which was advanced and
never to have made any substantial returns.

The eventual failure of the lead mine must be at-
tributed in part to the high cost of materials, as Avell
as to the expense involved in uncovering the ore, a
difficulty which all later exploiters seem to have found
insuperable. Dacosta also discovered that the manage-

4 The following item appears in Daeosta's final account: "To com-
pensation claimed by Francis Dacosta for making up half of his expenses,
in managing the mining works, the mill-repairs, and taking up the forma-
tion of a company during two years of constant cares, troubles, and
loss of time, at 300 dollars a yeir — $C00 00." (From statement of dis-
puted claim; see Note, Vol. I, p. 1G8.)

116 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

merit of his youthful charge was quite as difficult as
making a success of the mine. His grievances on this
score were duly reported at Coueron, and if he was
really trying to carry out the instructions which came
from France, it was perhaps no wonder that he received
the undisguised contempt of his rebellious pupil. How
just the naturalist's charges against his hated tutor
may have been, will be considered in the sequel, but
Lieutenant Audubon's letters,5 to be given presently at
length, clearly show that in spite of the strained rela-
tions which later ensued, Dacosta continued to enjoy his
confidence for some time after young Audubon's return
to France in 1805. The more serious troubles that fol-
lowed seem to have arisen from entanglements into
which all were later drawn.

In the first two letters to be given, but the third and
fourth of the series, Jean Audubon refers particularly
to "Mill Grove" and the prospective mine, and to the
proposed marriage of his son to Lucy Bakewell, con-
cerning which he was reluctant to give his consent for
reasons which he specifies at length; his sanction was
in fact withheld until the young man was on the road to
self-support two years later.

Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta

[Nantes, 1804-5]

I told you to sell to W. Thomas the portion on the other
side . . . but your letter of the 27th of September with that

5 For copies of a part of the Audubon-Dacosta correspondence, which
is perhaps half of what exists but all that it was possible to obtain, I
am indebted to Monsieur Lavigne. The first letter, the present copy of
which is incomplete, was evidently written in the winter of 1804-5.
Lieutenant Audubon, who at this time was sixty-one years old, was living
at Coueron, but came to Nantes to conduct his correspondence. All
the letters were carefully transcribed in a separate copybook, and are
here translated as literally as possible from the French.

DACOSTA AND THE MINE 117

of Mr. Miers Fisher, who is not in favor of it, has made me
change my mind in the meantime. If your plan succeeds, as I
wish it may, this part of the farm would become almost in-
dispensable for exploitation [of the mine]. Moreover, has not
Mr. W. Thomas intentions, which we do not know? Might it
not be possible that in this very same part he had made more
valuable discoveries than those which he has shown us? In
all these matters, however, I rely entirely on the wisdom of
Mr. Miers Fisher and of yourself, and I thank you for your
willingness to remain in charge of my affairs,6 by accepting
anew the power of attorney, which he sends me together with
the indenture to be signed by my wife and by myself in presence
of witnesses. But you ask that this should be done before the
mayor of Nantes, while we have been living, since you departed,
in the commune of Coueron; accordingly this will be taken be-
fore the mayor of that commune, and legalized by a prefect of
the department. That, I believe, will fulfil the same obliga-
tions, for should it be necessary for my wife to come to Nantes
in the weather that we are constantly having it might cause a
delay that would be prejudicial to us. Remember, my dear
Sir, I expect that if your plan succeeds, my son will find a
place in the works, which will enable him to provide for himself,
in order to spare me from expenses that I can, with difficulty,
support. Your first letters have almost persuaded me that this
so-called mine was of little or no account, but the arrange-
ment that you have made with W. Thomas is so important that
I do not doubt you made certain of the value of the object be-
fore deciding to grant him a recompense, which was to be
only in the thing itself. In this work we should then be making
a very great sacrifice, and it would be a loss. If, however,
you propose to forestall the payment of the sums that you owe,
I accept [the proposition] to be paid in Philadelphia; I will
reflect upon it, and will look into it. If I can arrange matters
for this [plan] with Mr. Dupuir, my next will be more explicit

" That is, after having become a part owner of the "Mill Grove"
property.

118 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

upon this subject. My son speaks to me about his marriage.
If you would have the kindness to inform me about his in-
tended, as well as about her parents, their manners, their con-
duct, their means, and why they are in that country, whether
it was in consequence of misfortune that they left Europe,
you will be doing me a signal service, and I beg you, moreover,
to oppose this marriage until I may give my consent to it.
Tell these good people that my son is not at all rich, and that
I can give him nothing if he marries in this condition.

Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta

Nantes, le 19 ventose, an IS 9 March, 1805
Mr. Dacosta, Philadelphia :

I have received at this very moment your duplicate of the
twelfth of November, and your letter of December fifth, which is
not so favorable for several reasons as the one preceding it, yet
this impels us to hope that your last tunnel will not be a de-
serter, and that the oxides of iron which are present will not
vanish upon further digging; this, at least, is my hope. You do
well to make every effort to obtain associates. If this does not
succeed, and if you should wish to work for our interests, I
should always approve of everything that you do, since you
have my confidence. In this case I believe . . . that you should
make the most urgent repairs, above all at the principal house,
before going there to live. As to Mr. W. Thomas, you do
well to keep him for yourself for every reason that you give
me, and I believe that he will not be stubborn about withdrawing
until he has, or has not, deserved his reward.

I am [vexed] Sir; one cannot be more vexed at the fact that
you should have reason to complain about the conduct of my
son, for the whole thing, when well considered, is due only to
bad advice, and lack of experience ; they have goaded his self-
esteem, and perhaps he has been immature enough to boast in
the house to which he goes, that this plantation should fall to
him, to him alone. You have every means to destroy this pre-
sumption; it is known at Philadelphia that you have the same

DACOSTA AND THE MINE 119

rights as I have, and that you are doing nothing but for our
mutual advantage. I am writing to him on this subject, for
he does not speak of it to me, and I am giving him the rebuke
that his indiscretion deserves. Read this letter, and have the
kindness to seal it before delivering it to him. You tell me
that I can refer, in regard to his conduct, to the report that
Mr. Miers Fisher has given of it in his long letter of the month
of September; that, unhappily, I have not received, for Mr.
Fisher tells me nothing about him, neither what is good nor
bad. As to going to that country, this seems well nigh im-
possible ; to recall my son is not easier ; the reasons which made
me send him out [there] still remain. Only an instant is needed
to make him change from bad to good ; his extreme youth and
his petulance are his only faults, and if you have the goodness
to give him the indispensable, he will soon feel the necessity of
making friends with you, and he can be of great service if you
use him for your own benefit.

It is necessary then, my dear Sir, that we endeavor, by
gentleness, to reclaim him to his duty. If you are indulgent
with him, it will be I who should be under every obligation to
you. I hoj^e that the enclosed letter will work a change with
him. This is my only son, my heir, and I am old. When Mr.
Miers Fisher shall have shown my letter to the would-be father-
in-law, he will see that he is mistaken in his calculation upon
the assumed marriage of his daughter, for if it should take
place without my consent, all help on my part would cease
from that instant ; this, if you will have the kindness, is what
you may say to the would-be father-in-law, that I do not wish
my son to marry so young.

Your letters of the 28th of October and the 12th of No-
vember are in the country.7 I cannot reply categorically upon
their contents ; I will examine them, and will tell you in my
next what I think about them. Your family, which I have
seen, is well. Our ladies thank you for your kind remembrance.
I am. . . .

7 That is, at Coueron.

120 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

When the preceding letter was written young Audu-
bon was on his way to France, to protest, as he said,
against Dacosta's treatment of him. At the date of the
letter which follows, he was at Coueron, hunting birds
with Dr. d'Orbigny.

Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta

Nantes, 14 June, 1805
To Mr. Dacosta, Philadelphia :

I have received, at this very moment, your letter of the
8th of April. I have replied to your preceding by duplicate.
Like yourself I am greatly astonished that you should not have
received the contracts which I forwarded to you at once. I
have reserved copies of these papers, which I have literally
copied.

If I had the least idea that they would not reach you, and
that an accident had befallen the ship, I should forward them
in duplicate, but as this boat, at the time of its departure, was
long delayed by the embargoes as well as by bad weather, I
am persuaded that this is the sole cause, and that they will
have reached you since.

You are about to appeal to the supreme court to prove
your ownership; is there a living being who can contest it?
If our deeds, granted in France, have not their full force in
that country, nothing can annul them for us who are French.
You shall do in this matter what you like; the greatest objec-
tion is this, that it stops your operations ; but who is to blame?
It is due to distance, and not to any negligence.

You say that you will do nothing until you have these
documents ; if your intention is to work for our benefit, as you
say in your preceding, a company still being disagreeable [to
you], that ought not to stop you ; you have every power, [and]
time lost is irreparable. I am much annoyed at the delay that
this Mr. Miers Fisher causes you ; as you say, he is an honest
man, but negligent, and this in consequence of his age, and
absorption in his great business.

DACOSTA AND THE MINE 121

We now return to Mr. David Ross,8 who in his letter tells
a pack of lies. At the close of 1789 I presented myself at his
house with the power of attorney of Mr. Formon,9 when we
settled the business of the "Count of Artois," and the "An-
nette."10 There never has been, as he said, any dissolution of
the partnership between Mr. Formon and myself. I settled the
accounts at that time both with him and with Samuel Plais-
ance concerning these vessels, with the exception of a residue
of three thousand francs which are due me from Mr. Edward,
their associate, who died at London. When I asked him for
his certificates, he gave me for excuse that they were at the
iron factory above Richmond, and that he had given Mr. For-
mon a private obligation that he would be very glad to have
an exchange for the certificates. This affair has rested there
ever since, and according to his letter Mr. Formon has taken
out seven thousand, four hundred dollars, which exceeds his
share by 1,650 dollars. If the estate of Mr. Formon is not
without resources, it is to his heirs that you must apply for
this overdraft, and get from Mr. David Ross all that you can,
for with such people one cannot rely upon getting anything
except with iron hooks.

The son-in-law of Mr. Formon doubtless will have found
among his papers all that constitutes the legal basis of my
portion; his certificates, his letter of attorney prove it, and
this is a title, and I believe that I have proofs by accounts
current. I salute you.

8 This name appears as "Rost" in all the letters.

9 Member of the firm of Audubon, Lacroix, Formon & Jacques, en-
gaged in the Santo Domingo trade (see Chapter II, p. 33). In these
letters the name usually appears as "Formont."

10 Vessels in which Jean Audubon was personally interested, and upon
which he endeavored in vain to collect the money and interest due him
(see Vol. I, p. 34). In a document in English, dated [Les Cayes] April 9,
1782, concerning the Annette, of which Jean Audubon was captain and
part owner, and signed by him and David Ross & Company, it is stated
this vessel was bound for Nantes with a cargo of tobacco, in the purchase
and sale of which Captain Audubon was under orders of Mr. Ezekiel Ed-
wards of Nantes.

122 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta

Nantes, 22 June, 1805
To Mr. Dacosta:

I have just received your letter of April 23, and hasten to
reply to it, in order to prove to you that not one of yours
has been neglected, which could be readily seen by my copy-
book. I am not surprised that at this time you have not re-
ceived your papers, because they cannot have left before the
10th or 15th of last March, having been held up by the em-
bargoes and the bad weather, as you will see by the date of
the letters which accompany them.

They were entrusted to the son-in-law of Mr. Paulin, and
if the ship arrives safely as I trust it will, you have now re-
ceived them.

What negligence on the part of Mr. Miers Fisher! In
truth it is unpardonable, to let the mortgages stand after
having paid them!11 Will you then, I pray, clear this up for
the sake of our mutual peace of mind? You speak of repairs
to the house,12 it needs a complete cover; would it not be better
for me to send some slate from here? This would perhaps be
less expensive, and well nigh everlasting. Should you consider
it advisable I will send you some at once.

I beg you not to neglect the affair of David Ross ; if you
can collect this sum, you will use it for our needs. I am
annoyed that all these mishaps prevent you from working;13
be well persuaded that it is no fault of mine, and that I am
guilty of no negligence.

You speak of my going to that country ; if such had been
my intention I should have done it long ago. I am still

II This was probably the mortgage which Jean Audubon gave to
Prevost when "Mill Grove" was purchased in 1789, for in Dacosta's final
account for 1806-1807 this item occurs under October 15, 1806: "To the
recorder in Norristown for entering satisfaction of John Audubon mortgage
to John Augustin Prevost . . . $2.83."

12 The principal house at "Mill Grove," which Dacosta was preparing
to occupy.

13 Owing to the delay in receiving his legal papers from France, Dacosta
had threatened to carry his case to the courts, and had stopped work
at the mine.

DACOSTA AND THE MINE 123

troubled with an inflammation of the lungs ; and one ought not
to be ill in a foreign country, where he does not receive the care
that he enjoys in his own home. You ask me to bring you
money. . . . You know better than anyone else what was my
[financial] position when I sold to you; by that alone you must
know how difficult this would be for me. It is necessary to man-
age so that our object suffices us [or so that the mine pays its
way], and if we cannot work on a grand scale, we must needs
do the best with our affairs on a lower plane; for that I de-
pend on you. I salute you.

P. S. When you shall have my papers from Mr. Miers Fisher,
you will find a promissory note of Mr. Samuel Plaisance of
Richmond, for the business of the widow Ross. If there
were justice there this sum would be paid to me with the
costs.

The foregoing letters show that Dacosta had been
asked to oppose the proposed marriage of the younger
Audubon to Lucy Bakewell until consent should be
given ; that he was calling for more money to exploit the
lead mine and was urging Lieutenant Audubon to come
to America; and that their relations were becoming
strained, Dacosta, to prove his title to a one-half inter-
est in the mine and farm, having threatened to take
his case to the courts.

This mining experiment was spread over many years.
Before turning to the sequel (see Chapter XI), let us
glance at the picture which the naturalist has left of his
unsympathetic tutor. "Dacosta," he said, "was intend-
ed to teach me mineralogy and mining engineering, but
in fact" he "knew nothing of either; besides which he
was a covetous wretch, who did all he could to ruin
my father, and indeed swindled us both to a large
amount. I had to go to France to expose him to my

124 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

father to get rid of him, which I fortunately accom-
plished at sight of my kind parent. A greater scoundrel
than Dacosta never probably existed, but peace be with
his soul." In one respect only, said Audubon, did he
receive any sympathy from his guardian: Dacosta com-
mended his drawings of birds. "One morning," Audu-
bon relates, "when I was drawing a figure of the Ardea
herodias [the great blue heron] , he assured me that the
time might come when I should be a great American nat-
uralist"; however curious it might appear, he adds, that
praise "from the lips of such a man should affect me, I
assure you that they had great weight with me and I felt
a certain degree of pride in these words even then."

To follow Audubon's story further, not only did Da-
costa take control of his finances, but he interfered with
his personal liberty, first by objecting to his proposed
marriage to Lucy Bakewell, and then by cutting off his
stipend when he rebelled.14 Audubon, being thorough-
ly aroused, determined to return to France and lay
the case before his father in person. With this end in
view he walked to Philadelphia, whither Dacosta had
gone, to demand the money necessary to take him to
Nantes. He was given, as he says, what purported to
be a letter of credit to a Mr. Kauman, an agent and
banker in New York. Returning with his letter to
"Mill Grove," he then started on foot for New York,
where he arrived on the evening of the third day. While
there he stayed at the house of Mrs. Palmer,15 "a lady of

14 In the light of the preceding letters, Dacosta would appear in these
respects to have been only attempting to carry out his instructions.

"Probably Sarah White Palmer, Benjamin Bakewell's sister-in-law,
and widow of the Rev. John Palmer, who at one time was associated
with Joseph Priestley in editing the Theological Repository, an organ of
the Unitarians. Her son-in-law, Thomas W. Pears, was later a partner in
Audubon's business ventures at Henderson, Kentucky. Her grave is in
the Bakewell burying plot at "Fatland Ford."

DACOSTA AND THE MINE 125

excellent qualities," who received him most kindly. Au-
dubon called promptly upon Benjamin Bakewell, for
whom he was the bearer of a letter from his brother, Wil-
liam Bakewell, of "Fatland Ford." Instead of an order
for money, Kauman's letter, he said, contained only the
advice that its bearer be "arrested and shipped to Can-
ton." Perplexed and bewildered beyond endurance,
Audubon said that for the first time he felt the call of
murder in his blood, and his outraged feelings were not
assuaged until his landlady, to whom he had opened his
heart, and Mr. Bakewell, had come to his aid. Having
secured from this gentleman the necessary funds, he
bought a passage in the ship Hope, which was then
about to sail direct for Nantes.

Thanks to an old cash account of William Bakewell,
we can follow Audubon's movements at this time fairly
closely. This record 16 extends from January 4, 1805, to
April 9, 1810, during which time he advanced money to
his future son-in-law and received credits due him from
various sources. He did the same for the young part-
ners when an association in business had been formed
between Audubon and Rozier, and acted as their agent
or attorney after the sale of their farm and their settle-
ment in the West; as will be seen he aided Audubon
very substantially later when money was needed at
Louisville and for the more ambitious projects at Hen-
derson, in which his son was also interested. This par-
ticular record shows that he supplied Audubon with
small sums of money on January 4 and 12, 1805, just
before his departure from "Mill Grove," and that on the
eighteenth of the same month he paid his brother, Ben-
jamin Bakewell of New York, $150 on the young man's
account. This was undoubtedly the passage money

16 See Appendix I, Document No. 7.

126 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

which Audubon had borrowed from his friend, and as
the ship was then ready to sail, the date of his voyage
on the Hope is very closely fixed.

After his vessel had passed Sandy Hook and was
opposite New Bedford, the captain, in order, as he
averred, to make necessary repairs, ran her into that
port, where they passed a week. This was thought to
be only a ruse on the captain's part to gain time, for,
having recently married, he wanted a holiday on shore ;
accordingly he had ordered a few holes bored below
the waterline in the bows of his ship. When they finally
put to sea in earnest, they passed "through an im-
mensity of dead fish floating on the surface of the wa-
ter," a remark which now recalls stories of the famous
tilefish, once thought to be extinct, which have been
found floating dead in vast numbers in that part of the
Atlantic. After nineteen days out the Hope entered
the Loire and anchored at Paimbceuf, the lower harbor
of Nantes; this was in February, and not far from the
eighteenth of that month.

CHAPTER IX

AUDUBON'S LAST VISIT TO HIS HOME IN FRANCE

Life at Coueron — Friendship of D'Orbigny — Drawings of French birds — ■
D'Orbigny's troubles — Marriage of Rosa Audubon — The Du Puigau-
deaus — Partnership with Ferdinand Rozier — Their Articles of Asso-
ciation— They sail from Nantes, are overhauled by British privateers,
but land safely at New York— Settle at "Mill Grove."

Reaching his home at Coueron in the spring of
1805, Audubon took his parents completely by surprise.
He found his father, then in his sixty-first year, still
"hale and hearty," and his "cliere maman as fair and
good as ever." It was a time of momentous events in
France; Napoleon had placed the crown upon his head
but a few months before; defeat and victory followed
in rapid succession. But this did not prevent the young
naturalist from spending a year in "the lap of comfort"
at Nantes and in the quiet villa of "La Gerbetiere,"
where as usual he hunted birds and collected objects of
natural history of every sort.

At this time also Audubon formed a friendship with
a young man after his own heart, Dr. Charles Marie
d'Orbigny, who "with his young wife and infant-son"
was then living near his home. "The doctor," he said,
"was a good fisherman, a good hunter, and fond of all
objects in nature. Together we searched the woods,
the fields and the banks of the Loire, procuring every
bird we could, and I made drawings of every one of
them — very bad, to be sure, but still they were of
assistance to me." *

nMaria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
p. 39.

127

128 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Charles d'Orbigny, who was Audubon's most inti-
mate early friend and in all probability his father in
natural history, was always spoken of in terms of great
affection. While at Paris in October, 1829, Audubon
learned from the naturalist Lesson that D'Orbigny was
then in charge of the museum at La Rochelle and that
"his son, Charles, then twenty-one," whom "he had held
in his arms many times," was in the city; on October 8
he wrote in his journal: "this morning I had great
pleasure in meeting my godson, Charles d'Orbigny.
Oh! what past times were brought to my mind."

In later life the elder D'Orbigny seems to have fallen
on evil times. He appeared as a debtor to Lieutenant
Audubon's estate, and the cordial relations that had
long existed between the two families were broken ; this
is shown only too plainly by the following sharp letter 3
written by Gabriel du Puigaudeau and addressed to the
doctor, on August 3, 1819, when the family had become
reduced in means:

Gabriel du Puigaudeau to Charles M. d'Orbigny

Your letter of the twenty-fifth of January reached me in
due time. I am grieved to see that you are annoyed because

2Dr d'Orbigny had three sons, all of whom were born in Coueron:
Alcide Charles Victor in 1802, Gaston Edouard in 1805, and Charles in
1806: the youngest and eldest became distinguished naturalists bo tar
as known, Audubon was godfather only to the second, Gaston Edouard,
who according to the records of the Catholic church at Coueron was
born on the 3d day of the present [month], the issue of the legitimate
marriage of Mr. Charles Marie d'Orbigny, doctor of medicine, and of
Anna Pepart," was christened on August 20, 1805, in the presence of the
godfather, John James Audubon, the godmother, Rosa Audubon, the
father and mother, together with the "undersigned" (Extracted by Monsieur
Lavigne). D'Orbigny appears as a witness to the powers of attorney
which Jean Audubon and his wife issued jointly to their son and to
Ferdinand Rozier at Coueron in 1805 (see Appendix I, Document No. 8)
and on November 20, 1806 (see Vol. I, p. 153).

"For copies of this and the following letters, which are here trans-
lated from the French, I am indebted to Monsieur Lavigne.

^/&z/~~^U. x A-gp.

s<f f3 S P

r'

-.->/>.

«*C«-,?&j, _

J)yf*~

EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWINGS OF FBENCH BIRDS: ABOVE, "LE FRIQUET MALE DE
BUFFON. THE SEDGE SPARROW. NO. 13. NEAR NANTZ, 1805. J. J. A.";

BELOW, "i.E ROSSIGNOL DE MURAILLES DE BUFFON THE REDSTART.

NO. 50. NEAR NANTZ, AUGUST, 1S05. J. L. F. A."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

LAST VISIT TO COUERON 129

I addressed you through the voice of the mayor of the town
in which you live, since I had not the honor of knowing the
mayor any more than the enmity which may exist between you ;
I was in duty bound to find out where you were ; I heard it said
that Esnaudes was your home and I wrote you more than a
year ago ; when I received no reply, the supposition was that
I must have been misinformed. I wrote to the mayor of
Esnaudes and he had the kindness to reply that you were prac-
ticing in his commune. I am writing to you under this cover,
persuaded that my last will not have the same fate as my first,
which surely had not reached you.

As to the claim that Madame Audubon has upon you, the
different credits which you mention are assuredly more than
enough to pay the amount, but with forfeitures ; unfortunately
there are many creditors who do nothing but this ; Madame
Audubon gets nothing, and finds herself in straightened cir-
cumstances, although her hands are full of notes. You say
that your creditors can claim only thirty-five hundred francs.
I have certain knowledge to the contrary, since already the
mortgages on your house reach nearly three thousand francs,
while Madame Audubon is your creditor in the sum of at least
sixteen hundred francs. I wish in business to be frank, and
to have others so with me. You say that you owe rather those
who have supplied you with food ; you are unwilling then to
recall that the sums that the late Mr. Audubon lent you re-
peatedly were for the same purpose. You tell us to be patient,
and who have been more patient than we for the past four
years ? You speak of reduction of interest ; indeed it is im-
possible that you should have thought of this, or that we should
be content with what you should be so good as to give us, and
that when you deem it convenient, without our being able to
file a protest. I leave you to reflect on what we must think of
this matter, and I beg you to see in my manner of writing to
you the interpretation that I have given to what you write
yourself.

Madame Audubon does not think that she should exact at
once the capital in addition to the interest, but she charges

130 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

me to say to you that, having a right at least to the interest
accrued, she begs you to have that money paid to her with the
least possible delay.

The following letter concerning D'Orbigny's affairs
was also written by Gabriel du Puigaudeau to J. Cornet
of Esnaudes, on June 26, 1819:

Gabriel du Puigaudeau to J. Cornet

Your honored [letter] of the sixteenth was duly received.
It is impossible to be more grateful to you than I am for the
information that you have been kind enough to give me about
Mile. Bouffard4 as well as about M. Delouche. I will use it to
my profit. As to the question that you put to me concerning
M. d'Orbigny, I have the honor to tell you that he has lived
in the commune of Vue in this department, and was highly
esteemed and regretted when he left to come here. He lived
here fifteen years without any one having cause to reproach
him in any way. He has always been very well regarded and
received by the best society here, and he carried from Vue the
regrets of all. He left us to take part in a manufactory of
soda, established at Noismoutiers, in the department of La
Vendee.

I have had no news of him since. As to his pecuniary re-
sources, I know him to have but one. His wife had a house,
at Paimboeuf in this department, which was sold three years
ago to satisfy the holders of mortgages. This is all that I can
tell you about them; he owes my mother-in-law about fifteen
hundred francs (money received at different times from my
late father-in-law), for which we have his notes, but God only
knows when we shall be paid.

As early as the autumn of 1805, if not before, plans
were laid for getting young Audubon again safely out
of France, for fear, no doubt, that the remorseless con-

4 A daughter of Catharine Bouffard, regarding whom see Vol. I, p. 56.

LAST VISIT TO COUERON 131

scription officers of Napoleon would send him to the
war if he remained. At that time Lieutenant Audubon
and his wife issued jointly to their son and to Ferdinand
Rozier a power of attorney for the conduct of their
business affairs in America. Parts only of this punc-
tilious document, which was written in French, have
been preserved,5 and these through the translation of a
"notary public and sworn interpreter of foreign lan-
guages for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, resi-
dent in Philadelphia." The names of the grantors, who
signed this letter on October 21, 1805, were attested
under the signature and seal of the mayor of Coueron;
this official upon the same day declared that, in con-
formity with the rigorous requirements of the laws of
the State of Pennsylvania, since "no other act, not even
a notarial instrument, can in any manner supply the
same," he had examined Anne Moynet Audubon apart,
when she admitted that she perfectly understood the
nature of the act, which she had "signed, sealed, and
delivered of her own free will and accord, without being
compelled thereto by her husband, either by threats, or
by any other means of compulsion whatsoever." The
mayor's signature was authenticated three days later
by the subprefect of Savenay, and the formality was
finally closed by the attestation of his signature by the
prefect, on the 27th of November.

It was during this last visit to his home in France
that Audubon's sister, Rosa,6 was married to Gabriel

5 See Appendix I, Document No. 8.

6 The civil ceremony of Rosa Audubon's marriage was performed
at the mayor's office in Coueron, on December 16, 1805 (le 26 frimaire, an
14), when the bride was in her eighteenth year; the contract had been
drawn on the 12th day of that month (le 22 frimaire, an 14) by notary
Martin Daviais, who was mayor of Coueron in the following year, and the
religious ceremony was conducted by the Bishop of Nantes. "The fol-
lowing have assisted," so reads in translation the Coueron record, "at

132 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Loyen du Puigaudeau, who was not, however, as the
naturalist has stated, either "the son of a fallen noble-
man" or his father's "secretary." Du Puigaudeau came
from a family of merchants in easy circumstances, and
for a long time lived the life of a country gentleman
of leisure — for a period at Port Launay, below Coueron,
and later, after Lieutenant Audubon's death, at his own
villa, "Les Tourterelles," in that commune, not far from
"La Gerbetiere." His father, though of a rich family,
was not a "gentleman," that is, a member of the aris-
tocracy, as the term was then used in France. Du
Puigaudeau was without any settled business, but his
revenues, upon which he depended, failed not long after
the death of his father-in-law. He and young Audubon
appear to have been good friends for many years, and
after the latter's return to America they corresponded
to as late as 1820, when for some reason their relations
were broken.

In the spring of 1806 Lieutenant Audubon arranged
a business partnership between his son and Ferdinand
Rozier, to endure for nine years, and also secured pass-
ports for both to enable them to emigrate immediately
to the United States. To the same hand can also be
traced their "Articles of Association," which were
drawn with the utmost care and designed to govern
them in all their future business relations in the New
World: these were signed by "Jean Audubon," and
"Ferdinand Rozier," at Nantes, on March 23, 1806.
Moreover, eight days before they embarked, a second
and more elaborate letter of attorney was issued to

the marriage, aforesaid, on the side of the groom, M. Andre Loyen du
Puigaudeau, his brother, and M. Honore Francois Guiraud, his brother-
in-law; by the side of the bride, her father, and M. Jean Audubon, her
brother, [and these have] undersigned, together with the bridegroom."
Audubon's signature reads "J. L. J. Audubon."

LAST VISIT TO COUERON 133

them jointly by the Lieutenant, his wife, and, in this
instance, the aged father of Ferdinand, under date of
April 4, 1806.7 According to the terms of this admira-
bly executed paper the partners were entitled to conduct
all the affairs of the grantors in reference to their prop-
erty in the United States to the best of their judgment
and ability; to carry on the "Mill Grove" farm, to the
extent of their part ownership in the estate, or to dis-
pose of this interest; "to exploit or cause to be exploited
the mine recently discovered on the said farm, to con-
sult in every important matter Mr. Miers Fisher, mer-
chant of Philadelphia, — as a common friend and good
counsellor, to keep all necessary books and registers,
and at the end of each year, or sooner, to strike a bal-
ance of the receipts and expenses of the said farm and
the exploitation of the mine, should there be reason
for it."

To secure at this time the necessary passports for
their young men no doubt taxed all the resources of
the elder Audubon; Rozier's, said the naturalist, was
written in Dutch, of which he did not understand a
single word, while his own letter stated that he was born
in New Orleans. These subterfuges worked so well
that the inspection officer, after reading Audubon's pa-
per, promptly offered him his congratulations, adding

7 For the full text of these two documents, which are so interest-
ing for our story, see Appendix I, Documents Nos. 9 and 10; and for
translations, Documents Nos. 9a and 10a. For the privilege of examining
and reproducing the first of these papers I am indebted to Mr. Charles A.
Rozier, of St. Louis, and for the second, as well as the power of attorney
of 1805 (see Document No. 8), referred to earlier, to Mr. Tom J. Rozier,
of Sainte Genevieve, Missouri. In the case of this second warrant it will be
noticed that the grantors signed only the minute which was filed with the
notaries, who, with the judge of the Court of the First Instance, affixed
their names to the document itself. No better illustration could be given
of the dignity which the French attach to the office of notary, to the honored
incumbents of which their private affairs are unreservedly entrusted, than
this elaborate judicial document.

134 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

that he would be only too glad to leave his unhappy
country under as favorable conditions. Audubon and
Rozier sailed from Nantes on Saturday, April 12, 1806,
on the ship Polly, Captain Sammis, but they did not
land in New York until Tuesday, May 28, after a
perilous voyage of nearly eight weeks. A fortnight had
been passed at sea when they sighted a suspicious look-
ing vessel which immediately gave chase, fired several
shots across their bows, and compelled the captain to
heave to and submit to being boarded and searched.
This proved to be an English privateer, named the

fO^fM^^^ yG>CT*U*S ~^0uL. J*4~>T. ^/^W-C '^^ Xw

RECEIPT GIVEN BY CAPTAIN S. SAMMIS OF THE

NAND ROZIER FOR THEIR PASSAGE MONEY FROM NANTES TO NEW YORK.

From the Tom J. Rozier MSS.

Rattlesnake. She was rather considerate for a British
cruiser of the period, for she merely impressed two of
their best seamen and robbed them of their provisions,
carrying off, said Audubon, all of their "pigs, sheep,
coffee and wine," 8 in spite of loud remonstrances of the
captain and of an American Congressman who hap-

8 In the register of the Central Committee of Nantes it is noted,
under date of October 4, 1793, that "owing to the friendly relations
then existing between France and the citizens of the United States, and
to the good feeling evinced by them in sending to us for food, four
American ships are accordingly permitted to leave the port of Nantes,
with cargoes of wine, sugar, and coffee, and also to take enough biscuit
for the voyage."

LAST VISIT TO COUERON 135

pened to be among the passengers. "The Rattle-
snake/' he continued, "kept us under her lee, and almost
within pistol-shot, for a day and a night, ransacking the
ship for money, of which we had a great store in the
run under the ballast which was partially removed, but
they did not go deep enough to reach the treasure. The
gold belonging to Rozier and myself I put away under
the ship's cable in the bow, where it remained until the
privateers had departed."

Upon reaching a point thirty miles off Sandy Hook,
they learned from a fishing smack that two British
frigates lay off the harbor and were impressing Ameri-
can seamen, that, in short, they were even more un-
welcome than pirates who sailed under letters of marque.
The captain, thus forewarned of one danger, had the
misfortune to run into another, for upon taking his
vessel into Long Island Sound, she encountered a storm
and was stranded in a gale ; no great harm was experi-
enced, however, for the vessel was finally floated off
and reached New York on the following day. The
passage money paid by Audubon and Rozier to Cap-
tain Sammis amounting to 525 livres, or $125,9 was en-
tered, according to their articles of agreement, as the
first item of their "social expenses." After a brief visit
with Benjamin Bakewell they hurried to "Mill Grove,"
and Audubon to the home of his sweetheart, Lucy.

9 The receipt which the captain handed the young men, and which the
methodical Rozier preserved, remains as a souvenir of this voyage (in the
Tom J. Rozier MSS); it reads as follows:

Recvd. from Mr. John Audubon &

ferdinand Rozier the sum of five Hundred
and twenty five Livers being in full for their
passage from Nantes to New York in the Ship

Polly S. Sammis

[In Rozier's (?) handwriting] New York May 28, 1806
[Indorsed by Rozier on back] Paye le 11 avril 1806

CHAPTER X

"LA GERBETIERE" OF YESTERDAY AND TODAY

Home of Audubon's youth at Coueron — Its situation on the Loire — His-
tory of the villa and commune — Changes of a century.

Before following further Audubon's history in
America, we shall return for a more intimate view of
the happy home which he had left behind him in France.
This was at Coueron, a small commune in the arron-
dissement of Saint-Nazaire, on the right bank of the
Loire, nine miles west of Nantes. Here, as we have
noticed, his father had acquired a country place at about
the outbreak of the Revolution. The old house still
stands, though in decay, and is still known as "La Ger-
betiere," a name possibly referring to the wheat which
is harvested from the surrounding fields as of yore. In
the records of that district country places are always
designated by their proper names, and it is a curious
fact that while such names survive, they are seldom or
never displayed on door or gate.

In a journal written before 1826, Audubon says:
"My father's beautiful country seat, situated within
sight of the Loire, about mid-distance between Nantes
and the sea, I found quite delightful to my taste, not-
withstanding the frightful cruelties I had witnessed in
that vicinity not many years previously. The gardens,
greenhouses, and all appertaining to it appeared to me
of a superior cast." Though it was occupied for many
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"LA GERBETIERE" 137

of the city, Lieutenant Audubon made "La Gerbetiere"
his permanent abode only when he retired from the navy
in 1801, still maintaining, as we have seen, a foothold
in Nantes.

Upon Audubon's first return from the United States
in the spring of 1805, he said that his vessel entered the
mouth of the Loire and anchored off Paimboeuf, the
lower harbor of Nantes. "On sending my name to the
principal officer of the customs," the narrative continues,
"he came on board, and afterwards sent me to my fa-
ther's villa, La Gerbetiere, in his barge and with his
own men." It is to be noticed, incidentally, that as the
distance to be covered between the lower and upper
harbors was twenty-five miles, or sixteen miles to
Coueron, such journeys no doubt were made upon the
arrival of incoming vessels for the regular business of
the service.

It has been suggested, without proof, that Coueron
represents the ancient town of Corbilo, mentioned by
Strabo at the beginning of our era. Though unques-
tionably ancient, at the time of the Revolution it was a
small and unimportant parish of poor but industrious
farmers. It occupies rolling ground, but little raised
above the Loire, to the east of Port Launay and nearly
opposite Pellerin. As this commune was easily acces-
sible by river-barge from Nantes, the revolutionists
seem to have thought it worth watching, though Citizen
Audubon found its people in a tranquil mood when he
canvassed their district in behalf of the Central Com-
mittee in April, 1793. Coueron is still a farming com-
munity, but its population ' has been considerably

1 The total population of Coueron, as given in the official directory
for 1913, was 2,035, but the total working population is probably three
times as great.

138 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

swelled in recent years by the development of a large
industry for the treatment of lead; it is the shot tower
and forest of chimneys of these great metallurgical
works that arrest the eye of the traveler as he approaches
Coueron by river at the present day. The town is also
accessible by railroad, but the steamer journey from
Nantes, which is made in less than an hour, is more
attractive as well as more direct. In this section the
Loire is flanked on either side by bottom lands, reduced
in places to narrow strips, which are followed at inter-
vals by elevations called, by courtesy, hills or buttes. To
the west of Coueron, and especially at Pellerin, which
stands high, these buttes come close to the river, which
is eating them away.

My visit to Coueron, which was made on a warm
midsummer's day in 1913, served to correct certain pre-
vious impressions, but I found the old Audubon home-
stead in its essential aspects but little changed, consid-
ering that over a century had rolled by since the nat-
uralist's visit which we have just described. After leav-
ing Nantes at the Gare de la Bourse by one of those
quaint little trains which still do service in the less trav-
eled parts of France, we traversed the broad Quai with
requisite deliberation, passing shops, warehouses and
factories in long array. A slight swerve from the river
soon brought us to Chatenay, now a part of the city;
it is still some distance from that point before the real
countryside is reached, and scenes familiar to southern
Brittany are in a measure reproduced. There were the
old farmhouses of rough stone, dear to every painter's
heart, mellowed by age and lichens, and surrounded by
great ricks of straw, for the harvest had been gathered
and the stubble fields were brown. There also the farms
were divided into small plats, marked by willows or

"LA GERBETIERE" 139

ramparts of stone. On higher ground stood the wind-
mills, characteristic of Brittany also, — stalwart towers
of stone, with broad arms of latticed wood ever ready
to take the sails.

The small station for Coueron lies in the commune
of Sautron, and at this isolated point the traveler will
sometimes find a country conveyance to take him to the
village. While we were raising the dust from this old
Coueron pike on the eighteenth day of August, swallows
hawking with characteristic energy for their insect prey
were the only birds we saw to remind us of the orni-
thologist, who as a youth had doubtless passed this way
many times, over a hundred years before. The most
direct approach to the old Audubon place from Sautron,
as we afterwards learned, is by a path which diverges
on the right and leads through stubble fields and cab-
bage patches, along hedgerows and stone walls. We,
however, fared on to the town and soon began to pass
shops and small modern houses. On the side of the
village the traveler's eye is certain to be arrested by a
great crucifix in stone,2 which rises high above the street
from a lofty pedestal, and is approached by tiers of
stone steps. Nearly opposite stands the secretariat, or
official bureau of the commune, where a solitary clerk,
who seemed to welcome my intrusion in a place where
business was utterly stagnant, closed his office and with
characteristic courtesy cheerfully showed me the way.
This led directly westward to one side of the center of
the town, and after passing down a street of old houses

2 There is also the grand calvaire, which stands on an eminence in
the village. This was erected in 1825 on the foundations of the chateau
of the dukes of Brittany, the last of whom, Francis II, died at Coueron
in 1488. His tomb is in the nave of the cathedral at Nantes; the grand
calvaire was restored by two Coueron families in 1873, and is a very elabo-
rate structure.

140 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

of the humblest description, we were again in the region
of brown fields and old farmsteads.

Coueron village, which is marked by a modern
church with an aggressive spire, extends along the river
bank, but since its streets run parallel with it, the river
itself is seen only at certain openings, occurring at irreg-
ular intervals. In going to "La Gerbetiere" by the
course I have described, the Loire was not visible at any
point, and was not seen until we emerged from one of
the village streets at the steamer's pier. My guide had
said that from the rise at the next crossroads we should
see the roof of the house which we had come to visit, and
his prediction was verified when I recognized immedi-
ately its cupola raised above the gray stone walls which
there bound every highway and field. The old villa is
rather less than a mile from the village, but owing to the
rolling nature of the country, it is completely hidden
until at close approach it stands suddenly revealed. It
lies in a fork of the road, securely inclosed by high,
massive walls of stone, now hoary with age, while on
the front it is further screened by a natural growth of
bushes and trees. Immediately behind and to the west
rises a prominent butte which cuts off the view to Port
Launay on the river ; this forms the one distinctive land-
mark of the district, as its two windmill towers are vis-
ible from all surrounding points. In Audubon's day
the house commanded a wide view of the Loire, but the
river is now so completely masked by foliage as to be
visible only from the upper windows; apparently it
once flowed nearer to the house but has been pushed
away by the construction of modern dykes. The hill-
top to which I have just referred, like the roof of the
villa, commands a panorama of the whole region, in-
cluding Nantes and all the surrounding communes.

"LA GERBETIERE" 141

"La Gerbetiere" is now a small estate of less than
fifty ares, or one and a half acres, of land. The build-
ings, which form a quadrangle with enclosed court, oc-
cupy a corner next the side street, and stand about 200
feet back from the main highway leading from Coueron
to Port Launay. The extent of the original property
cannot now be determined, but Lieutenant Audubon,
who retired at the age of fifty-seven, was never a farmer
on a large scale. The original house, which probably
dates from early in the eighteenth century, has an east-
erly wing or L, continued into a long, low section
through which the court is now entered from the road at
the side ; this was probably added by Jean Audubon, but
the westerly end and wing are a more modern accretion,
built for the accommodation of additional tenants, as
many as three families having occupied the place in
1857.

"La Gerbetiere" was entered from the main street
by a small door which pierces the high enclosing wall,
and leads the visitor into what was formerly an orna-
mental garden, the original design of which can still be
traced. At the time of my visit, however, this entrance
had long ceased to be an avenue of response. Encour-
aged by the sight of a peddler's cart, I walked up the
side street and entered the court. Here the response
was prompt and vigorous enough, and from the guard-
ians of the place, one of which was chafing at his chain
close to the doorway. I crossed rather gingerly to an
open hallway, opposite the main entrance, and knocked
repeatedly, noting here that rooms opened to this small
entrance hall on either side, and that a steep stairway
led to others above. At last, during a temporary lull
in the barking of dogs, the "tok-tok" of sabots was
heard on the stairs, and I handed up my card with one

142 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

from the director of the Natural History Museum at
Nantes. After various messages had been shouted back
and forth, I was led through another passage to the
tenant, who was talking with the peddler in the garden.
Julien Lebreton, who was a farmer on a small scale,
received me kindly and answered my questions to the
best of his ability; it did not surprise me that he was
both puzzled and suspicious, or that his first thought was
of our coming to look over the place with a view to its
purchase.

The decayed villa, which stands in the midst of scat-
tered farmhouses of a humble order, reproduces a style
characteristic of many parts of France. The original
house, of two stories, was built of cream-colored lime-
stone, similar to that for which many French towns are
famous. It has a swelled slated roof with beveled
gables. Surmounting the roof is a cupola which sug-
gests a third story, carried out in harmony with the
lower structure. A narrow balcony, resting upon a
molding of stone and protected by an iron grill, with-
out which no such house would be considered complete,
runs the length of the second story, and is accessible
from every room by glass doors. From the main en-
trance below one passes directly through to the court,
about which are now grouped various stables and other
low buildings, not all of which date from Audubon's
day.

What was once a small formal garden is still marked
by solid boundaries of cut limestone. This was evi-
dently constructed by Jean Audubon, since it occupies
the area in front of the original house and the easterly
extension which is attributed to him. The remaining
available land was devoted to fruit, vegetables, and pos-
sibly to the greenhouses which the naturalist mentioned.

"LA GERBETIERe" AN1) COUEKON, AS SEEN FROM THE WINDMIU. TOWERS ON THE

RIDGE OVERLOOKING PORT LAUNAY, ON THE LOIRE.
'LA GERBETIERE," AS SEEN WHEN APPROACHED FROM COUERON VILLAGE BY THE

ROAD TO PORT LAUNAY.
PORT LAUNAY ON THE LOIRE.

"LA GERBETIERE" 143

At one time an orangery occupied some part of the
house or court. There are now no large trees on the
property; the fruits are all of recent and inferior
growth, while the garden I saw was planted to cabbage
and running riot with weeds.

When Jean and Madame Audubon passed through
the door leading from the main street, they entered upon
a paved alley which ran parallel with the high wall,
whence they could reach the house by any one of several
walks or enter the fruit garden by another. If so in-
clined, they could turn to the right, ascend a flight of
granite steps to a platform on a level with the top of
the wall, and under a shady bower of vines and leafy
shrubbery, look off on the racing waters of the Loire,
scrutinize their visitors before admitting them, or ob-
serve such manifestations of life as lonely country roads
of that period had to offer. As they passed up the cen-
tral garden walk they could admire the beds of old-
fashioned flowers, kept, we may be sure, in perfect
order, for Jean was a very methodical man, and his
wife, we believe, an excellent home maker. This walk
led to a low terrace, flanked with a heavy wall, which
ran the whole length of the house.

What little I saw of the interior of "La Gerbetiere"
was wholly devoid of interest, which agrees with the
experience of another traveler who visited Coueron at a
slightly earlier date;3 at the time of his visit the place
was unoccupied and forlorn, and the vegetation on the
garden side so dense that it was utterly impossible to
see any distance from the lower windows.

When "La Gerbetiere" came into Jean Audubon's

3 Mr. William Beer, who paid a visit to "La Gerbetiere" with Dr.
Louis Bureau in 1910, writes me that the woodwork was poor in quality,
and that all the rooms had been altered in size and appearance.

1U AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

possession it was already venerable with age, and it
was completely restored for him by an architect named
Lavigne.4 In an inventory drawn up shortly after
Madame Audubon's death in October, 1821, the prop-
erty of "La Gerbetiere" is described by reproducing the
account given in an early deed bearing date of Novem-
ber 11, 1769, which reads as follows:

A house called La Gerbetiere, situated near the port of
Launay, consisting of a sitting room, drawing room, kitchen,
upper chamber . . . garret, and other quarters serving as a
laundry, stable at the back, with pigeon loft above, court, par-
terre, vegetable garden to one side, an orangery with orange
trees, in the middle of the house, the whole in front of a close
surrounded by high walls except on the side of the setting sun,
with land belonging to the heirs of M. de la Haye Moricaud,
held mutually,5 the whole bounded on all other sides by high-
ways. Notice: The aforesaid house and parterre [stand] in
an empty field, which serves as a fair-ground, and is partly
planted with young trees in serial rows ; held in common with
the Marquis de la Musse, with another empty field containing
about two journals of land. . . .6

"La Gerbetiere," never more than an unpretentious
country house with an attractive garden, was idealized
in the fervent imagination of Audubon when in after
life he drew upon the memories of his youth in France ;
for it had meant to him escape from the city, which he
detested, to the fields and river which he loved. Yet,
in spite of the abuse which a long line of poor tenantry
inevitably entails, with intervals of total neglect last-

4 But not related to M. L. Lavigne, to whom I am indebted for ex-
tracts from the deed, a translation of which is given below, as well as
for many other references.

DThat is, the landlord to receive one-half the produce.

6 A "journal" of land being as much as a man could cultivate in a
day's labor.

"LA GERBETIERE" 145

ing for nearly a century, this decayed villa of pre-Revo-
lutionary days still stands in marked contrast to its
neighbors, and bears witness to a taste to which they
were strangers. The greenhouses, the fruit and shade
trees, if such it possessed, and all lesser adornments of
the place have vanished long ago, but thanks to the
durability of French stone and mortar, much about this
old country seat is still well preserved. Whether Audu-
bon ever saw his old Coueron home again after leaving
it in 1806 is doubtful, though one of his sons visited the
place, and the naturalist incidentally speaks of a pil-
grimage to Les Sables d'Olonne which might have oc-
curred in 1831 or a little later. In following the for-
tunes of the naturalist's family in France it will be nec-
essary for us to return to La Gerbetiere.7

7 See Chapter XVII.

CHAPTER XI

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS AT NEW YORK, AND
SEQUEL TO THE "MILL GROVE" MINE

Audubon and Rozier at "Mill Grove" — Their partnership rules — Attempts
to form a mining company lead to disappointment — Decision to sell
their remaining interests in "Mill Grove" to Dacosta — Division of the
property and legal entanglements — Audubon as a clerk in New York —
Business correspondence and letters to his father — Later history of
the lead mine and Dacosta — Audubon continues his drawings in New
York and works for Dr. Mitchell's Museum — Forsakes the counting
room for the fields — Personal sketch.

When Audubon and Rozier reached "Mill Grove"
at the beginning of the summer of 1806, they found
the troublesome Dacosta installed as its master by virtue
of his interest in the property and his former position
as agent, to which they were now to succeed. No doubt
they found difficulties in carrying out all the articles of
agreement 1 in their business constitution, for they were
to take possession and call Dacosta to account. They
were also in duty bound to investigate the lead mine
on the farm, and ascertain whether it promised any
success, and if the expenses already incurred were war-

1 For the privilege of examining Ferdinand Rozier's copy of their
"Articles of Association" I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Charles
A. Rozier, of Saint Louis. This is written on three sides of hand-made,
hand-ruled Government linen, small letter size, with printed revenue stamp
(50 centimes) of the French Republic at top, and stamped with the
seal of the Department of Registration and Stamps ("ADM. DES DOM.
DE L'ENREG. ET DU TIMBRE REP. FR A.— Administration des
domaines de l'e~iregistrement et du timbre, Republique Frangaise"). The
signature of "Jean Audubon" bears a close resemblance to that of the
father, Lieutenant Jean Audubon, who was undoubtedly the author of
the document. For the "Articles" in full, in French and English, see
Appendix I, Documents Nos. 9 and 9a.

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BEGIXXIXG OF THE "ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION" OF JOHX JA3rES AUDUBON AND
FERDINAND ROZIER, SIGNED AT NANTES, MARCH 23, 180G.

After the original manuscript of Rozier's copy, in possession of Mr. Charles

A. Rozier.

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 147

ranted, before committing themselves to further devel-
opment. One-half the product of the mine and farm
was to be equally divided between them, and in order
to visualize clearly their profit and loss, they agreed to
keep a "special book for the purpose." "On one side,"
their third "Article" read, "will be entered the items of
expense, day by day, and at the moment this is done,
on the other side [shall also be entered] the sales and
products of the farms, and of all that can result from
this business, in such a way that the profit shall be
always apparent by the addition of the items which
compose the debit and the credit."

The house at "Mill Grove" was to be treated as an
object separate from all business, "in order," so the
"Articles" read, "that we may settle matters as com-
pletely as we desire." It was also agreed, in the fourth
"Article," that they should "add to the expenses of
this exploitation those necessary for life, and others of
a mutual character, so long as it should suit them to
live and dwell together." It was further stipulated that
even if the mine proved a failure, they should remain
six months on the farm, in order to gather useful infor-
mation from the country, before embarking in any form
of commerce, whether inland or maritime. The cost of
their journey to America was to be entered as the first
item of their "social expenses," and any expenditure
for travel in their mutual interests was to be considered
under the same head. In case they should persuade any
merchants in America to send goods to M. Rozier,
Senior, at Nantes, he should be entitled to one-half the
profits, while the partners should divide the other half
between them. All other profits and losses resulting
from their commercial transactions were to be shared
equally. The partners resolved to maintain friendship

148 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and a mutual understanding, but "upon the least dif-
ficulty" each should choose one arbitrator, and the two
thus chosen were authorized to select a third; the part-
ners were bound to accept the decision thus reached
without appealing to any court. In the case of the
death of one of the associates, read the tenth "Article,"
the survivor should have sole charge of making a set-
tlement of the business and should report to the proper
heirs. The survivor, in such an event, would be enti-
tled to a commission of ten per cent [in addition to his
one-half interest], but in no case should the partnership
be dissolved "until after nine years, counting from the
day of the date of the present [instrument]." As will
be seen, Audubon and Rozier were unable to fulfill all
the conditions thus carefully laid down.

Young Audubon's dislike of Dacosta, the uncer-
tainty of the mining project, and other difficulties of
the situation soon decided the partners to cut short their
stay at "Mill Grove." Both were equally interested in
the lead mine, but after working several months with-
out success in an attempt to form a mining company,
they wisely decided to leave such experiments to the
enthusiastic Dacosta and to seek an opening in trade,
where the hazard would be no greater and their igno-
rance less profound. Following the advice of their
Quaker friend, Miers Fisher, they decided to sell to
Dacosta their remaining rights in "Mill Grove." As a
preliminary it was necessary to divide the property
which had been held in common by him and Lieutenant
Audubon since 1804, and this division was effected by
an agreement drawn up at Philadelphia on the fifth day
of September, 1806.2 Ten days later the remainder

2 Among the elder Rozier's papers was part of an old letterbook be-
longing to his son; it is written in French, and labeled "Correspondence
of Ferdinand Rozier." On one of the four sheets preserved this item

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 149

of "Mill Grove" was conveyed to Francis Dacosta, rep-
resenting a number of capitalists whom he had man-
aged to interest in the mine, of whom the astute
Stephen Girard is said to have been one. The sale
was subject to conditions,3 dependent upon their suc-
cess in mining lead, which, as will appear eventually,
could not have been fulfilled. These various transac-
tions are so clearly set forth by Ferdinand Rozier in
writing to his father at Nantes that we shall reproduce
his letter in full : 4

Ferdinand Rozier to Claude Francois Rozier

Philadelphia, 12 Sept., 1806
Duplicate.
My very dear and venerable father :

Still in hope of cherished news from you, and replies to
my letters of 31 May, 22 June, and 4 July, I have to tell }^ou
that we have since succeeded in closing all our business rela-
tions with Mr. Francis Dacosta, in the following manner: We
are anxious that our method of procedure may be satisfactory
to you ; we have followed the advice of Mr. Miers Fisher, and
have had his approval in all that we have done. What should
set you at rest is that as regards your investment, you will find

occurs: "4 July, 1806, Philadelphia; record of an agreement with Mr.
Dacosta, proprietor of one half of the Mill Grove farm, — at least of the
value of sale." The first entry is dated "19 fevrier— 1806, New York,"
which, if correct, would imply that Rozier spent two years instead of one
in the United States when he visited this country in 1804. (or came a second
time), and that he returned, with young Audubon, almost immediately after
reaching France (see Vol. I, p. 245); the last record is "August, 1807, New
York." (MS. in possession of Dr. Louis Bureau, Nantes.)

3 According to the records of Montgomery County, as collated for
Mr. W. H. Wetherill, the remaining half interest in "Mill Grove" was
sold by J. J. Audubon (and Ferdinand Rozier) to Francis Dacosta &
Company, for a consideration of $9,640.33. The business was conducted
mainly by Rozier, acting under the advice of their friend, Miers Fisher.

4 Translated from the French of Ferdinand's copy, in possession of
Mr. Welton A. Rozier, to whom I am indebted for the privilege of repro-
ducing it.

150 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

that I have made quite a neat profit. Here is a copy of the
agreement.

"It is agreed between Mr. Dacosta and Mr. J. Audubon
that the farm of "Mill Grove," which they now hold in
common, shall be divided between them as follows :

"1. Mr. Dacosta shall have the lot of 113 and a half
acres, situated on the N.E. side of Perkioming creek, with
all the buildings, mines, et cet., and in general all that it
contains.

"2. Mr. Audubon shall have the lot of 171 acres, situ-
ated on the other side of the creek.

"3. Mr. Dacosta shall pay to Mr. Audubon for the
difference [in value] of the lot of 113V2 acres, and of that
which it contains :

"1. The sum of eight hundred dollars, payable
with interest, in three years from this day ;

"2. The sum of four thousand dollars, upon the
first products of the lead mine.
"4. The contract made with Mr. Thomas shall remain
to the charge of the two parties.

"Note. Mr. Duponceau is begged to draw up the neces-
sary deeds to put this agreement into execution, which
[deeds] we undertake mutually to exchange at the first
requisition."

"[Executed] at Philadelphia, this 5th of Sept, 1806."

[Signed] "Fcis Dacosta"
"Ferdinand Rozier"
"J. Audubon"

The futile attempt that we have made to form a company
[to work this mine], which is a condition [of success], the
slight resources at our command, as well as our lack of knowl-
edge in work of this kind, all have determined us to abandon
our rights for the offer of four thousand dollars5 upon the first
products that shall come from the mine. The expense that must

6 "Gourdes," that is, piasters or Spanish dollars.

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 151

be incurred in [working] it will be very heavy ; to this must be
added the uncertainty of success. The mine may promise much
at the beginning, and after that yield nothing. In short an
enterprise of this kind can be properly conducted only by a
capitalist or by a company. We have regarded this mine as a
lottery which can make the fortune of the promoter, or lead
him into great losses. As to the agreement with Mr. Wm.
Thomas, we do not consider it as very serious ; since it is quite
uncertain whether he will be paid in whole or in part, as he has
not kept his agreements. This is Mr. Dacosta's opinion. As
to our half we are decided not to let it go under eight thou-
sand dollars, which is its value as estimated by several farmers.
So you see, my dear papa, that our half [as worth] 8,000
dollars, at least, the sum of eight hundred dollars by mortgage,
with interest, and that of four thousand dollars upon the first
products from the mine, will cover easily the interest on the
purchase of sixteen thousand francs.

Since expenses are at least double what they would be in
France, owing to the cost of products of every sort, we are de-
termined to go into trade, to cover our expenses, and to choose
for ourselves some kind of serious work that can lead us to an
honorable establishment. You should be at ease about the
manner we shall adopt for our operations, as we wish only to
go slowly, and especially [to be] guided by the advice of the
respectable persons whose acquaintance we are so fortunate as
to enjoy, and who beyond a doubt will aid us along this thorny
path.

"By our letter of the 4th July we have sent the account
current of Mr. Dacosta, by which Mr. Audubon is charged with
315 dollars and 5 cents; we have begged you to send the docu-
mentary evidence which may put us in a position to prove that
Mr. Audubon ought not to pay Mr. Dacosta's private expenses,
as the matter is to be decided here by arbitrators. We beg Mr.
Audubon to use the utmost speed in sending his documents. It
is our ardent [hope] also that you have received our first
[letter] of May 31, with that of Mr. Bakewell, the merchant
in New York, with a remittance of 3,000 and a few francs for

152 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the purchase of divers objects. I assure you that we are in
the greatest anxiety [as to] what is the state of your health,6
as well as that of the family, and to learn if you have received
our letters. The nephew of Mr. Bakewcll writes us that his
uncle in New York has despatched several vessels consigned to
you, for which I congratulate you sincerely. We have also
received your letter of the 30th of June, but I cannot reply to
it, since the boat is leaving this evening for Amsterdam, but
you can count upon my conforming to its contents. Your per-
sonal letter grieved me particularly by your last expressions,
and I should wish that you would have done me more justict; I
can have made mistakes, but for . . . the idea alone has made
me shudder. I am delighted that all the family is enjoying
perfect health. Embrace dear Mama for me ; my kind regards
to my brother and sisters ; do not forget to remember me to all
the family, and to our friend, Mr. Audubon, the father, and
his family. Finally, my dear Papa, be assured that I shall
forget nothing to increase our intimacy. You give me the
means of supporting it with labor. Believe in my sincere and
enduring attachment.

Your respectful son,

Ferdinand Rozier.

We are eager to hear of the receipt of
our letters, and we beg you to ad-
dress them to Mr. Bakewell of New
York.

The inbred caution, sound sense, and sterling
integrity which this letter displays would be a good
foundation for any career, and we are not surprised
to find that in after life Ferdinand Rozier became a
keen and successful trader on the western frontier.

The division and sale of "Mill Grove" probably

6 Claude Francois Rozier, at this time an aged man, died at Nantes
on September 7, 180T; he had two sons and six daughters, of whom
Ferdinand was the second son and the fifth child; his wife, Renee
Angelique Colas, died at Nantes, February 9, 1824.

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AND FERDINAND ROZIER, NANTES, APRIL 4, 1806.

After the original manuscript of Ferdinand Rozier's copy, in possession of

Mr. Tom J. Rozier.

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FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 153

ended the joint interests of the elder Audubon and
Rozier, for in November, 1806, a new power of attor-
ney 7 was given to the young men by Lieutenant Audu-
bon and his wife; as later events will prove, however,
their rights in the property were not completely sur-
rendered with its transfer to Dacosta and his mining
company in the autumn of this year. The partners were
now free to "choose some kind of serious work," and
Ferdinand, who was then twenty-nine, was anxious to
make a beginning at once. Since he was not as yet
proficient in the English tongue, Rozier engaged as a
clerk in the French importing house of Laurence
Huron, of Philadelphia, while Audubon, following the
advice of his future father-in-law, entered the office of
the latter's brother, Benjamin Bakewell, in New York.
In the autumn of 1806 Benjamin Bakewell was
conducting a successful wholesale importing business at
175 Pearl Street. He then owned several vessels, and
his correspondents were scattered over England,
France, the West Indies and the Southern States.
With him were associated at this time a number of
young men, including his nephew, Thomas W. Bake-

7 This was issued, so the letter reads, to "their son, John Audubon,
and Ferdinand Rozier, both of the said city of Philadelphia, Gentlemen,"
by "John Audubon, late of the city of Philadelphia, in the common-
wealth of Pennsylvania, now residing in the commune of Coueron, near the
city of Nantes in France, Gentleman, and Anne Moynette, his wife," to
apply to all lands and other property belonging to them in the United
States, with the power to "raise or borrow money on the whole or any part
or parts of the said lands, tenements, or hereditaments, to secure the
repayment of said monies by bond, warrant of attorney, to contest judg-
ment of the mortgage of the said lands, tenements, or hereditaments, or
any part or parts thereof. . . ." Written in French and English; signed
by Jean Audubon, Anne Moynet, his wife, by Doctors Chapelain and C.
d'Orbigny as witnesses, by the mayor of Coueron, the prefect of the
arrondissement and the prefect of the department; countersigned on
December 4, 180G, by W. D. Patterson, of the "Commercial Agency of the
United States at Nantes." For the favor of examining this paper, I am
indebted to the kindness of Miss Maria R. Audubon.

154 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

well, Thomas Pears, a nephew of his wife, Thomas
Bakewell, his son, as well as John James Audubon.
The hospitable family to which young Audubon was
now admitted on terms of intimacy, in accordance with
the custom of the day, lived in the rear of the counting-
house during the winter months but in summer migrated
to the country, the Bakewells going five miles out on
the Bloomingdale Road. Benjamin Bakewell had
come to this country in 1794, in the same year as the
famous chemist, Joseph Priestley, whose friendship he
enjoyed and whose religious teachings had drawn both
him and his brother, William, from rigid Calvinism to
the greater tolerance of the Unitarian belief. At
twenty-four he was an independent mercer in Corn-
hill, London, and was well acquainted in France, where
he had spent considerable time during the Revolution,
which had destroyed his trade. One of his patrons at
this time was Claude Francois Rozier of Nantes, and
inasmuch as the correspondence with him had to be
conducted in French, and may possibly in this instance
have been due to young Audubon's initiative, it was
naturally intrusted to him.

Seven letters of the naturalist, dating from January
10, 1807, to July 19 of that year, by good fortune have
been preserved, and they throw into full light another
shaded corner of his interesting life. From the con-
tents of these letters,8 as well as from other facts, we

8 For the privilege of examining these letters I am indebted to the
courtesy of Dr. Louis Bureau, Director of the Museum of Natural His-
tory and Professor in the School of Medicine at Nantes, maternal great-
grandson of Francois, and grandnephew of Ferdinand Rozier. The letters
were found in an old trunk that once belonged to his grandfather, Francois
Denis Rozier. Five were written in French (Nos. 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7), and
addressed from New York to Francois Rozier at Nantes; one (No. 3)
in English and another (No. 5) in French were sent in care of Rozier,
to his father, John Audubon, Esq., Nantes, with the direction to be
delivered as soon as possible; all are on unruled foolscap, wafer-sealed

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 155

know that Audubon remained in Bakewell's office for
nearly a year, from the autumn of 1806 to the summer
of 1807. Bakewell's house imported linens, lace, gloves,
wines, firearms and any kind of merchandise that prom-
ised a ready and remunerative sale in New York; in
return they forwarded coffees, sugars and other com-
modities to Rozier, receiving from him also prices cur-
rent and introductions to other merchants in France.
Another correspondent was the Huron firm in Phila-
delphia, so it is probable that Ferdinand owed his em-
ployment there to Benjamin Bakewell.

While Audubon expressed himself at this time as
freely in English as in French, in the former language
the tendencies of his French tongue and the influence of
his Quaker friends were strangely blended. He never
bothered with accents, and took as many liberties with
the spelling of French as of English. Some of these
lapses are purely phonetic, while others are more orig-
inal, as "schacket" for "packet," "fither" for "Fisher";
two variations of Rozier's name and of Nantes occur
in the same letter. It should be remembered, however,
that at the beginning of the nineteenth century bad or
random spelling was a very venial offense, which gen-
tlemen of quality, or even scholars, could commit with
impunity. In this respect Audubon's early essays in
English would probably compare favorably with Gib-
bon's youthful French.

and each also bears an outside seal in wax, stamped with Bakewell's
initial (B). It is not possible to say whether Lieutenant Audubon ever
received these letters of his son; if received, it is not very obvious why
they should have been left in the old merchant's hands, unless his ill health
at the time, and subsequent death were the cause (see Note, Vol. I, p. 152).
I am further indebted to Mr. William Beer, for the perusal of his copies,
which have been followed to a large extent.

Since all of these early letters throw an interesting light upon the
times as well as upon Audubon's personal history, we shall give them in
full, rendering the French into English as literally as practicable.

156 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier

[Letter No. 1, addressed]

M. Fr. Rozier,

Merchant-Nantes.

New York, 10 January, 1807.

Dear Sir :

We have had the pleasure of receiving by the Penelope your
consignment of 20 pieces of linen cloth, for which we send our
thanks. As soon as we have sold them, we shall take great
pleasure in making our return.

I am truly sorry that you had not received any letters from
us when you wrote, and I am also very disconsolate at having
no news from my good father. You did us a most acceptable
service in making us acquainted with your friends in different
parts of France, and in offering to send us such goods as you
shall deem suitable. Upon the same proposals I sent you orders
several months ago, and did I dare, I should tell you that all
articles having much show and little value are the very things
that are a la mode, and these in one hundred per cent, [and]
I assure you that we should be very happy to receive some small
consignments. As soon as we shall have realized our funds,
we will make our orders, in accordance with our means. Mr.
Bakewell has made a great profit on the consignment that you
made him shortly after our arrival. We should be flattered by
another like it. Have the kindness to write us often, and to
send us prices current as far as possible. I hope that you
will have had our letters concerning a plan of business with
Mr. Huron. If you will have the kindness to see him,9 he can
communicate to you his ideas on the subject. His plan, I be-
lieve, will be advantageous both to you and to us.

Your son is just about to come from Philadelphia, to live
in New York until there is some news ; but we will write you
more at length by Capt. Sammis, who brought us to this coun-
try. I even venture to hope that you will send back some
merchandise for us. Have the kindness to forward us invoices,

9 This Philadelphia merchant was evidently in France and intend-
ing to visit Nantes at this time.

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 157

with the goods consigned to us, in order to avoid the penalty
and the expense of having them taken to a public warehouse,
[a proceeding] which is often a great disadvantage on ac-
count of the fees. Consign always to Mr. Benjamin Bakewell,
who treats us, so far as possible, as good friends.

Present my respects to your family, and believe me ever

your faithful servant,

J. J. Audubon.

John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier

[Letter No. 2, addressed]
Monsieur Fr. Rozier,
Negociant,
Nantes.

Loire Inferieure.

New York, April 2%, 1807.
My dear Sir:

I am profiting by a good opportunity for Bordeaux to
apprise you of the receipt of a duplicate of the orders that
you gave us several months ago. You will also know that the
wines, consigned to Mr. L. Huron, have arrived in this city
and the insurance has been saved. Your son has gone to the
spot [the dock in Philadelphia], and by one of his letters ad-
vised me that the 60 cases of wine are sold. He tells me that
you can count on a net profit of nearly 20 p. c. If it turns
out very good, the remainder will not fail to find a purchaser.
Mr. Le Ray has arrived and has brought with him a small
box of lace for Mr. Benjamin Bakewell here; it ought to arrive
in a few days from Philadelphia. Mr. B. B. appeared satisfied
with the sale of his squared timber ; he is anxious only to see
the returns ; he is unhappy that the commerce of your town with
this country cannot be regularly conducted except by Bor-
deaux, whence we have vessels every month. As our friend,
Ferdinand, will write you from Philadelphia concerning Mr.
Huron, I shall not enlarge about him. In several of your
letters you intimate that if we decide upon establishing a retail

158 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

shop, you can keep us constantly employed; our ideas upon
tills subject are in perfect accord, and it would be indeed a
pleasure if we could start under the auspices and good advice
of Mr. Bakewell here; objects well chosen, favorably bought,
and shipped with care, are always sure of meeting a good sale.
I venture to hope that the ship La Jeanne, Capt. Sammis, will
have arrived in your port, and that the Indigoes shipped by
Mr. Bakewell will reach there in time for che sale of this
merchandise, of which I have some fears, in view of the sum
they have cost him.

We thank you for the prices current that you have sent
us. In one of my last, directed by way of Bordeaux, I begged
you to call on Mr. Fleury Emery for a box of seeds, from
Martinique and from this country, for you and for my father.
This was aboard the ship, the Virginia, Capt. Roberts, from
this section. We hope shortly to send you some merchandise,
and possibly Mr. Bakewell will profit by an opportunity that
we shall have in a few days for your port. A little more than
three weeks ago I was at Mill Grove, and I rented it for a
year, being unable to do better for the present. Your son, now
in Philadelphia, is trying to settle the accounts of my father
with Mr. Dacotta [Dacosta], who does not easily forget the
role of chicaner. Present, I pray you, my respects and com-
pliments to your good family and wife, and believe in me as
your devoted and constant

servant,
J. J. Audubon.
Have the kindness to deliver the enclosed to my good father.

The following quaint and charming letter, which
young Audubon enclosed with the preceding and un-
der separate seal, but which his "good father" may not
have received, will be transcribed in full, without the
change of a letter or mark. Lieutenant Audubon, who
was then in his sixty-third year, was living, as we have
seen, at Coueron, the small river town nine miles west of

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 159

Nantes, the center of the mails for the Loire Inferieure,
and came frequently to that city to conduct his business
correspondence.

John James Audubon to Jean Audubon

[Letter No. 3, enclosed with No. 2, addressed]
John Audubon, Esq.,
Nantes.

pr Bourdeaux

New York April 24th 1807
My dear Father

I send thee by a good opportunity, but going to Bordeaux
I deed send about a month ago a small Box containing some
very curious seeds & some useful ones the whole was directed
to Mr. Fleury Emery it was given here to the Care of Capt. .
Roberts of the Virginia I do hope they are now in thy pos-
session thou have been so often disappointed that it always
pains me to think that they have been Miscarried: thou shalt
found some of the Best Whatter Missions and Girmonds Called
here St. Domingo Schachet 10 as in a few days I shall have
again a good opportunity for Nantz I will send thee a Dupli-
cate of the same Seeds, I have seen in the News Paper that a
ship called the Betzey had been in Nantz do make some En-
quiries for it there are on board of her Many Birds and a col-
lection of seeds from America for thee The Caps. . Mc Dougal ;
pray when thou answer to this be kind enough to mantion
these little things. I hope that the Jane Cap. . Sammis as
reached your Port and given thee some Turtle fit to be eaten in
soupe. Mr. L. Huron deed few days ago. Received some
Wines on a/c of M. Rozier and hits they prove goods11 and
will bring a good profit. Mr. F. Rozier the son speaks of
going to France some time this summer he is now near Mr.
Huron at Philadelphia and will try while he is there to settle
the Business between M. .Dacotta and thee M. .Rozier had

I »(

II «n

'Of the St. Domingo packet."

'Mr. L. Huron did, a few days ago, receive some wines on a/c of
M. Rozier, and hopes they prove good," etc.

160 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

shosen M. . Huron for arbitrator but I would not agree to it
until M. . Miers fither12 was to have part in it. I am now
waiting for an answer. I am allways in Mr. Benjamin Bake-
well's store where I work as much as I can and passes my days

3
happy; about thee weeks ago I went to Mill Grove for a/c of
the latter and had the pleasure of seeing there my Biloved Lucy
who constantly loves me and makes me perfectly happy. I shall
wait for thy Consent and the one of my good Mamma to Marry
her. could thou but see her and thou wouldst I am sure be
pleased of the prudency of my choice ; M. . B. Bakewell is all-
ways willing to oblige me and will do many things for me: do
not participate the Ideas of M. Rozier Going to France to his
father it would perhaps Injure us for a while. I wish thou
would wrights to me ofnor and longuely think by thy self
how pleasing it is to read a friend's letter. Give my love
to all my friends and thine and kiss mamma, Rosa and Brother
Pigaudeau 13 for me I hope they continue to be all happy,
do remember to send me thy portrait in miniature dressed as
an officer 14 it will cost thee little and will please me much.
Some of thy hair and ask my sister for the Music she does not
want. I wish to receive some letter from M. . Dorbigny15 whom
I have often wrighten and send some curiosities he is yet to
answer to my first.

When thou seeist Mr Rozier pray him and try to engage
him to send us some-goods then we feel very inclined to set
up in a retail store which would do, us a great deal of good.

"Miers Fisher, for many years Jean Audubon's trusted agent and
attorney in America. See Vol. I, p. 100.

13 Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, his brother-in-law.

"That is a miniature of an old portrait of his father in the uniform
of a lieutenant-commander, which with its companion, representing Mme.
Jean Audubon, his stepmother, then hung in the house of "La Gerbetiere"
at Coueron. The original portraits, which are reproduced facing page 78,
measure 23y„ by 18y2 inches, and were painted probably between 1801
and 1806; they were inventoried in documents bearing date of November
14, 15 and 17, 1821, shortly after Mme. Jean Audubon's death. They
we're restored in Paris about ten years ago for Monsieur Lavigne, to
whom I am indebted for the photographs and this information.

16 Audubon's intimate friend, see Vol. I, p. 128.

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 161

I will send him a letter by this opportunity — Good by farwell
good father believe me for life thy most sincere friend be
well be happy

thy son
J. . J. . Audubon
J'espere que tu poura lire — adieu — adieu.

John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier

[Letter No. 4, addressed]
Mr. Fccis Rozier,

Merct, Nantes — Ocean.

New York, May 6th, 1807.
Dear Sir:

I wrote you recently by a ship going to Bordeaux ; the let-
ters were carefully intrusted, and I hope that they were re-
ceived. I notified you of the arrival of the wines to the ad-
dress of Mr. Huron of Philadelphia, and told you that part
of the cases were sold. Your son informed me this morning
that wine of so good quality ought never to be exported in
cask, and that the profit would have been greater if the whole
had been in case. Mr. Benjamin Bakewell has received the bill
of lading of Mess Gereche brothers, and the gloves and the
lace are at present on the road from Philadelphia to this place ;
perhaps we shall have them tomorrow ; I am afraid that they
may be dear. In several of your letters to Ferdinand you
speak of a retail store, and my friend begs me tell you that
nothing could suit us better than that you should have the
kindness to send us enough [goods] to set up a shop at once
on a good footing. As soon as advised, we shall order you
to stock it with merchandise of your choice. You should have
already received the bill of sale of a bale of linen cloth. You
can judge that I have learned to shave Messrs the Americans,
since I have been with Mr. B. B. In conscience, however, [the
goods] have been sold at one third above their value. Should
you decide upon sending another [shipment], do not count upon
so good a sale. You must know, however, that I am always

162 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

disposed to do everything for your interests, and that I shall
always seek to merit your approbation. Should you decide
to make [us] a consignment for a retail shop, have the kind-
ness to follow, point by point, the following bill:

60 doz. morocco leather powder flasks — green or gray,
copper mounted, like those that you sell at the
shoj3 for 25 sols [soldos].
60 doz. d. d. of leather, mahogany color, at the same
price.
100 boxes d.
100 music boxes,16 in prices from 10 to 18 francs, good

pieces and gay music.
100 boxes of seal-wafers, containing 1 gross each, assorted
in color [but] more of the red than any other.
10 gross of small boxes of seal-wafers.
3 boxes of pastels, good, well assorted, and chosen by
the sons of M. Belloc ; more would not return us
anything.
If you could procure us good books in English at Paris,
M. Bakewell assures me [that we would realize] a great profit
on them, and upon the other articles as given above, if well
chosen. We hope to sell Mill Grove, and we will credit you
with a great part of the profit in colonial merchandise. It is
with impatience that I await some news of the indigo of Mr.
B. Bakewell. Have the kindness, I pray you, to forward the
enclosed letter to my father as soon as possible, and will you
take from the ship Ocean, the carrier of this letter, a little
box [sent] to your address for him, and will you send this to
him also? Present my respects to your ladies ; accept mine and
those of the Bakewell family. Ferdinand is well. I salute you,
and I am your devoted friend,

Audubon.

Herewith the bill of lading of the box.
The captain did not wish to make any
charge, and has been perfectly polite.

ia"Serinettes," the old time music boxes, or bird-organs, of Swiss origin,

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 163

John James Audubon to Jean Audubon

[Letter No. 5, inclosed with No. 4, in French, and addressed]
Mr. Fccis Rozier
Mercht

Nantes
pour Mr. Audubon pere
aussitot que possible
My dear Friend :

Thou wilt find herewith a bill of lading of a small box con-
taining nineteen species of seeds, a bottle of reptiles for Mr.
Derbigny [D'Orbigny], and some dried plants also for the lat-
ter. I will write thee of Mr. Kauman, by the ship Mentor,
which is to leave a little while after this one. Adieu, my good
friend! The box will be addressed to Mr. Audubon, Md,17
Nantes, with "American seeds" written above ; besides two Bs,
like this which follows B.18 The Capn. promises me to take care

B
of it, and of my letters also. If thou findest in my letter any-
thing which displeases thee, remember that I am thy son. Adieu !
Farewell, my good friend ! Thine for life.

J. J. Audubon.
New York, May 6, 1807.

Do not forget, I pray thee, to send me for the good Mrs.
Bakewell the complete works of Mr. Genlis 19 by the first op-
portunity, and for me an exact copy of the departments of
France like that which I made, and which is in thy cabinet.
I wish thee to copy them for my brother-in-law.20

that were very popular in America down to the time of the Civil War,
or even later. They were manufactured at St. Croix as late as 1880; instru-
ments of similar type, with dancing figures, have been adapted to the penny-
in-the-slot machines common in Switzerland to-day.

17 Marchand, or retail merchant.

18 Initials of the head of his firm, Benjamin Bakewell.

19 The reference was to Mme. Stephanie-Felicite de Genlis (1746-1830),
teacher of the children of the Duke of Orleans, Philippe-Egalite, and
authoress of many works on education, once popular, but now known only
to the antiquary and the ragman.

20 Meaning possibly his prospective brother-in-law, Thomas W. Bake-
well, a fellow clerk in the office.

164 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier

[Letter No. 6, addressed]
Monsieur Fccis Rozier,
Merchant
Nantes
p. Brig Mentor

New York, May 30th, 1807.

Mr. Francis Rozier,

Merchant, Nantes.
Dear Sir:

By my last, sent on board the ship Ocean, Capt. Bunken,
I apprised you of the arrival of the gloves and lace, shipped
by your order at Rochelle for the account of my good friend,
Benj. Bakewell. I can now inform you of their sale, which
is also advantageous, although the principal part was fine
and of very great price. The gloves in prices of 23# 28# D,
are what is needed for this market here, and especially if they
are of any other color than yellow or bottle green they are
less apt to soil; further they conceal defects more, and find
in consequence more purchasers. The laces were better, al-
though there was a heavy duty. You should know that here
the extravagance of the women equals or rather quite balances
the circumspection of the men, so that all articles for women
should be beautiful, that is to say, conspicuous. I await with
a kind of pleasure the arrival of Cap. Sammis, for although
I am convinced that the indigoes will meet with no success
at Nantes, their return here will compensate us. I am sorry
that I did not order from you some little pistols and the guns
which would serve perfectly. Believe nothing as to Mr. Bake-
well, and be well assured that he is our friend. Have then
less fear: I hope shortly to consign, that is to say, Mr. B. B.
will consign for us, coffee and sugar from Martinique to your
address. Your son is still at Philadelphia with Mr. Huron.
They have sold the wines quite well.

But in truth I have been astonished that Mr. Huron did
not make you an immediate return. I thank you sincerely for

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 165

the little package that you said had been prepared for us. Be
sure that Mr. B. B. will aid us to a sufficient degree, and al-
ways in a way that anything which you send us will be promptly
returned in merchandise assigned to you. The land, which we
cannot sell without a great disadvantage, keeps us very short
of cash, and prevents us for the moment from dealing on as
large a scale as we should desire ; but with your kindness in
sending us the materials for starting a grand retail shop with
different articles, it will aid us very much. As you well say,
it is a little unfortunate that there is no longer a boat from
your port here.

I write to my father by the same opportunity. Will you,
I pray, get it to him as soon as possible, and I beg you to go
aboard for the live birds for him and for you.

Present my respects to your good family, and believe me
for ever

Your faithful friend and
servant

Audubon.

I should be very happy if you would send me a good box
of pastels, chosen by Mr. Belloc, the younger, at 2 c 3 Louis.21

John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier

[Letter No. 7, addressed]

Monsieur Fr. Rozier,

Negociant,

Nantes.

Loire Inferieure.

New York, July 19, 1807.

Dear Sir:

Mr. Benjamin Bakewell as well as myself have received your
letters by the Comet, which had a passage of 42 days. We
have at present in the warehouse a great part of the merchan-
dise of the latter [vessel], and in good condition; Mr. B. B.

21 One Louis was equal to twenty francs, or four dollars.

166 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

appears to be satisfied ; he is about to send some teas that you
have ordered from him. It has grieved me much to see him
send a boat to Nantes, and not consigned to you, but his rea-
sons were, I believe, so sound that I did not dare remonstrate.
The agents of the house of Rossel and Boudet paid him the
2/3 of the invoice, or a draft upon London for an equivalent
sum, that neither Ferdinand nor I were authorized to do ; the
latter is at Philadelphia. In a short time we are leaving for
a voyage upon the Ohio, the details of which you will learn
[from him], or from my father, and which I believe will be
very advantageous to us. We hope to sell Mill Grove this
autumn, which we shall do, however, only at a profit. We
received this morning a letter from Mr. Fleury Emery, who
urges Mr. B. B. to give him some shipments, but regarding
this I do not know his intentions. I have also received a letter
to-day from our friend, Fd, who is quite well, and longs to be
doing something.

Mr. Emery advises me of the receipt of a little box of seeds
for my father and you. I think that your gardens are now
embellished with foreign trees.

Mr. B. B. is loading tea for you, a thing that gives me
much pleasure. I am sending you a letter from Ferdinand that
I received yesterday. Presenting you as well as your whole
amiable family with humble respects,
I continue to be

your faithful servant,

Audubon.

My regards, I pray to you, to my cousin, the younger.

Audubon's loyalty to his kind-hearted employer is
evident in every one of these amiable letters, yet it is
plain that they were written upon his own initiative, and
a merchant of today might seriously object to such a
candid exposition of his dealings as young Audubon's
friendly epistles occasionally revealed.

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 167

The numerous references which these letters con-
tain regarding the disposition of the "Mill Grove" farm
may well puzzle the reader who has followed the story
to this point; we must therefore attempt to unravel the
tangled threads of this intricate affair. In the spring
of 1807 Audubon, who was then anxious to start a
"retail shop," complained that the land, which could not
be sold to advantage, kept them short of capital and
prevented them from dealing on so large a scale as
they could wish. On the 24th of April he wrote that
three weeks before he had gone to "Mill Grove" and
closed an agreement for renting the property (evidently
referring to the farm as distinct from the mine) for a
year, being unable to do better, and that Ferdinand was
then in Philadelphia trying to settle his father's accounts
with Dacosta, who did not readily forget his trickster's
role. In Audubon's letter of the same day, inclosed in
the same packet with the request that it be delivered
to his father, there is a similar reference, with the note
that Ferdinand, who had charge of the settlement, had
.chosen Mr. Huron as arbitrator, but that he would not
agree unless honest Miers Fisher had a part in it.
Finally, as late as the 19th of July of that year he
wrote to Rozier, the elder, that they were hoping to sell
"Mill Grove" in the autumn, but would do so only at a
good profit; yet at this time the property had been
out of their possession, technically at least, for nearly
a year.

Still more curious is this statement in Audubon's
autobiography,22 relating to the year 1813; "I bought a
wild horse, and on its back travelled over Tennessee and
a portion of Georgia, and so round till I finally reached

22 Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
p. 32.

168 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Philadelphia, and then to your grandfather's at Fatland
Ford. He had sold my plantation of Mill Grove to
Samuel Wetherill, of Philadelphia, for a good round
sum, and with this I returned through Kentucky and
at last reached Henderson once more."

When "Mill Grove" was conditionally sold to
Dacosta and his mining company in September, 1806,
he gave a mortgage and bond to Miers Fisher, who
again became Lieutenant Audubon's agent. Many
months elapsed before the necessary legal papers could
arrive from France, and meanwhile Dacosta's year-
ly accounts were contested, and gave no end of trou-
ble.23

After operating the lead mine for five years, Da-
costa's company failed, and "Mill Grove" again passed
into other hands; it was finally sold to Samuel Wetherill

23 Especially his account current, from June 1, 1806, to July 25, 1807,
with the "Mill Grove" farm, and "John Audubon of Nantz," drawn up
and signed at Philadelphia on the latter date. Dacosta then claimed a
balance due him of $950.64 above the returns from farm and mine, of
which he was entitled to one-half; this sum included his salary and
numerous minor expenditures. When his account was contested and taken
out of court for settlement, it was cut by the arbitrators to $530. See
Appendix I, Document 11a.

The following is a "copy of the Award given by John Laval &
Laurence Huron appointed referees by Francis Dacosta and John Audubon
the elder by a rule of reference in the Common Pleas of this county to
have their differences in accounts settled:"

"We the within named referees, having heard the parties and examined
their respective accounts & vouchers, do award that there is due by the
defendant, John Audubon the elder, to the plaintiff, Francis Dacosta, the
sum of five hundred and thirty dollars, which we find to be the full
balance of all current accounts between them, and we award that the
said ballance be paid by the said John Audubon the elder to the said
Francis Dacosta by defalking the same from the account of the condition
of the Bond of Eight Hundred Dollars — mentioned in the within rule
of reference conformably to the agreement endorsed on the said Bond."

"Witness our hands Philadelphia 1st August, 1807."

"Signed — Johx Laval."

"Laurence Huron."

(Copy of original MS., in possession of Mr. Welton H. Rozier.)

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 169

in 1813.24 If our inferences are correct, the mortgages
by which the Audubon and Rozier interests were pro-
tected were repeatedly transferred, and the first consid-
erable amount of ready money that had appeared in the
entire series of transactions was furnished by Mr.
Wetherill. It is doubtful if Jean Audubon ever re-
ceived any returns from his American farm after the
advent of Dacosta in 1803. The ultimate failure of the
lead mine was assuredly not the fault of this exploiter,
but his dubious methods of accounting and probable
failure to keep his contracts no doubt led the naturalist
to denounce him as a swindler.

It may be recalled that in their "Articles of Asso-
ciation" Audubon and Rozier had agreed that the house
at "Mill Grove" should be "an object separate from all
business, in order that we may control this property as
long as we desire," but the conditional sale to Dacosta
apparently included the farmhouse as well as the land.

Many of Audubon's references to "Mill Grove"
were apparently wide of the mark, but viewed in the
light which we have endeavored to shed upon this in-
volved affair, they would be in harmony with the essen-
tial truth; in writing to the elder Rozier, who became a
partner in the enterprise, there was no motive which
could have led him to depart from it.*

25

24 In 1811 "Mill Grove" was conveyed by Francis Dacosta & Company,
to Frederick Beates, who in 1813 sold it to Samuel Wetherill, Jr., for
$7,000, the property having shrunk to less than one-half the value placed
upon it in 1806. For the enterprises of the Wetherills, see Note, Vol. I,
p. 102.

""Since we have been obliged to enter rather minutely into the his-
tory of "Mill Grove," in order to trace the relations of the Audubons to
it in an important period of the naturalist's career, the reader may be
interested in the anticlimax which its famous mines reached at a later
day. The Ecton Consolidated Mining Company had been in operation
at "Mill Grove" for a considerable period, when, in 1848, the Perkioming
Association was formed and ten thousand dollars was at once invested
in machinery. In 1851 these two companies were combined under the

170 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

We will now return to the story of Audubon's life
in New York. While he was supposed to be learning
the exporting business with Benjamin Bakewell, his
heart was in the woods and fields, and every hour that
could be snatched from the counting-room found him
in the pursuit of birds or drawing their portraits. He
used the pencil and black crayon point combined with
pastels, and while much of his artistic work at this time
was hastily done, he was capable of producing excellent
likenesses. A very delicate drawing of the Wood
Thrush, signed with his initials, and dated at "Mill
Grove, Pennsylvania, 14 aout, 1806," is numbered 209,
showing that his collection of American birds was al-
ready extensive, even if it did not include many that
were well known. In the winter of 1806-7, while in
New York, Audubon paid most attention to the water-
fowl, frequently visiting the shore and the markets for
his subjects. The sketches which he then made were
all in full size, and, as an evidence of the rapidity with
which he worked, it may be noticed that he would often

name of the Perkioming Consolidated Mining Company, which issued
50,000 shares of stock, at six dollars each, thus representing a capital of
$300,000. A mining settlement quickly sprang up on Audubon's old farm,
where numerous buildings of stone, a general store, and miners' houses
were to be seen. In the first annual statement issued by this company,
the buildings were said to represent an outlay of $15,000, while $140,000
had been expended on machinery, both above and below ground. A Cornish
expert, who was summoned from England, was paid $1,414 for a verbose
report, the substance of which, it was said, was expressed in conveying
the information, already known, that the "mineral mined is copper ore"
(copper pyrite occurring in association with lead). This company closed
its business in 1851, by assessing its stockholders one dollar a share,
thus bringing the total loss in this final effort to $350,000, nearly one-
third of which had been drawn from Philadelphia. After one, or two,
further unsuccessful attempts had been made, all the substantial build-
ings of the mining works became a quarry, from which stone was sold
by the perch, the ruins of the old engine house alone remaining to this
day as a witness of the follies of the generations that are gone. (This
account is based upon reports which have appeared in the press of Philadel-
phia or in other Pennsylvania newspapers.)

FIRST VENTURES IN BUSINESS 171

complete two or more large drawings of ducks on the
same day. New York at this time was a city of about
75,000 people; Audubon said that by walking briskly
he could pass from one end to the other in a few minutes.
In the foregoing letters we have seen young Audu-
bon sending seeds and live birds to his father and to
Francois Rozier, and reptiles and dried plants to
Charles d'Orbigny, and ordering for his own use the
best drawing materials from France. While at New
York he had the good fortune to become a friend and
protege of the most distinguished naturalist of the me-
tropolis, Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell,26 eminent in many
walks of life, and at that time a member of the United
States Senate. Audubon prepared many birds and
mammals for Dr. Mitchell's collections, and the friend-
ship thus early formed proved of much service to him
later. He was probably working for Dr. Mitchell when,
as the story goes, some of his neighbors lodged a com-
plaint with the municipal authorities on account of the
strong odors that habitually issued from his workroom,
and a constable was sent to investigate.

26 Samuel Latham Mitchell (1764-1831), physician, naturalist, politician
and voluminous writer on many subjects. In 1797 he founded, in asso-
ciation with Dr. Edward Miller and Dr. Elihu H. Smith, the New York
Medical Repository, and was its chief editor. He began also, at the
University of New York, one of the earliest collections in natural history,
and in 1817 appealed to the Historical Society of his city for the founda-
tion of a Zoological Museum; in the same year he organized the Lyceum
of Natural History, and was its first president, Joseph Le Conte serving
as corresponding secretary, and John Torrey as one of its curators. On
April 9, the following subjects were assigned to different members for in-
vestigation, "Ichthyology or fishes, Plaxology or crustaceous animals,
Apalology or mollusca, and Geology or the earth" being reserved for the
president; Constantine Samuel Rafinesque (see Chapter XIX) took charge
of "Helmintology or worms, Polypoligy or polyps, Atmology or Meteorology,
Hydrology or waters, and Taxodomy or classification;" John Torrey, who
became a distinguished botanist, was more modest, and assumed charge only
of "Entomology or insects;" while to John Le Conte were given
"Mastodology or mammalia, Erpetology or reptiles, and Glossology or
nomenclature." See the American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review
(New York) for August, 1817, p. 272.

172 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon remained in New York as late as August
22, 1807, for on that day he made a drawing of the
"Sprig-tail Duck," but without doubt he had come to
feel the incongruity of his position in a business to
which his heart was a stranger. As an instance of his
preoccupation at this time, he confesses to have once
forwarded but forgot to seal a letter containing $8,000.
If Benjamin Bakewell failed to make a business man
out of Audubon, it was not from lack of kindness, and
probably no one else would have been more successful.
As it happened, Audubon did not leave his employer
any too soon, for at the close of 1807 Benjamin Bake-
well's exporting business was ruined by the Embargo
Act, through which President Jefferson had hoped to
bring Great Britain and France to terms by cutting off
their American trade, and for a year or more his estate
was in the hands of creditors for settlement.

The naturalist has left a characteristic sketch of
himself at this time: "I measured," said he, "five feet,
ten and one half inches, was of fair mien, and quite a
handsome figure; large, dark, and rather sunken eyes,
light-colored eyebrows, aquiline nose and a fine set of
teeth ; hair, fine texture and luxuriant, divided and pass-
ing down behind each ear in luxuriant ringlets as far
as the shoulders." The habit of wearing his hair long,
thus early acquired and later favored by his wandering
mode of life, appears to have lasted more than twenty
years.

CHAPTER XII

EARLY DRAWINGS IN FRANCE AND AMERICA

Child and man — His ideals, perseverance and progress — Study under David
at Paris — David's pupils and studios — David at Nantes arouses the
enthusiasm of its citizens — His part in the Revolution — His art and
influence over Audubon — Audubon's drawings of French birds — Story
of the Edward Harris collection — The Birds of America in the bud —
Audubon's originality, style, methods, and mastery of materials and
technique — His problem and how he solved it — His artistic defects.

Audubon began to draw birds and other animals
when a child, and, like most children, was ready to be-
lieve that his crude sketches were finished pictures if
only they possessed some sort of a head, a tail, and sticks
in place of legs. But, unlike the majority of youth, he
went direct to nature for his subjects, and his "family
of cripples" failed to satisfy him long. He gradually
developed a high ideal, and at an early age felt stirring
within him the impulse and the power to express it.
On stated anniversaries his masterpieces, he tells us,
were burned, in spite of the praise and flattery they had
evoked ; he would then exert all his powers to do better,
and this commendable practice was kept up for years.

In this respect the child was father of the man, for
on the 5th of March, 1822, when Audubon was living
in New Orleans, too poor to buy even a blank-book for
a journal, he thus wrote of his work during the pre-
vious months: "Every moment I had to spare I drew
birds for my ornithology, in which my Lucy and myself
alone have faith. February was spent in drawing birds

173

174 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

strenuously, and I thought I had improved by apply-
ing coats of water-color under the pastels, thereby pre-
venting the appearance of the paper, that in some in-
stances marred my best productions. I discovered also
many imperfections in my earlier drawings, and formed
the resolution to redraw the whole of them." Seldom
satisfied with the results attained, he kept up this labori-
ous process of revision and selection by which he ap-
proached more closely to his ideal, the truth of living na-
ture, for more than forty years, until, in fact, the last
plates of his Birds of America came from the press in
England in 1838. An examination of the originals of
those plates today x proves that many of their defects
were inevitably caused by the makeshifts to which he
was sometimes forced by lack of time.

Audubon has credited his father with the only judi-
cious criticism which he ever received at the youthful
stage of his art. "He was so kind to me," said the son,
"that to have listened lightly to his words would have
been highly ungrateful. I listened less to others and
more to him, and his words became my law." When he
was about seventeen years old, or probably not far
from the year 1802,2 he was sent to Paris to study draw-
ing under Jacques Louis David, the acknowledged
leader of French art during the period of the Revolu-
tion. This popular artist, who had uttered fierce invec-
tives against "the last five despots of France," became
nevertheless court painter under Napoleon; like
many another Conventional regicide, he was destined

1 See Vol. I, p. 185.

2Cuvier stated in his report on Audubon's Birds, delivered at the
Academy of Sciences, Paris, September 22, 1828, that the author had been
twenty-five years before a pupil in the school of David. This would
place the date in 1803, but earlier than the autumn of that year, when
Audubon started for America. See Note, Vol. I, p. 99.

EARLY UNPUBLISHED DBA WINGS OF FRENCH BIRDS: ABOVE, EUROPEAN CROW WITH
HEAD OF ROOK, "LE CORBEAU OU CORNEII.T.F. NOIRE DE BUFFON, ENGLISH
CROW, EN COMPAGNE AUTOUR DE NANTES, GROLE PETITE ('.HOLE NO.
155;" DETAIL, "BEC DE LA FRAGONNE OU FREUX BUFFON — BEC
OF THE JAIG DAW NO. 166;" BELOW, WHITE WAGTAIL, "LA
LAVANDIERE DE BUFFON. WAG-TAIL, WHATTEB
WAG-TAIL, WHITE WHATTER WAG TAIL COM-
MON DISH WASHER, THE 22 OF DECEM-
BER, 1805. NEAR NANTZ.
NO. ()•'>."'

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

EARLY DRAWINGS 175

to end his career as an exile from France, and died in
Brussels in 1825.

Audubon has said but little of this Paris experience,
but he remarked: "At the age of seventeen when I re-
turned from France, whither I had gone to receive the
rudiments of my education, my drawings had assumed
a form. David had guided my hand in tracing objects
of large size." 3 An interesting sidelight is thrown upon
this incident by the fact that, not many years before,
David had been warmly welcomed in the city of Nantes,
when it is not unlikely that the naturalist's father was
one of the throng of citizens who made his acquaintance.
The occasion to which I refer was so noteworthy in the
annals of Audubon's paternal city as to make a digres-
sion at this point of our narrative inevitable. In March,
1790, Daniel de Kervegan, a wealthy merchant who was
then serving his second term as mayor, had aroused so
much enthusiasm by his public spirit and sterling char-
acter that the citizens had voted the sum of 300 livres,
or about $60, for his portrait, to be executed in oils
and placed in one of their public buildings. The com-
mission was offered to David, who accepted it, and with
such enthusiasm did he set to work, that upon reaching
Nantes he asked the privilege of paying his respects
to the Municipal Assembly, which was in session. Upon
being admitted to the Chamber, on the 24th of March,
he expressed these sentiments :

If ever my art has brought me any gratification, or any
success, never before have I had better excuse for boastful-
ness.

I have made it a duty to respond to the worthy invitations,
inspired by patriotism and gratitude, that hallow this most
timely and most astounding revolution.

3 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. viii.

176 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

It is your work, gentlemen, and the respect which you render
to the chief of your administration which speaks in praise of
your sentiments and virtues and which will transmit their
memory, along with your glory, to posterity.4

David worked on this portrait for about a month,
and on April 23, before his departure for Paris, he
asked the privilege of again addressing the Assembly.
Not only was the request granted, but he was publicly
thanked for the trouble he had taken in coming to their
city, and a committee was appointed to express the
sentiments of esteem with which he had inspired the
whole community. We may add that David seems to
have taken this canvas to his studio in Paris, where it
was subsequently lost or destroyed in the period of
turbulence that followed.

David's radical speeches from the tribune, added to
his popularity as an artist, no doubt brought him pupils
in plenty from every quarter of republican France.
Young Audubon was probably admitted to the most
elementary class, for he received no instruction in the
use of oils but was directed to study the rudiments of
drawing from the cast. As he had hoped to perfect
himself in the art of depicting animals, he was disap-
pointed. "Eyes and noses belonging to giants," he
said, "and heads of horses, represented in ancient sculp-
ture, were my models." He also spoke of drawing
"heads and figures in different colored chalks," and of
"tolerable figures" obtained by use of the manikin, but
adds: "These, although fit subjects for men intent on
pursuing the higher branches of the art, were immedi-

*F. T. Verger, Archives curieuses de la ville de Nantes et des
dtpartements de Vouest (Nantes, 1837-41); for further references to David
in this chapter I am mainly indebted to Georges Cain, Le Long des
Rues (Paris, 1812), and Charles Saunier, Louis David (Paris, no date).

EARLY DRAWINGS 177

ately laid aside by me"; yet he "returned to the woods
of the New World with fresh ardor," 5 and there began
a series of drawings which were later published.

While this is virtually all that has been recorded of
this incident in Audubon's career, a number of inter-
esting facts might be added which throw light upon
the surroundings of his life at Paris while under the
tuition of this master. At that time David was enjoy-
ing the privilege, accorded to eminent artists from an
early day, of living with his family and of having his
studios in special quarters set apart for the purpose in
the palace of the Louvre; this was continued until all
the artist tenants were turned out by one of Napoleon's
peremptory orders in 1806. David's principal studio
was at the corner of the Quai de Louvre and the square,
facing the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois, at a
point occupied in the present structure by the grand
staircase leading to the Egyptian Gallery. It was here
that his more advanced pupils studied; the appearance
of its interior, with his pupils at work, as well as the
view from one of its windows, by means of which its
exact position can be determined, may be seen today
in the interesting painting by Matthew Cochereau.
This small picture, first exhibited in the salon of 1814,
now hangs in the Louvre in company with some of the
finest of David's works, and immediately beneath his
huge canvas representing the coronation of Napoleon.
Over his principal room David had also a private studio,
and at one time he had another on the Quai, opposite
the Institute of France, while his numerous pupils occu-
pied a series of rooms, one above another, not remote

5 The implication as to time, which is repeated above, contradicts an
earlier statement, which is probably more nearly correct, for when Audubon
returned to America in 1806 he was twenty-one.

178 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

from the first. Access to these apartments was gained
from the street by means of a spiral stairway, the open-
ing of which may still be seen in the Egyptian Hall.

It is common to speak of this gifted man as if he
alone had stifled all the art of the eighteenth century
in France, as if he were the molder of his age and not
a part of it. Too often has he been judged on the
basis of a few, unfortunately conspicuous, theatrical
pieces, while his excellent portraits, of which there are
many, entitle him to the gratitude of posterity.
Buchanan remarked that the mannerism of David could
"still be traced in certain pedantries discernible in
Audubon's style of drawing," which is a fancy without
any basis in fact. If it could be shown that drawing
from the casts of antique statues could develop man-
nerisms in the careful delineation of birds and mammals,
it would still appear that Audubon's style was really
formed at a later period.

This brief Paris episode, which at most could have
lasted but a few months, represented all the formal
instruction which Audubon ever received in drawing,
although he enjoyed some private tuition at a much
later day. As to the sciences now embraced in biology,
that is, zoology and botany, which would have been
most useful to him, the score was blank; even books on
any of these subjects were rare in America at the be-
ginning of the nineteenth century.

When Audubon first came to the United States, he
brought with him all his drawings of French birds, and
a few pieces which may belong to this early period have
been described.6 Done in a combination of crayon and
water color, they represent a European Magpie, a Coot

9 See R. W. Shufeldt, in The Auk and the Audubonian Magazine
(Bibliography, Nos. 184 and 190).

EARLY DRAWINGS 179

and a Green Woodpecker, the latter especially, which
bore the number "96," showing evidence of care and
skill. The year passed at "Mill Grove" was not par-
ticularly fruitful, but during the Coueron visit which
followed in 1805 and 1806, Audubon said that he made
drawings of "about two hundred species of birds," all
of which he brought to America and gave to his Lucy.
After finally reaching this country in the latter year,
these studies were continued, with an alacrity that sel-
dom failed, until 1822, when he began to revise much
of his earlier work, substituting water colors more com-
pletely for pastels, pencil and crayon point.

In writing to Bachman in 1836, Audubon thus
referred to the work of his apprenticeship: 'Some of
my early drawings of European birds are still in our
possession, but many have been given away, and the
greatest number were destroyed, not by the rats that
gnawed my collection of the 'Birds of America,' but
by the great fire." 7 When the naturalist was in Phila-
delphia in 1824, in search of a publisher and sadly in
need of funds, he made the acquaintance of Edward
Harris,8 who looked at the drawings he had for sale
and said at once that he would take them all and at
Audubon's own prices. Upon his leaving that city, this
generous friend, we are told, pressed a $100 bill in his
hand, saying: "Mr. Audubon, accept this from me;
men like you ought not to want for money." "I could
only express my gratitude," continues the naturalist,
"by insisting on his receiving the drawings of all my
French birds." The worthy Harris cherished this large
series of Audubon's early studies and added to it many
specimens of his later work. The entire collection re-

7 Referring to the fire of 1835, in New York.

8 See Chapter XXI.

180 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

mained in his family unbroken and unimpaired until
1892.9

This beautiful and unique collection, which repre-
sents The Birds of America in the bud, illustrates the
development of Audubon's art from about 1800 or a
little later to 1821,10 and clearly shows that the fuller
mastery which he attained after the latter date was
manifested in no small degree at a much earlier period.
His drawings of the Wood Thrush (1806), the Whip-
poorwill and Kingfisher (1810), the Carolina Parrot
(1811), and the Nighthawk (1812), though detached
and less ambitious as pictures, for truth of line and deli-
cacy of finish would compare favorably with the best of
his later work. After 1820 his ability had so far out-
stripped his ambition that there was needed only the
stimulus of a powerful motive and a well defined plan
to bring his powers into full fruition at once. A little
later, when he began to revise, enrich and standardize
all of his previous work, he used the brush and water
colors more freely than ever before. Hundreds of his
earlier studies were cast aside; many, to be sure, were

9 When it passed into the equally worthy hands of Mr. Joseph Y.
Jeanes, of Philadelphia. Mr. Jeanes purchased from the estate of Mr.
Edward Harris, 2d, directly or indirectly, and at different times, about
110 of these early originals; others were dispersed, four of early date
being in the Museum of Harvard University. Mr. Jeanes also possesses
a large section of the Audubon-Harris correspondence, which extended
over nearly a quarter of a century, and of which little has been pub-
lished; to his kindness I am indebted for the privilege of reproducing
some of the drawings, as well as numerous extracts from the letters,
in the present work.

10 Audubon said that some of the originals of The Birds of America were
"made as long ago as 1805," which may well have been the case, but
the earliest date which has been preserved on the drawings is that of
July 1, 1808, for "Rathbone's Warbler," later recognized as an imma-
ture form of the Summer Warbler. The Carbonated Warbler was drawn
May 7, 1811. Seven bear the date of 1812, namely: Yellow-rumped
Warbler, April 22; Le petit Caporal, April 23; Wood Pewee, April 28;
Blackburnian and Bay-breasted Warblers, May 12; Chestnut-sided Warbler,
May 17; and Cuvier's Wren, June 8.

EARLY DRAWINGS 181

hastily drawn in pastel, crayon and pencil, and had not
time failed him at the end, nothing of his earlier Ameri-
can period would have remained in the final product.

Nearly all of these rejected drawings bear serial
numbers, which from the lack of sequence now observed,
show that they were subject to constant change and
that their total number must have been great. All bear
the scientific and common names in French or English
or both, and many are signed with the artist's initials
or name; besides giving the place and date, in some
cases the weights and measurements of his subjects are
added, with detailed sketches of foot, bill, or eggs.11

A large crayon sketch of a groundhog, in excellent
drawing, is labeled "Marmotte de sauvage, No. 159, le
6 juin, 1805." The Redstart, executed in August of
the same year, is a good example of Audubon's more
delicate early work; it shows also the attention which
he was then beginning to pay to accessories, his bird
being perched on a spray of ripening blackberries. The
Wagtail, on the other hand, was a rough crayon sketch,
dashed off on December 22 of the same year. A pencil
and crayon drawing of the Mountain Titmouse, which
is a European bird, was probably made from a captive,
and at sea, since it bears the date of January 22, 1805,
when Audubon was, I believe, aboard the Hope.12 The
latest of these French pieces, designated "No. 94.
Woodpecker, le 8 mars, 1806. pres Nantes; 12
to the tail," was executed about a month before the
naturalist finally left France with Rozier to settle per-
manently in the United States. The excellence of such

11 For a list of Audubon's early dated drawings see Appendix II.
Through the courtesy of Mr. Jeanes, I am able to reproduce a fuller series
of Audubon's early drawings of French and American birds than has hith-
erto been published, and have chosen the subjects to illustrate the develop-
ment of his style.

12 See Vol. I, p. 125.

182 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

a drawing as that of the Wood Thrush (1806) is in
marked contrast to the more ambitious "Fish Hawk or
Osprey, A. Willson, Perkioming Creek, 1809," in which
the bird holds a white sucker in its talons but is less
happily rendered. Nine large pastels of waterfowl and
two smaller pieces, representing a Robin and Brown
Thrush, in the same style, are good examples of Audu-
bon's cruder efforts of that time ; they were merely hur-
ried sketches or practice work, with no attempt to finish
with all the perfection of detail of which he was then
capable.

In a full-size pastel of the Black Surf or Velvet
Duck, drawn on December 28, 1806, and signed "J. J.
L. Audubon," the note is added: "the only specimen of
the kind I have ever seen." He became well acquainted
with the Velvet Ducks, now better known as the White-
winged Scoters, and in his account of the species says:
"As we approached the shores of Labrador, we found
the waters covered with dense flocks of these birds, and
yet they continued to arrive there from the St. Law-
rence for several days in succession. We were all as-
tonished at their numbers which were such that we
could not help imagining that all the Velvet Ducks in
the world were passing before us." 13

Several of these drawings are credited to "The Falls
of the Ohio," as the rapids of this river at Louisville
were then generally called; a number to "Red Banks,"
the old name of Henderson, Kentucky; while five were
done in Pennsylvania, probably when Audubon was at
the home of his father-in-law, William Bakewell, in the
spring of 1812. An excellent drawing of the Chuck
Wills Widow was probably made on the Red River,14 in

n Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 354.
14 See Appendix II.

early unpublished drawing of the groundhog: "jiarmotte de savage, i.e

6 juin, 1805, no. 159."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

WATER-COLOR DRAWING OF A '*Y"OUNG RACOON OF THIS YEAR, SEPTEMBER 10, 1841."

Published by courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History,

New York.

EARLY DRAWINGS 183

Arkansas, when Audubon was exploring that country
and slowly making his way to New Orleans in June,

1821, though it should be noticed that a steamboat on
which he sometimes traveled was called the Red River.

Audubon began in the usual way, by representing
his birds in profile, and often on a simple perch, but
gradually introduced accessories which eventually be-
came such an important part of his plan that, after

1822, his plates took on more the character of balanced
pictures, literally teeming with the characteristic fruits
and flowers of America, as well as with insects and
animals of every sort, suggestive of the food and sur-
roundings of his subjects, not to speak of American
landscapes drawn from many parts of the country.

Dissatisfied with the older methods of drawing birds
in the stereotyped attitudes of most stuffed specimens,
Audubon made many experiments at "Mill Grove" be-
fore hitting upon what he called his "method" of using
wires to pierce and hold the body of the bird in any
attitude which he desired to represent. His device,
which was simple only for one who possessed the requi-
site knowledge and skill, was publicly exhibited at a
meeting of the Wernerian Society at Edinburgh on
December 16, 1826. A recently killed bird was fixed in
the position desired by means of wires, and placed
against a background ruled with division lines in squares
to correspond with similar lines on Audubon's paper.
The parts, measured if necessary with compasses, were
then drawn in, and every part was rendered in due pro-
portion. As to the difficulty of thus securing natural
attitudes, aside from any question of draughtsmanship,
we have only to recall the bungling work of most taxi-
dermists; there are careful students of animal life who
are able to reanimate their subjects, even when reduced

184 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

to dried and mounted skins, but such ability is not easy
to acquire or impart. Method is always subordinate to
power, and Audubon at his best, when not hampered by
lack of time, was able to represent the living, moving
bird in a hundred attitudes never attempted before,
which surprised the world of his day by the remarkable
skill, freshness and fidelity they displayed.

Some have complained that Audubon, in striving
for effect, too often exaggerated the action of his sub-
jects; his birds, like the Frenchman he was, gesticulate
too much, while Wilson's were more cautious or sedate,
as became a canny Scot. The complaint may be well
founded, but the explanation is too trivial for serious
consideration. Wilson, like his predecessors, regardless
of nationality, merely followed custom, which led by
the path of least resistance. Barraband and all the best
French artists before him in depicting bird and animal
life had done the same, and in their hands the perch,
were the subject a bird, became stereotyped to the last
degree, as if inserted with a rubber stamp. Audubon
followed the same course until he became imbued with
the desire of endowing his animals with all the moving
energy of which they were capable, whether in seizing
their prey, feeding their young, or fighting their ene-
mies. It is well known that many an animal, though
ordinarily cautious or even timid, can be roused to vig-
orous action under the spur of emotion, as when its
young are suddenly threatened, and be it warbler, blue-
bird, or cuckoo, may become a contortionist at a mo-
ment's notice. Very few of the 1,065 life-size drawings of
birds which appear in his large plates could be truly
described as fantastic or unnatural.

Audubon's problem was rendered more difficult by
the fact that all of his animals were drawn to the size

EARLY DRAWINGS 185

of life, and because his desire and style compelled him
to represent the utmost detail, even to the barbs of a
feather or the individual hairs of a mammal. When a
landscape was to be included it was not an easy task
to harmonize life-sized objects in the foreground with
receding objects, and here he sometimes failed. Some
of his least happy compositions, however, were the re-
sult of haste, as an examination of the originals of his
Birds of A merica has clearly shown ; when hard pressed
for time he would resort to the scissors and paste, in
order to combine the parts of several distinct drawings
into one plate, and often leave the backgrounds to be
supplied entirely by the engraver. One of the few
grotesque results of such methods is seen in plate 141,
wherein are represented the Goshawk and the Stanley
Hawk; the latter, which was originally designed for
different surroundings, has quite lost its center of grav-
ity on an islet amid stream. An early reviewer thought
that the artist must surely have intended this for a cari-
cature, as in the case of one of Hogarth's famous prints,
in which a man on a distant hill is lighting his pipe at a
candle held out of a window in the foreground.

The action of Audubon's subjects was sometimes ex-
aggerated; his birds on the wing were occasionally ill
drawn, and other defects might be mentioned. But we
must admire his boldness for attempting so many dif-
ficult positions, and admit that, when all is considered,
he succeeded to admiration, and set a new standard for
the illustration of works on natural history.

CHAPTER XIII

AUDUBON'S MARRIAGE AND SETTLEMENT IN THE

WEST

Audubon and Rozier decide to start a pioneer store at Louisville, Ken-
tucky— Their purchase of goods in New York — "Westward Ho" with
Rozier — Rozier's diary of the journey — An unfortunate investment in
indigo— Effect of the Embargo Act— Marriage to Lucy Bakewell—
Return to Louisville — Life on the Ohio — Depression of trade —
William Bakewell's assistance— Audubon's eldest son born at the
"Indian Queen"— The Bake wells— Life at Louisville.

In the summer of 1807 Audubon and Rozier had
decided to try their fortunes in the West, which then
meant the Ohio Valley and the wilds of Kentucky, and
had fixed upon Louisville as a promising point for
pioneer trade. On August 1 they purchased a consid-
erable stock of goods through the commission house of
their friend, Benjamin Bakewell, and three days later
gave their note, payable in eight months, for over
$3,600.1 Then, or a little later, they had dealings also
with Messrs. Robert Kinder & Company, of New York,
as well as the French importing house of Laurence
Huron, with which Ferdinand had been recently asso-
ciated in Philadelphia; apparently also they sent goods
to Francois Rozier at Nantes, and from him received
imports through the Bakewell firm, but, as we shall see,
all foreign trade was soon cut off. When their plans
were complete and their goods had started for the fron-
tier, they set out themselves for Louisville on the last
day of August, 1807. __

1 See Appendix I, Document No. 11.

186

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 187

Ferdinand Rozier kept a record 2 of this journey,
the formidable nature of which will be best appreciated
by reading his matter-of-fact narrative composed from
notes daily jotted down. In these easy-going times,
when oceans and continents are crossed with ever in-
creasing ease and speed, this simple chronicle of early
travel in America is worth preserving, if only for its
historical contrasts.

On the thirty-first day of August, 1807, in company with
Audubon, I left Mill Grove for Louisville, Kentucky, where
we anticipated engaging in the mercantile business.

Leaving Philadelphia by stage we traveled to Lancaster,
Pennsylvania, a distance of sixty-one miles, where we arrived
at four o'clock in the afternoon ; we dined, and proceeded to
Big Chickers, distant nine miles farther, where we spent the
night. The roads from Philadelphia to Lancaster were in ex-
cellent condition, and at about every two miles we found good
taverns. The only remarkable thing we noticed in agriculture
was hemp, there being little else of interest. The city of Lan-
caster was attractive, but the short duration of our stay pre-
vented us from having more than a casual view of it. The
tavern where we slept was not very good ; from our chambers,

2 This diary was first brought to my attention by Mr. Ruthven Deane,
and for permission to reproduce it I am indebted to the kindness of a
great-grandson of Ferdinand, Mr. Welton A. Rozier, of Saint Louis. Mr.
Rozier writes that the original French notes have been mislaid or lost,
but that they were closely followed in this translation, whenever com-
plete. Though numerous verbal changes have been made in the present
draft, these have not altered the meaning in any respect. Ferdinand
Rozier' s narrative begins as follows:

"I left Nantes, France, in company with John James Audubon, on
Saturday, the 12th day of April, 1806, bound for the city of New York,
U. S. A., on an American ship named the Polly, commanded by Captain
Sammis, and arrived at New York on Tuesday, the 27th day of May.
While on the voyage across the ocean our vessel was stopped, overhauled,
searched, and robbed by an English privateer, named the Rattlesnake, which
detained us a day and a night.

"We remained in New York City for a few days, and then removed
to Mill Grove, on Pickering [Perkioming] Creek, in Pennsylvania, a tract
of land owned by our fathers, and at that time thought to contain valu-
able minerals."

188 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

however, we could discern a new bridge, which had two im-
mense arches spanning the river.

At eight o'clock in the morning we left Lancaster for Eliza-
bethtown, distant nine miles. The roads were miserable, and
we suffered a severe jolting and shaking up. Arriving there, we
procured two additional horses, which made six all told, and
went on to Middletown, where we breakfasted at a tavern named
the "Eagle" ; the village was small, with few houses, and noth-
ing of interest.

Journeying on to Harrisburg without mishap, over roads
somewhat improved, we finally arrived, and discovered a very
beautiful river called the Susquehanna. The city of Harris-
burg itself appeared very attractive to us, and its situation
is beautiful; proceeding, we were first compelled to cross the
river, which was accomplished by means of a large flatboat
propelled by a sweep of generous proportions. The captain,
who proved a most voluble person, informed us that the river
abounded in fish, and then related marvelous tales of the re-
markable catches that had been made; many of his stories,
however, were of such glaring improbability that we were forced
to doubt his veracity.

Carlisle, sixteen miles distant, was reached in due course,
and there we changed horses at a tavern called the "John
Mason." This city, though small, presented a fine appear-
ance, having a market place, two large churches, many brick
buildings, a large academy, and several attractive taverns.
Continuing, we finally came to Walnut Bottoms, where we en-
gaged chambers at a very imposing tavern ; this proved far
superior to any we had hitherto visited ; it was clean and in-
viting; its appointments were good, and its service excellent.
On our journey we were impressed by a tree of great size, that
resembled an oak, but upon inquiry learned that it was called
Hackberry,3 and produced a fruit similar in size to a cherry.
On the north and south of us were high mountains which pre-

3 In the rich bottom-lands of the Ohio River basin the hackberry or
sugarberry (Celtis occidentalis) sometimes exceeds one hundred feet in
height, and has a diameter of from four to five feet.

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 189

sented an imposing appearance; the foliage was heavy and
luxuriant; the soil of the foot-hills appeared fertile, but the
crops were inferior.

We were awakened early in the morning so as to begin
our journey in good season, and having had a heavy storm
during the night we expected to find the roads very bad, but to
our delight they were none the worse for the rain. Journeying
most of the way through woods, we came to Shipensburg and
breakfasted ; this village had only one long street, and pre-
sented an appearance far from pleasing. A lady with her sock
[knitting work] proved a great talker and asked us many ques-
tions. This village was intersected by a creek, called the Mid-
dlespring. We next came to Chambersburg, ten miles away,
and there rested and purchased tickets for continuing our jour-
ney. That village lies in a valley, and is composed of two
squares containing a post office, an academy, a factory, mar-
ket place and tavern.

When the stage was at last made ready for its journey
we took our places in it, but no sooner was the village left be-
hind than we encountered very rough roads, which for a time
caused great discomfort ; our feelings were expressed by all the
passengers, but at length we reached a tavern named "Cable
Roussed," where our horses were changed. We next stopped
at the "John Campbell" tavern, and saw many drunkards
about ; then at "Peter White's," almost at the foot of the moun-
tains, where we were each treated to a glass of excellent fresh
milk. Still going on and approaching the mountains, the roads
became so excessively rough that Audubon and myself decided
to proceed on foot. Though this was a three-mile climb, we
managed to cover it in three and a half hours. So bad in
truth was the road that it seemed well nigh impossible for any
vehicle to ascend the mountain ; the stage did go up, however,
and reached the summit soon after us. On the heights of the
mountain was a small tavern where refreshments were served,
and while partaking of a light lunch there we were waited on
by a couple named Currie, and James, their hired man. While
we were refreshing ourselves, our host told harrowing tales of

190 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

wild-animal hunting in the mountains, and assured us that there
were many beasts in the surrounding woods. Leaving the sum-
mit in the stage, we continued for some distance, but the jolt-
ing, rolling and swaying was so frightful that we decided to
descend on foot. The three miles down the mountain was cov-
ered quickly, but we were utterly worn out with fatigue when
we reached McConnelsburg; this village lies in a valley, has
few houses and but little of interest ; we made forty miles dur-
ing the day. Leaving early on the next morning, after travel-
ing thirty-two miles, over better roads, we spent the night at
the tavern of B. Mastin.

Having breakfasted at an early hour, we were again on
our way by sunrise, and after driving two miles came to the
Juniata River, which was crossed in a leaky flatboat. Eight
miles beyond this point we saw a very fine and stately mansion
which was said to belong to a Mrs. Haily. Finally after a
hard and tiresome day we arrived at Bedford. The Juniata
River flows along Bedford in a narrow bed, between high moun-
tain walls ; the village is situated in the valley, and boasts many
fine stores and residences. We were told that about fourteen
miles farther on there were mineral springs, the waters of which
possessed great curative properties, and that many people
visited them each season; time, however, did not permit us to
visit this resort.

Six horses were hitched to our stage when we departed the
next morning. The mountain roads ascended more gradually,
and were less rough ; the weather being exceptionally fine, forty
miles were easily made before reaching our destination at a
village called Somerset, which contained a courthouse that
marked it at once as the county seat. At four o'clock of the
morning following we were again on our way, and left Somerset
in a heavy fog, which at that early hour sharply accentuated
the chill in the air. At the end of the day we found ourselves
at Laurel Hill, where we passed the night at the tavern of John
Arranats.

Again at four in the morning we resumed our journey, and
after crossing Laurel Creek once more encountered rough

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 191

roads, but soon reached a tavern called the "Jacob Hoff ," where
we breakfasted. Still pushing forward, at noon we came to the
small house of a family called Margennefs, and procured a
meager lunch. At a short distance from this place a change
of horses was made, and after driving all the afternoon we
entered the attractive village of Greensburg, where we spent
the night. Rising reluctantly at peep of day, we continued
on our course and made ten miles before breakfasting at a
tavern, the "Stewart Auberge" by name. After leaving this
point we came to Turtle Creek, when the road descended so
abruptly that it was decided to dismount and walk, but the
heat was sultry and oppressive, and we suffered greatly. At
last, however, the city of Pittsburgh was reached, and there
we found good and commodious lodgings at the Jefferson Hotel,
conducted by Mr. Galland, a most genial and agreeable host.
We remained in Pittsburgh several days, and became ac-
quainted with many of its citizens, among whom were several
countrymen of ours who were engaged in business and were
very congenial and hospitable. The city does not present a
pleasing appearance ; it has been increasing in size with astound-
ing rapidity,4 and possesses a remarkable commerce; the Ohio
River there is most beautiful.

The remainder of our journey was by way of the Ohio,
and we made it entirely in an open flatboat, a cumbersome un-
wieldy craft, managed by hand, and in this particular instance
very badly. One who has never had this experience can little
understand the terrible monotony, hardships and deprivations
encountered on a long journey such as we endured. We were
unprotected from the elements, and our beds consisted of bare
pine boards, upon which we slept as best we could, enveloped
in our great coats.

There were times without number when our boat would
run upon hidden sand bars to become grounded, and we were
then often obliged to get into the cold water and assist in the
work of extricating her. At other times, unprotected' as we

>■ — -- ■ ■ ■ — — ■— ., ■ . ■■

*The population of the second city of Pennsylvania in 1800 was 1,565;
in 1840, 4,768; and in 1910, after the annexation of Allegheny, 533,905.

192 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

were, the rains drenched us to the skin, and our clothing was
so saturated that it took many hours to dry. At night when
it was clear, we continued our course down the river, but, in
bad weather, or when very cloudy and dark, we were obliged
to tie up to the shore, frequently to the bank of some wild,
uninhabited island, and wait there for daylight ; then we would
resume our slow, tedious and seemingly never ending journey.
Added to these hardships, our boat was commanded by a most
disagreeable and ungentlemanly captain, named Harris; his
language, and demeanor marked him as a person of low birth
and bad character.

Among some of the places which were passed en route, I
remember the following: Wheeling, Marietta, Market Slough,
famous for the conspiracy of Colonel Burr, Belleville, Litards
Falls, Point Pleasant, Manchester, Maysville, Cincinnati, and
finally our journey's end, Louisville.

At Louisville the partners were attracted by the
country and its prospects, as well as by the hospitable
character of the people. Their choice, as they then
thought, had been well made, and they decided to make
it their future home. "We marked Louisville," said
Audubon, "as a spot designed by nature to become a
place of great importance, and had we been as wise as
we now are, I might never have published The Birds of
America; for a few hundred dollars laid out, at that
period, in lands or town lots near Louisville, would, if
left to grow over with grass to a date ten years past
[this being 1835], have become an immense fortune, but
young heads are on young shoulders; it was not to be,
and who cares." 5

Rozier did not say when either they or their goods
reached the pioneer settlement, but from an item in

5 Maria R. Audubon, Audubon, and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86),
vol. i, p. 28.

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 193

their account current with the Bakewell house,6 it is evi-
dent that they opened a retail shop in Louisville at
once, for on September 29 they were charged with $57
for an order of powder horns and shotbags. In the
same record there is a more interesting entry under date
of December 31, 1807: "advanced per [sailing packet]
Jane, for indigo and expences . . . $1,516.43," ordered
evidently through Mr. Bakewell, presumably for export
to France. This incident Audubon must have had in
mind when in after life he wrote: "The mercantile busi-
ness did not suit me. The very first venture which I
undertook was in indigo; it cost me several hundred
pounds, the whole of which was lost." It may be re-
called that in his letter of April 24 of this year, Audubon
wrote Francois Rozier7 that the Bakewell house had
sent him a consignment of indigo by the same ship,
Captain Sammis, and hoped for its favorable sale in
France. No doubt the venture succeeded so well that
the young traders were induced to repeat the experi-
ment. As it happened, however, on December 22, a
week before this entry for the indigo was made, the
famous Embargo Act of President Jefferson had taken
effect, with the result of cutting off all exports to Eng-
land and France and at the same time of paralyzing
American trade. The Bakewell house, as we have al-
ready noticed, like so many others, immediately went
down, and the partners found that their tobacco and
other western produce found so little sale in New York
that by April 7, 1808, they were obliged to call for an
extension of their notes.

Notwithstanding the gloomy outlook for trade,
Audubon had no fears for the future. As early as

6 See Appendix I, Document No. 11.

7 See Chapter XI, page 158.

194 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

March, 1808, he left Rozier in Kentucky and returned
to Pennsylvania. No time was lost in making known
his plans to Lucy Bakewell and her family, and having
received their approval, the lovers prepared for the ad-
venturous journey that was to celebrate their wedding.
Audubon was married to Miss Bakewell, at "Fatland
Ford," on Tuesday, April 5, 1808, by the Reverend Doc-
tor Latimer, an Episcopal clergyman of Philadelphia,
and on the next morning started with his bride for the
frontier. This event must be regarded as the most
auspicious in his career, for in all probability the world
would never have heard of Audubon had it not been for
the spur to his ambition and the balance wheel to his
character which came through his admirable wife.

The first stage of their honeymoon involved the long
ride of over 250 miles to Pittsburgh, the hazards and
discomforts of which we have learned from Rozier's
description; it was marked in this instance by an acci-
dent, for in crossing the Alleghany mountains their
coach was upset and Mrs. Audubon did not escape with-
out severe bruises. At Pittsburgh the Audubons met a
number of young emigrants bound westward like them-
selves, and in their company they prepared to float down
the beautiful Ohio in a flatboat or ark. Their entire
journey, which, owing to the windings of the river, could
not have been much less than a thousand miles, was
made in twelve days, and without further mishap.

The wild and varied beauty of the Ohio of that day
had great attractions for the naturalist, who often re-
gretted that no facile writer had left a true and vivid
picture of it for the benefit of posterity, for he foresaw
with great concern the inevitable changes which advanc-
ing civilization would quickly produce along its delight-
ful banks. Audubon traversed this mighty highway

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 195

countless times in after life, and some of his musings
have lost none of their interest with the flight of time,
for he had witnessed the advance of the white man and
the retreat of the red, along with the great herds of
deer, elk and buffalo that once found peaceful pasturage
on its banks. Speaking of a later but hardly less ro-
mantic journey,8 he said:

As night came, sinking into darkness the broader portions
of the river, our minds became affected by strong emotions,
and wandered far beyond the present moments. The tinkling
of bells told us that the cattle which bore them were gently
roving from valley to valley in search of food, or returning
to their distant homes. The hooting of the Great Owl, or the
muffled noise of its wings as it sailed smoothly over the stream,
were matters of interest to us ; so was the sound of the boat-
man's horn, as it came winding more and more softly from
afar. When daylight returned, many songsters burst forth
with echoing notes, more and more mellow to the listening ear.
Here and there the lonely cabin of a squatter struck the eye,
giving note of commencing civilization. The crossing of the
stream by a deer foretold how soon the hills would be covered
by snow.

Many sluggish flatboats we overtook and passed ; some laden
with produce from the different head-waters of the small rivers
that pour their tributary streams into the Ohio ; others, of less
dimensions, crowded with emigrants from distant parts, in
search of a new home.

The margins of the shores and of the river were at this
season amply supplied with game. A Wild Turkey, a Grouse,
or a Blue-winged Teal, could be procured in a few moments ;
and we fared well, for, whenever we pleased, we landed, struck
up a fire and provided, as we were, with the necessary utensils,
procured a good repast.

8 When Audubon was returning with his wife and infant son from
Pennsylvania to Kentucky in the autumn of 1810; see "The Ohio,"
Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 29.

196 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Louisville at this time was a small trading and agri-
cultural center of barely a thousand people.9 Though
the early promises of business there were not fulfilled,
Audubon and his wife at once entered upon a happy
period, for they made many friends in a new country
settled by whole-hearted, well-to-do planters; the men
were fond of good horses and of hunting, and the nat-
uralist, who was also a merchant, was welcomed among
them as a kindred spirit. But, said Audubon, "birds
were birds then as now, and my thoughts were ever and
anon turning towards them as the objects of my greatest
delight. I shot, I drew, I looked on nature only; my
days were happy beyond human conception, and beyond
that I really cared not. ... I seldom passed a day
without drawing a bird, or noting something respecting
its habits, Rozier meantime attending the counter."

To revert again to the business affairs of the Audu-
bon-Rozier firm at Louisville, an interesting record has
been preserved in a letter 10 written by Thomas Bake-
well, a former fellow-clerk of the naturalist in the senior
Bakewell's counting-house in New York; this was in-
cluded with the statement of account, referred to above.

Thomas Bakewell to Audubon Sf Rosier

[At bottom of account sheet] New York, Decern?. 13th. 1808
Messrs. J. Audubon & F. Rozier

Louisville
Gentk.

I have now the pleasure to hand }rou your account current
with my Father's Estate according to your desire as expressed

"In 1800 the population of Louisville was 600, and in 1810 it had
risen to 1,350; see Charles Cist, Cincinnati in 18.$1 (Cincinnati, 1841).

10 For this and the letter of Thomas Bakewell's uncle, William Bake-
well, which follows later, I am indebted to Mr. Tom J. Rozier; see Note,
Vol. I, p. 133, and for accompanying "Account Current" of Audubon &
Rozier, Appendix I, Document No. 11.

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 197

in your letter to Mess Rob1. Kinder & C°. under date the 21st.

$
of Novr. last. I cannot tell what error you allude to of 93 .
I suppose it is the amount of commission returned $93. 94) / 100
which you will perceive is duly at your Cr. in the a/c. I am
sorry to say that the tobacco is still unsold & that there is no
prospect of selling it so as to cover the balance of your a/c
Messrs R. Kinder & C°. request me to say that they wish the
yarn mentioned in their letter of the [word omitted] to be made
of water rotted Hemp & that they will write you pr next post
with their account against you as requested by you —

I remain Gentn
with Your m°. ob*. Serv*.

Thos. Bakewell
for the assignees of my

Father's estate —

Give my love to Mrs. A. my aunt a recd. hers last night —
S. & is much as usual — she remains very sick yet.

T B
[Superscribed] Messrs. Audubon & Rozler

Merchants
Louisville
Kentucky

Audubon fraternized with the sporting men of his
district, who gladly sent him every rare bird that fell to
their guns. At Shippingport also, then an independent
center below the falls or rapids, he found a sympathetic
spirit in Doctor W. C. Gait, a local botanist, as well as
in Nicholas Berthoud, who had become his wife's
brother-in-law, and who was a friend on whom he could
always rely. The spirit of hospitality so manifest in
all these new friends won the heart of Audubon and of
his attractive wife, to whom the door of a neighbor's
house was sure to open whenever business or adventure

198 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

called her husband away. "We lived," said Audubon,
"two years at Louisville, where we enjoyed many of the
best pleasures which this life can afford; and whenever
we have since passed that way, we have found the kind-
ness of our former friends unimpaired." It was while
they were living at Gnathway's hotel of the "Indian
Queen," in Louisville, that Victor Gifford Audubon,
who was destined to become his father's right hand in
the publication of his most important works, was born
on June 12, 1809.

When Audubon had reached his twenty-fourth year,
nature, his fond nurse from infancy, was calling to him
more loudly than ever before, but to most of his con-
temporaries his devotion to natural history could have
seemed little else than sheer madness, or, at best, an
utter waste of time. By the year 1810 his portfolios
were swelling with upwards of two hundred pictures of
American birds, produced, to be sure, without any plan,
and far inferior to the best of his later work, but still
done to the size of life, in the natural colors, and far
excelling in fidelity and charm anything that had been
attempted before. At this time, however, the young
traders needed money for more practical affairs, and
Audubon's father-in-law, William Bakewell of "Fat-
land Ford," consented to sell a portion of this estate,
amounting to 170 acres, in order that his daughter,
Lucy, might immediately realize her interest in it. From
this sale nearly $8,000 was obtained; the money was
deposited with Messrs. Robert Kinder & Company of
New York, a firm with which Audubon and Rozier had
dealt from the opening of their business at Louisville.
This is clearly shown by the following interesting
letter:11

"See Note, Vol. I, p. 196.

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 199

William Bakewell to Audubon Sf Rozier

Fatland Foed 10 Apt 1810
Messs Audubon & Roziee

Gentn

I have at last settled the whole business with Mr Josh
Williams I have allowed him for the two thirds in cash 3 per
cent & have remitted to Messrs Kinder's 7838.50 on your
account. — The quantity was surveyed to 170 acres at 47.5
per acre 7998.50, from which was deducted 160 dols for dis-
count

As I have had a great deal of trouble & anxiety in this
business & had to find assistants in surveying with several days
attendance, dinners &c for the whole party several journeys
to Norris Town and also to Philada with the carriage to convey
the money — postages &c. — I charge you 1^2 Per cen^ on the
purchase money which I hope you will think not unreasonable
as I believe it is under the charge of the land brokers in Philada
& they have no trouble in the business compared to what I have
had — I feel as if a great burthen was taken off my back now
it is all finished. Out of this you will please to present Lucy
with 38 dols which was the price the mare sold for — I expected
one of you Gentn would have come to the Eastward before now
it is I expect Mr Roziers turn this Spring

I had one forged note returned at the Bank out of the
money of Mr Williams & one dollar a counterfiet, but I had
stipulated that he should take any faulty ones back. He paid
about a third of the money in specie so that I was obliged to
take the carriage with it. I took it to the Pennsylvania Bank
& got an order on the Manhattan Bank in N York & have Mr
Kinder's receipt for the order

They have got a considerable quantity of ore out of the
mine 12 some lead & some copper but I do not hear of any being
yet sold

12 The lead mine at "Mill Grove," which with the remaining Audubon
and Rozier interests in the farm had been taken over by Daeosta's com-
pany in September, 1806. The failure of Dacosta followed in about a
year after the date of this letter.

200 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Present the kind regards of our family circle to my daugh-
ter, Mr Audubon, & my Grandson 13 who I hope are well

I remain Gentn

Yours truly

Wm Bakewell

PS

Mr Kinder is of opinion that there ought to be a renuncia-
tion by Lucy of any claim of dower upon this estate to
make the title good this may be sent on when you are
coming this way
[Addressed] Messs Audubon & Roziee

Merchs

Louisville

Kentucky —
[Endorsed] Recd. May 5th. 1810

Lucy Green Bakewell, Audubon's wife, was three
years younger than her husband, having been born at
Burton-on-Trent, England, in 1788. Her family were
descended from John Bakewell of "Castle Donning-
ton," in Leicestershire; Robert Bakewell, the geologist,
who came to the naturalist's defense many years later,
and who lived until 1843, was a nephew of her grand-
father, Joseph Bakewell of Derby. Left an orphan at
an early age, Lucy's father, William Bakewell, was
brought up by an uncle, Thomas Woodhouse, a rich
bachelor of Crith, Derbyshire, who eventually left him
a fortune.

When William Bakewell succeeded to his uncle's es-
tate and manor, he lived the life of a country gentleman,
devoting himself mainly to shooting and to the study of
chemistry and natural philosophy, while he enjoyed the
friendship of such men as Joseph Priestley and Erasmus
Darwin. His advocacy of Priestley's republican and

13 Victor Gifford Audubon, who was then nine months old.

SETTLEMENT IN THE WEST 201

liberal religious doctrines is said to have cost him the
honorary office of justice of the peace in his community
and to have determined his emigration to America. His
first visit to America was made in the summer of 1798,
when, with his brother Benjamin,14 he started an estab-
lishment for brewing English ale at New Haven;
through his chemical knowledge and skill he is said to
have reproduced to perfection the famous Burton ales.
William Bakewell brought his family to the United
States in 1802, and when a disastrous fire destroyed his
business at New Haven, he took up the large farm of
"Fatland Ford" in 1804, as already related (p. 108).
In that retired spot he devoted much time to his library
and laboratory, while living a life of easy independence.
If abrupt in manners and inclined to severity in disci-
pline, he was generous, kind-hearted and an ardent re-
publican. Mrs. Audubon's mother, who felt keenly the
separation from her own people, died in September,
1804, a few months after reaching "Fatland Ford," and
in the following year William Bakewell was married to
Rebecca Smith. This lady seems to have taken a strong
dislike to Audubon, for when her death was announced
in 1821,15 he referred to her as "my constant enemy
. . . God forgive her faults."

At this time Audubon studied nature for the pure
love of it, without the faintest expectation that his labors
in natural history would ever be of any service to the
world. But in the year 1810 occurred an event, of seem-
ingly small moment at the time, which nevertheless left
a distinct mark upon his career, as will be now related.

14 See Vol. I, p. 153.

15 William Bakewell died at Philadelphia on March 6, of the same year,
after suffering from the effects of a sunstroke, and was, eventually, buried
at "Fatland Ford;" in 1822 his farm, originally of 800 acres, passed into
the hands of Dr. William Wetherill. See Note, Vol. I, p. 99, and W. G.
Bakewell, Bakew ell-Page -Campbell (Bibl. No. 200).

CHAPTER XIV

A MEETING OF RIVALS, AND A SKETCH OF ANOTHER

PIONEER

Alexander Wilson and his American Ornithology — His canvassing tour of
1810 — His retort to a Solomon of the Bench— Descriptions of Pitts-
burgh, Cincinnati and Louisville— Meeting with Audubon — Journey to
New Orleans — Youth in Scotland— Weaver, itinerant peddler, poet
and socialist — Sent to jail for libel — Emigrates to the United States —
Finally settles as a school teacher near Philadelphia — His friendships
with Bartram and Lawson — Disappointments in love — Early studies of
American birds — His drawings, thrift, talents and genius — Publication
of his Ornithology — His travels, discouragements and success — His pre-
mature death — Conflicting accounts of the visit to Audubon given by
the two naturalists — Rivalry between the friends of Wilson, dead, and
those of Audubon, living— The controversy which followed — An evasive
"Flycatcher" — Singular history of the Mississippi Kite plate.

On January 30, 1810, a man of rather coarse fea-
tures, with a head of sandy hair, and possessed of man-
ners that could be winning or aggressive according to
his mood, might have been seen leaving Philadelphia
afoot, for he had planned to keep his expenses down
to a dollar a day and traveling by coach or on horseback
suited neither his purse nor the objects of his mission.
His clothing was coarse ; his luggage, with the exception
of a fowling-piece and two red-backed volumes of quarto
size, was of the lightest description. But, could we have
peered between the covers of those books, our curiosity
would have been whetted, for they were filled with col-
ored plates of American birds, the first-fruits of their
bearer's untrained eye and hand; the text, moreover,
was printed in a style which would have done honor to
anv country.

202

A MEETING OF RIVALS 203

This man was Alexander Wilson, who, like Audubon,
was a pioneer in the study of the birds of his adopted
land, but who was twenty years his predecessor in point
of publication. The books which he then carried were
part of the first edition of his now famous American
Ornithology, the second volume of which had appeared
in Philadelphia at the beginning of that year. Though
not destined to be completed until after his death, this
work was to become one of the scientific and lit-
erary treasures of the nation, but it is not likely that
one in ten thousand had then ever heard of him, whether
as poet or as ornithologist, or cared anything about his
work or his mission.

Wilson at that moment was starting on his last long
journey through the West and South, in search of new
birds. He also carried in his pocket a subscription list,
and therefore belonged to that class of visitor which is
seldom welcomed with rapture. At Lancaster, Pennsyl-
vania, Wilson's first important stopping-place, and at
that time the capital of the State, Governor Snyder put
down his name for $120, the price of the completed work.
This seemed a good omen, but, at Hanover, in the same
state, an incident occurred which might have discour-
aged a less determined man; the interview has become
historical, and we shall give Wilson's own relation of
it:1

Having a letter from Dr. Muhlenburgh to a Clergyman in
Hanover, I passed on through a well cultivated country, chiefly
inhabited by Germans, to that place, where a certain Judge
Hustetter took upon himself to say, that such a book as mine
ought not to be encouraged ; as it was not within the reach of

1 In a letter to Alexander Lawson, written from Pittsburgh, on
February 22, 1810; see Elliott Coues, "Private Letters of Wilson, Ord,
and Bonaparte," Venn Monthly, vol. x, pp. 443-455 (Philadelphia, 1879).

204 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the commonalty ; and therefore inconsistent with our Republi-
can institutions ! By the same mode of reasoning, which I did
not dispute, I undertook to prove him a greater culprit than
myself, in erecting a large elegant three story Brick house,
so much more beyond the reach of the Commonalty as he called
them, and therefore grossly contrary to our Republican insti-
tutions. I harangued this Solomon of the Bench more seri-
ously afterwards, pointing out to him the great influence of
Science on a young rising Nation like ours, till he began to
show such symptons of intellect, as to seem ashamed of what
he had said.

At Pittsburgh Wilson met Audubon's old employer
and relative by marriage, Benjamin Bake well. The
picture which he then drew 2 of that growing hive of
industry will be read with interest:

On arriving at the town, which stands on a low flat, and
looks like a collection of Blacksmith shops, Glass houses, Brew-
eries, Forges, and Furnaces, the Monongahela opened to the
view on the left running along the bottom of a range of hills
so high that the sun at this season sets to the town of Pitts-
burgh at a little past four. This range continues along the
Ohio as far as the view reaches. The ice had just begun to
give way in Monongahela, and came down in vast bodies for the
three following days. It has now begun in the Alleghany, and
at the moment I write it is one white Mass of rushing ice. The
country beyond the Ohio to the west appears a mountainous
and hilly region. The Monongahela is lined with Arks, usually
called Kentucky Boats, waiting for the rising of the river, &
the absence of ice, to descend. A perspective view of the town
of Pittsburgh at this season, with the numerous arks and cov-
ered keel boats preparing to descend the Ohio, the grandeur
of its hills, and the interesting circumstance of its three great
rivers — the pillars of smoke rising from its Furnaces Glass

aSee Elliott Coues, loc. cit.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 205

works &c. would make a noble picture. I began a very diligent
search in the place the day after my arrival for subscribers
and continued it for four days. I succeeded beyond expecta-
tion having got 19 names of the most wealthy and respectable
part of the inhabitants. The industry of the town is remark-
able ; every body you see is busy ; & as a proof of the pros-
perity of the place an eminent lawyer told me that there has not
been one suit instituted against a mercht. of the town these
three years ! The Glass Houses, of which there are 3, have
more demands for Glass than they are able to answer. Mr.
Bakewell the proprietor of the best, shewed .... yesterday a
Chandelier of his manufacture highly ornamented, . . . for
which he received 300 dollars. It would ornament the .... in
Philada. and is perfectly transparent.

Eight days after he had reached Pittsburgh, Wilson
bravely launched a little skiff, which he christened the
Ornithologist, and began an arduous and perilous
journey to Cincinnati, Louisville and New Orleans, a
distance of two thousand miles. "In this lonesome man-
ner," he wrote, "with full leisure for observation and
reflection, exposed to hardships all day, and hard berths
all night, I persevered from the 24th of February to
Sunday evening, March 17th, when I moored my skiff
safely in Bear Grass Creek, at the rapids of the Ohio,
after a voyage of seven hundred and twenty miles."

Cincinnati, then a town of five hundred houses, was
reached on the ninth of March ; while there Wilson made
the acquaintance of Dr. Daniel Drake, who was later
Audubon's friend, and examined a collection of Indian
relics which had been taken from a freshly opened
mound. He left Cincinnati convinced that its well-to-
do class must be a very thoughtful people, so many of
them, when approached for a subscription to his work,
having replied that they would "think about it." Upon

206 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

nearing Louisville at nightfall he became alarmed lest
he should be drawn into the suction of the Falls, as no
lights could be seen on the banks: cautiously coasting
along the shore, where he encountered many logs and
sawyers, at last he entered the Creek and secured his
skiff to a Kentucky boat; then, "loading myself with my
baggage," he wrote, "I groped my way through a swamp
up to the town."3 When Wilson had seen the Falls by
daylight, he felt that his fears of the night before had
been groundless, and declared that he should have no
hesitation in navigating them single-handed.

It will be interesting to follow Wilson's journey a
little further, before returning to the Louisville visit.
After passing a few days in Audubon's town, he struck
out into the heart of Kentucky, calling at Shelby ville,
Frankfort and Lexington, and eventually reaching
Nashville, Tennessee. Not far from the latter place he
met a landlord of admirable discrimination, Isaac Wal-
ton by name, who showed himself worthy of his illustri-
ous ancestor by declaring that Wilson was evidently
traveling for the good of the world, and added: "I
cannot, and will not charge you anything. Whenever
you come this way, call and stay with me; you shall be
welcome."

At Nashville Wilson wrote to Miss Sarah Miller, the
lady to whom he was engaged but whom he did not live
to marry: "Nine hundred miles distant from you sits
Wilson, the hunter of birds' nests and sparrows, just
preparing to enter on a wilderness of 780 miles — most
of it in the territory of Indians — alone but in good spir-
its, and expecting to have every pocket crammed with
skins of new and extraordinary birds before he reach

3 Letter to Alexander Lawson, dated at Lexington, April 4, 1810; see
Grosart, Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, vol. i, p. 189.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 207

the City of New Orleans." Continuing on his course
in search of new birds and subscribers, Wilson arrived
at Natchez on May 18, and, passing through Louisiana,
on the sixth day of June he entered New Orleans, where
his spirits were immediately raised by the accession of
sixty new names to his list. After six months of con-
tinuous effort, traveling now in a small boat, now on
the back of a horse, but frequently on foot, drenched by
torrents of rain or scorched by the unaccustomed heat,
often compelled to drink the poisonous water of cane
brakes in Mississippi (to which must be attributed an
attack of malarial fever, which he was able with diffi-
culty to throw off, but from which, in all probability,
he never fully recovered), he returned to New York
by sea, and on September 2, 1810, was again in Phila-
delphia.

On this journey Wilson was a pioneer in much of
the territory which Audubon had hardly begun to ex-
plore, but which later became the scene of his wander-
ings and adventures for many a year. At Louisville the
two naturalists met, but they did not become good
friends; though devoted to the same objects, differences
in temperament might in any event have kept them
apart. Unfortunately, the feelings of jealousy which
were then aroused, or which were stirred up at a later
day, were fostered by some of Wilson's injudicious
friends to such an extent that from the moment Audu-
bon's work became known, and long before he had pub-
lished a line, they became as thorns in his path, and
they continued to vex him for thirty years. It is not
easy to reach a fair judgment in this matter now, and
it would be impossible to do so without a better under-
standing of the man who suddenly appeared upon Au-
dubon's horizon at Louisville in 1810 and then vanished.

208 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Because of the peculiar relations which existed between
these two pioneers, we must follow the history of the
elder man a little more closely.

Alexander Wilson was the son of a weaver at Pais-
ley, Scotland, where he was born in 1766; he was thus
Audubon's senior by nineteen years. His father, who
was esteemed for his honesty and intelligence, had tasted
prosperity, but irremediable poverty fell to his lot in
later life. Alexander, the younger son, was motherless
at ten, and the stepmother that soon appeared seems
to have shown him scant sympathy, or, at all events,
never won his affection. Alexander Wilson's youth
unhappily coincided with an era of bad feeling in his
native land; the times were hard in bonny Scotland,
education was stagnant, and the public morals were
debased. Wilson was a child of his times; like thou-
sands of other youths, he was bound to suffer from the
conditions of his early environment, but unlike many
thousands of his day, he was possessed of talents and
ambition which bitter adversity tended to sharpen and
could never repress.

At thirteen young Wilson was taken from school and
apprenticed to a weaver, William Duncan, his brother-
in-law, and for three years he was no stranger to hard
work and the birchen rod. For nearly three years more,
as master weaver, he knew little beyond the grind and
grime of the factory and the society of factory hands.
At eighteen, however, his rebellious spirit struck, and
for ten years he appeared in the role of itinerant peddler,
poet and orator, and as socialist to the extent of cham-
pioning the oppressed weaver class. At one time Wil-
son came into correspondence with Robert Burns and
later made his acquaintance. His best dialect poem,
"Watty and Meg, or The Taming of a Shrew," pub-

A MEETING OF RIVALS 209

lished anonymously as a penny chap-book in 1782, was
his one popular success in the character of poet ; accord-
ing to report it was attributed to Burns, who admitted
that he would have been glad to have written the verses,
which sold so freely that a hundred thousand copies
were disposed of in a few weeks.4 In the disputes be-
tween capital and labor which arose at Paisley, Wilson
took an active part. In connection with them he pub-
lished a number of lampoons in verse, for which he was
convicted of libel and was compelled to burn his satires
at the town cross. In one instance, which occurred in
February, 1793, a petty tyrant whom he had riddled
exacted the fine,5 and because of his inability to pay
Wilson was sent to jail, where he languished for over
three months.

Under the pressure of such persecutions, hard times,
and possibly from disappointment in an affair of the
heart, Wilson decided to emigrate. Practically driven
out in rags from the country which one day was to raise
a monument to his memory, at the age of twenty-eight
he sailed from Belfast with his nephew, William Dun-
can, for the Eldorado of the New World. Wilson slept
on deck throughout the entire voyage of fifty-three
days, and landed at New Castle, Delaware, with the
clothes on his back and an old fowling-piece as his only
possessions. This was on July 14, 1794, nine years be-
fore John James Audubon left Nantes. Taking train
"number 11," in the parlance of knights of the road,
the two immigrants first walked to Wilmington in search
of employment, and finding none there, went on twenty-
nine miles farther to Philadelphia.

4 See Grosart, Poems and Literary Prose of Alexander Wilson, vol. i,
p. xxiv.

B For "The Shark, or Lang Mills Detected," a satire directed against
William Sharp, a manufacturer of Paisley; Wilson was fined £12 13s. 6d.

210 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The story is told that while they made their
way through the woods of Delaware, Wilson
shot a Red-headed Woodpecker and met with
the Cardinal Grosbeak; as he often referred to the
pleasure which the sight of these beautiful birds had
given him, the incident, if it really occurred, may have
played a part in the inspiration, which later came to
Wilson, of becoming the historian of American bird

life.

After eight hard years of shifting about, during
which Wilson tried day-labor, weaving, peddling and
school teaching, working long hours at miserable pay, he
finally settled as a country school teacher near New
York. On the twelfth of July, 1801, he wrote to a fellow
teacher and friend, Charles Orr, who was then living at
Philadelphia: "I live six miles from Newark and twelve
miles from New York, in a settlement of canting,
preaching, praying, and snivelling ignorant Presbyte-
rians. They pay their minister 250 pounds for preach-
ing twice a week, and their teacher 40 dollars a quarter
for the most spirit-sinking, laborious work — 6, I may
say 12 times weekly." To the same friend, in 1802,
he confided: "My disposition is to love those who love
me with all the warmth of enthusiasm, but to feel with
the keenest sensibility the smallest appearance of neglect
or contempt from those I regard."

In 1802, at the age of thirty-six, Wilson decided to
take up a school at Gray's Ferry, on the Schuylkill
River, in Kingsessing Township, then a small settlement
four miles from Philadelphia. A year later, in 1803,
John James Audubon was sent to America to learn
English and enter trade, and, as chance would have it,
settled on the banks of the same river, not many miles
from Wilson's old schoolhouse. In one respect the

A MEETING OF RIVALS 211

older man was the more fortunate, for, as will be seen,
he found close by his door an excellent naturalist who
played the part of mentor.

On February 14, 1802, while at Philadelphia, Wilson
wrote to Orr:

On the 25th. of this month I remove to the schoolhouse be-
yond Gray's Ferry to succeed the present teacher there. I
shall recommence that painful profession once more with the
same gloomy, sullen resignation that a prisoner re-enters his
dungeon or a malefactor mounts the scaffold ; fate urges him,
necessity me. The agreement between us is to make the school
equal to 100 dollars per quarter, but not more than 50 are to
be admitted. The present pedagogue is a noisy, outrageous
fat old captain of a ship, who has taught these ten years in
different places. You may hear him bawling 300 yards off.
The boys seem to pay as little regard to him as ducks to the
rumbling of a stream under them. I shall have many diffi-
culties to overcome in establishing my own rules and authority.

At Gray's Ferry, where he was then settled, Wilson
again wrote in July: "Leave that cursed town at least
one day. It is the most striking emblem of purgatory,
at least to me, that exists. No poor soul is happier to
escape from Bridewell than I am to smell the fresh air
and gaze over the green fields after a day or two's resi-
dence in Philadelphia . . ."

George Ord, Wilson's staunch friend, literary execu-
tor, biographer, and editor of the last two volumes of
the American Ornithology, thus characterized him: "He
was of the genus irritabile, and was obstinate in opin-
ion." He would acknowledge error when discovered by
himself, "but he could not endure to be told of his mis-
takes. Hence his associates had to be sparing of
criticism, through fear of forfeiting his friendship. With

212 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

almost all his friends he had occasionally, arising from
a collision of opinion, some slight misunderstanding,
which was soon passed over, leaving no disagreeable
impression. But an act of disrespect he could ill brook,
and a wilful injury he would seldom forgive."

In 1801, while teaching and studying German at
Milestown, Pennsylvania, Wilson had another unfor-
tunate love affair, in this instance with a woman already
married. To this he alluded in letters written in the
summer of that year to his friend Orr, with whom he
later quarreled. On August 7, 1801, he wrote: "The
world is lost forever to me and I to the world. No time
nor distance can ever banish her image from my mind.
It is forever present with me, and my heart is broken
with the most melancholy reflections."

At Gray's Ferry, however, Wilson soon found in the
estimable William Bartram, then in his sixty-first year,
the sympathetic adviser, kind teacher, and judicious
friend that he most needed, for though Wilson took the
initiative in his ornithological plans, it was the kindly
Bartram who eventually extended a helping hand. Both
Bartram and Lawson, the engraver, urged him to devote
his leisure to drawing, as a foil to his melancholic tenden-
cies. Wilson did not hesitate long, for on June 1, 1803,
he confided to a friend in Scotland that he had begun to
make a "collection of our finest birds." Early in 1804
his purpose was clearly fixed, and on March 12 of that
year he wrote to Alexander Lawson: "I am most
earnestly bent on pursuing my plan of making a collec-
tion of all the birds in this part of North America . . .
I have been so long accustomed to the building of airy
castles and brain windmills, that it has become one of
my earthly comforts, a sort of rough bone, that amuses
me when sated with the dull drudgery of life." A

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little later in the same month we find him appealing to
Bartram for exact names, when he writes:

I send for your amusement a few attempts at some of our
indigenous birds, hoping that your good nature will excuse their
deficiencies, while you point them out to me. . . . They were
chiefly coloured by candle-light. I have now got my collection
of native birds considerably enlarged, and shall endeavor, if
possible, to obtain all the smaller ones this summer. Be pleased
to mark on the drawings, with a pencil, the names of each bird,
as, except three or four, I do not know them.

Wilson, practically self-taught in everything, with
no experience or training in drawing from nature, thus
began at the age of thirty-eight to make his drawings
of birds, before he knew the names of his subjects, and
twenty years before Audubon's talents were known to
any but members of his own family and a few intimate
friends. The only aid in drawing which Wilson ever
received appears to have come from the hints which
Lawson supplied. Nevertheless, the best of Alexander
Wilson's original drawings represent a degree of ex-
cellence and honest workmanship of which he had no
need to be ashamed, and in many instances he owed
far less to his engraver, Alexander Lawson, than did
his great rival to Robert Havell.

In 1880 Dr. Elliott Coues examined a large collection
of original Wilson and Audubon drawings and manu-
scripts, "owned and kept with the greed of a genuine
bibliomaniac" by Joseph M. Wade, then editor of Fa-
miliar Science and Fancier's Journal. If not Wilson's
portfolio itself, its contents, at least, said Dr. Coues,
were then in Mr. Wade's possession, and this series of
Wilson's drawings included, he thought, more than half

214 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

of the originals of his famous plates. To quote Dr.
Coues : 6

In handling these drawings and paintings, of all degrees
of completeness, one of sensibility could but experience some
emotions he would not care to formulate in words ... I was
fairly oppressed with the sad story of poverty, even destitution,
which these wan sheets of coarse paper told. Some of Wilson's
originals are on the fly-leaves of old books, showing binder's
marks along one edge. One of the best portraits, that of the
Duck Hawk, is on two pieces of paper pasted together. The
man was actually too poor to buy paper! Some of the draw-
ings are on both sides of the paper ; some show a full picture
on one side, and part of a mutilated finished painting on the
other. Some show the rubbing process by which they were
transferred. They are in all stages of completeness, from the
rudest outlines to the finished painting.

I know full well that in 1804, when Wilson had fairly
begun his work on birds, he was poor enough, but I
hesitate to believe upon such evidence that he was too
poor to buy decent drawing materials. Wilson doubt-
less practiced economy in these matters as in everything
else, through his ingrained habit of Scotch thrift, and
he was probably quite as well-to-do then as five years
before, when out of his slender earnings he was able to
lay money aside.7 Later, to be sure, his modest savings
were quite consumed by his Ornithology, and then Wil-
liam Bartram came to his aid, even giving him a home
in his own house. It is also wide of the mark to con-

c See Bibliography, No. 43.

' At Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on October 3, 1799, Alexander Wilson
sent George Simpson, Esq., a State Treasurer's check in favor of Joseph
Brown for $475, to be entered to the credit of Mr. Brown as one install-
ment on 38 shares of scrip in the new loan at eight per cent, in the
names of Thomas Eyes, 14 shares; Alexander Wilson, 14 shares; and
Kenneth Sewell, 10 shares.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 215

elude from his fugitive letters or from his drawings, as
this critic has done, that Wilson was possessed of genius
only, and "had nothing else, not even talent and ability."
Wilson certainly had a talent for writing and cultivated
it with marked success; even his verse was not all of a
"despicable mediocrity." In the art of drawing, how-
ever, his natural gifts were of a very modest sort, and
what he achieved was the result of the most painstaking
effort. Of course he was not a finished scholar, as grad-
uates from the school of adversity seldom are, but he
had a passion for knowledge and the determination to
excel. His genius was not fully displayed until a pow-
erful motive, the ambition to make known the birds of
his adopted land, had possessed his spirit and taxed his
powers to their utmost capacity.

Shortly after he had settled at Gray's Ferry, Wil-
son's susceptible nature was touched by another ro-
mance, which was again unfortunate for the poet and
dreamer, but was probably the making of the ornitholo-
gist. Bartram's Botanic Gardens, on the outskirts of
Philadelphia, had long been famous for their large and
choice collection of native plants, gathered by the inde-
fatigable zeal of their worthy founder, John Bartram,
Quaker philosopher, traveler, botanist, agriculturalist
and nurseryman ; but the fairest flower in the whole col-
lection at that time is said to have been Miss Anne
Bartram, daughter of John the younger, niece of Wil-
liam, who then superintended the "Kingsess Gardens,"
granddaughter of the founder, and heiress to the estate.
To this Quaker maid Wilson addressed a number of his
poems, and he interested her in the drawing of birds;
on March 29, 1804, he wrote to her uncle: "I send a
small scroll of drawing papers for Miss Nancy. She
will oblige me by accepting it." This little incident

216 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

would show that Wilson was no stranger to the use of
good drawing materials, however frugal his habits in
this respect may have been. The young lady is said
to have been not indifferent to her poet lover, and some
of her family were friendly; the father, however, had
no notion of bestowing his daughter's hand upon a poor
schoolmaster, and for the third time Wilson's dreams of
domestic bliss were shattered.

Such experiences no doubt tended to chasten the sen-
sitive spirit of this real genius, whose whole life seemed
to have been a continuous and losing struggle, while he
felt within him an inspiration and a power that had failed
to find adequate expression in labor at the loom, in verse,
or in the hated vocation of teaching rough country
schools at starvation wages. Though depressed by his
misadventures in love, Wilson does not seem to have
been embittered, and by way of diversion, he set out
in the autumn of 1804, on a long walking tour from
Philadelphia to Niagara Falls and back; in the follow-
ing winter the experiences of this journey were embodied
in a descriptive poem of 2,018 lines which he called "The
Foresters," an effort which would have been less prosaic
if frankly expressed in prose. Wilson's friendship for
the Bartrams continued under the changed conditions,
and he was invited to make his home under their hos-
pitable roof. He was now free to devote himself heart
and soul to birds and to birds alone.

Wilson etched the first two plates of his American
Ornithology before he had obtained an engraver or a
publisher. In April, 1806, he resigned his school at
Gray's Ferry to accept an editorial position on a New
American Cyclopcedia? then in course of preparation,

8 This was the American edition of Abraham Rees' revision of Ephraim
Chambers' Cyclopaedia, which had appeared in London in 1728; it was pub-

A MEETING OF RIVALS 217

at a salary of $900 a year. Samuel F. Bradford, the
publisher of this work, soon became interested in Wil-
son's projected American Ornithology and agreed to
publish it. It became the ambition of both author and
publisher to produce the work in a superior style, and
to make it as perfect and complete an American prod-
uct as possible. Only the pigments used in coloring
some of the plates were imported from Europe.9

Wilson issued in April, 1807, an elaborate prospectus
of his proposed Ornithology, in which he stated that the
completed work would comprise ten volumes, to cost
$120, and that it would be illustrated by plates, engraved
and colored by hand, after the manner of a carefully
prepared sample which was issued with the printed an-
nouncement. In September, 1808, as already intimated,
the first volume of the American Ornithology10 appeared

lished at Philadelphia, in forty-one quarto volumes of text and six volumes
of plates, by Samuel F. Bradford and the Messrs. Murray, Fairman &
Company, 1810-1824.

9 "The types," said Charles Robert Leslie, "which were very beautiful,
were cast in America, and though at that time paper was largely imported,
he [Mr. Bradford] determined that the paper should be of American
manufacture; and I remember that Ames, the paper maker, carried his
patriotism so far that he declared that he would use only American rags
in making it." (Autobiographical Recollections, Boston, 1860.)

10 The American Ornithology: or, the Natural History of the Birds
of the United States: Illustrated with Plates Engraved and Colored from
Original Drawings taken from Nature, by Alexander Wilson, was published
in nine imperial quarto volumes by Messrs. Bradford and Inskeep, at
Philadelphia, 1808-1814. Each volume contained nine plates and from
100 to 167 pages of text, exclusive of prefatory and other matter. The
eighth volume, which was nearly ready for press at the time of the
author's death, was edited by George Ord, Wilson's friend and executor;
the final volume, which was wholly by Ord, and which was issued in
the same year, contained a life of Wilson. After the appearance of the
initial volume, the edition was extended to 500 copies and the first volume
was entirely reset. Ord's life of Wilson was expanded for a three-volume
edition of the Ornithology, and from oversheets of this work was pro-
duced as a separate volume in 1828 (see Note, Vol. I, p. 223).

Wilson's published lists of subscribers show 449 names, calling for 458
copies, more than half of which were taken by residents of Pennsylvania,
New York and Louisiana; 70 were subscribed for in Philadelphia, chiefly
by business men, artists, and "those in the middle class of society;" New

218 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

in an edition of 200 copies. Wilson immediately started
on a canvassing tour of New England, in the course of
which he visited the principal towns and colleges, going
east to Portland, Maine, and as far north as Dartmouth
College, in New Hampshire, where President John
Wheelock and the professors received him with marked
attention. On this journey Wilson did not average one
subscriber a day, and he was forced to conclude that he
had "been mistaken in publishing a work too good for
the country"; "it is a fault," he said, "not likely to be
repeated, and will pretty severely correct itself." Dan-
iel D. Tompkins, Governor of New York, coolly said
to him: "I would not give one hundred dollars for all
the birds you intend to describe," not even if "I had them
alive"; but a future Governor of that State, De Witt
Clinton, the friend of science and scientific men, gave
him the substantial encouragement he craved. When
his second volume was ready for issue, Wilson wrote to
Bartram: "This undertaking has involved me in diffi-
culties and expenses which I never dreamt of, and I
have never yet received one cent from it. I am, there-
fore, a volunteer in the cause of Natural History im-
pelled by nobler views than those of money."

In the autumn of 1808 Wilson made a long and
arduous tour of the South, in the course of which he
visited every important town along the southern Atlan-
tic seaboard, and though it cost him dear, he obtained

Orleans in seventeen days gave him 60 subscribers; Europe supplied 15,
among whom were William Roscoe, later a patron of Audubon, and
Benjamin West, the artist. Wilson figured and described 278 species of
American birds (within the limits of the United States), of which 56
were supposed to be new, and the total number, given by Wilson and
Ord, is said to be 320. Twenty-three species were erroneously supposed
to be identical with their European counterparts, yet all of Wilson's birds
except the "Small-headed Flycatcher," referred to at the end of this
chapter, have been identified. Considering the time and the difficulties
under which he labored, his mistakes were remarkably few.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 219

250 subscribers; it was then that his publishers decided
to extend the original edition of his work to 500 copies.
His longer and more perilous journey of 1810, when his
meeting with Audubon occurred, has already been de-
scribed. In 1812, after the sixth volume of the Orni-
thology had appeared, he again resumed his travels in
the East and went as far north as Burlington, on Lake
Champlain ; at Haverhill, New Hampshire, he was sum-
marily arrested and thrown into jail, the people of the
town, utterly unable to comprehend the nature of his
pursuits, suspecting that in his real capacity he was act-
ing as a spy in the employ of the Canadian Government.
The seventh and last volume of the Ornithology which
Wilson lived to complete made its appearance in the
spring of 1813. He had then been obliged to relinquish
his work on the Cyclopcedia, and was reduced to the pit-
tance derived from the coloring of his own plates.

Alexander Wilson died at Philadelphia, after a brief
illness, on August 23, 1813. A story was current that
his end was saddened, if not hastened, by the dishonestv
of his publishers, but I cannot vouch for it. Audubon
may have had this report in mind when he wrote his
name in the hotel register at Niagara Falls 1X on August
24, 1824 ; and added that he would never die, like Wilson,
"under the lash of a bookseller." Even as late as 1879
Miss Malvina Lawson, daughter of Wilson's friend and
engraver, left no doubt as to her belief when she wrote:
"and to his other trials was added the fact that killed
him, — the dishonesty of his publisher."12

When we consider that Wilson's entire working pe-
riod on the Ornithology was not over ten years, and that

11 See Arol. I, p. 340.

12 See a letter to Professor S. S. Haldeman, dated February 6, 1879,
in Perm Monthly, vol. x (Philadelphia, 1879).

220 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

at the age of forty-seven he was called to lay down his
pen and brush forever; that he produced in this brief
space a work of great originality and charm, which did
inestimable service in promoting the cause of natural
history in both America and England, and which is likely
to be read and prized for centuries to come, the achieve-
ment of this man is little short of marvelous. Knowing
also the disabilities under which he labored, we are more
than ready to temper our judgment with sympathy, and
to overlook any faults which his character may have
displayed. These indeed, we believe, were for the most
part of a very trifling nature; those who knew Wilson
best have all testified to his kindness of heart, his liber-
ality, and his high sense of honor.

We must now return to the meeting of our two pio-
neers, which has been the bone of so much acrimonious
contention. On his long journey to the Middle West
and South, Wilson reached Louisville on a Saturday
evening, March seventeenth, 1810, and put up at the
tavern of the "Indian Queen," where, as it happened,
Audubon was then living with his family ; after spending
five days in and about the town, he again set out on foot
for Frankfort, on the morning of Friday, the twenty-
third. Audubon has given the following account in the
"Episode" of "Louisville in Kentucky":13

One fair morning, I was surprised by the sudden entrance
into our counting-room [at Louisville] of Mr. Alexander Wil-
son, the celebrated author of the "American Ornithology," of
whose existence I had never until that moment been apprised.
This happened in March, 1810. How well do I remember him,
as he then walked up to me! His long, rather hooked nose,
the keenness of his eyes, and his prominent cheek-bones, stamped
his countenance with a peculiar character. His dress, too, was

13 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 437.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 221

of a kind not usually seen in that part of the country ; a short
coat, trousers, and a waistcoat of grey cloth. His stature
was not above the middle size. He had two volumes under his
arm, and as he approached the table at which I was working,
I thought I discovered something like astonishment in his
countenance. He, however, immediately proceeded to disclose
the object of his visit, which was to procure subscriptions for
his work. He opened his books, explained the nature of his
occupations, and requested my patronage.

I felt surprised and gratified at the sight of the volumes,
turned over a few of the plates, and had already taken a pen to
write my name in his favour when my partner rather abruptly
said to me in French, "My dear Audubon, what induces you to
subscribe to this work? Your drawings are certainly far better,
and again you must know as much of the habits of American
birds as this gentleman. " Whether Mr. Wilson understood
French or not, or if the suddenness with which I paused, disap-
pointed him, I cannot tell ; but I clearly perceived that he was
not pleased. Vanity and the encomiums of my friend prevented
me from subscribing. Mr. Wilson asked me if I had many draw-
ings of birds. I rose, took down a large portfolio, laid it on the
table, and shewed him, as I would show you, kind reader, or any
other person fond of such subjects, the whole of the contents,
with the same patience with which he had shewn me his own en-
gravings.

His surprise appeared great, as he told me he never
had the most distant idea that any other individual than him-
self had been engaged in forming such a collection. He asked
me if it was my intention to publish, and when I answered in
the negative, his surprise seemed to increase. And, truly, such
was not my intention ; for, until long after, when I met the
Prince of Musignano in Philadelphia, I had not the least idea
of presenting the fruits of my labours to the world. Mr. Wil-
son now examined my drawings with care, asked if I should
have any objections to lending him a few during his stay, to
which I replied that I had none: he then bade me good morn-
ing, not, however, until I had made an arrangement to explore

222 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the woods in the vicinity along with him, and had promised to
procure for him some birds, of which I had drawings in my
collection, but which he had never seen.

It happened that he lodged in the same house with us,
but his retired habits, I thought, exhibited either a strong
feeling of discontent, or a decided melancholy. The Scotch
airs which he played sweetly on his flute made me melan-
choly too, and I felt for him. I presented him to my
wife and friends, and seeing that he was all enthusiasm,
exerted myself as much as was in my power, to procure
for him the specimens which he wanted. We hunted to-
gether, and obtained birds which he had never before seen ;
but, reader, I did not subscribe to his work, for, even at that
time, my collection was greater than his. Thinking that per-
haps he might be pleased to publish the results of my researches,
I offered them to him, merely on condition that what I had
drawn, or might afterwards draw and send to him, should be
mentioned in his work, as coming from my pencil. I at the same
time offered to open a correspondence with him, which I thought
might prove beneficial to us both. He made no reply to either
proposal, and before many days had elapsed left Louisville, on
his way to New Orleans, little knowing how much his talents
were appreciated in our little town, at least by myself and my
friends.

Some time elapsed, during which I never heard of him, or of
his work. At length, having occasion to go to Philadelphia,
I, immediately after my arrival there, inquired for him and
paid him a visit. He was then drawing a White-headed Eagle.
He received me with civility, and took me to the Exhibition
Rooms of Rembrandt Peale, the artist, who had then portrayed
Napoleon crossing the Alps. Mr. Wilson spoke not of birds
or drawings. Feeling, as I was forced to do, that my com-
pany was not agreeable, I parted from him; and after that
I never saw him again. But judge of my astonishment some
time after, when on reading the thirty-ninth page of the ninth
volume of American Ornithology, I found in it the following
paragraph : —

A MEETING OF RIVALS 223

"March 23, 1810.— I bade adieu to Louisville, to which
place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught
to expect much of everything there ; but neither received one act
of civility from those to whom I was recommended, one sub-
scriber, nor one new bird; though I delivered my letters, ran-
sacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the characters likely
to subscribe. Science or literature has not one friend in this
place."

What actually happened at this meeting of the two
naturalists will never be certainly known, beyond what
can be gathered from their rather widely divergent ac-
counts. It should be noticed, however, that the para-
graph which Audubon quoted was extracted from Wil-
son's private diary; it was no doubt written on the spur
of the moment, possibly to humor his own mood, and
certainly with no thought of its later publication. It
was inserted by George Ord in the biographical sketch
of his friend appended to the ninth volume of the Amer-
ican Ornithology, which appeared in 1814, the year after
Wilson's death. Audubon was not concerned, either
directly or by implication, except in the last sentence,
for it is evident that he was not one of those to whom
Wilson had carried letters of introduction. Thus the
matter stood until 1828, when Audubon's Birds of
America were being engraved in England. In all prob-
ability the incident would never have been noticed by
Audubon, had not Ord seen fit to revive it when his life
of Wilson14 was issued as a separate volume in that
year. In this edition of the biography Ord inserted
fuller extracts from Wilson's journal, with the evident

" Sketch of the Life of Alexander Wilson, Author of the American
Ornithology, by George Ord, F. L. S. &c. pp. i-cxcix, Philadelphia, 1838;
taken from vol. i of an octavo edition of Wilson, edited by Ord, and issued
by Harrison Hall, in three volumes, at Philadelphia in 1828-29, with folio
atlas of plates reproduced from the original work; see Note 10, supra.

224 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

purpose of placing the rival of his friend in an unenvia-
ble light.

Wilson's diary, which apparently was never seen by
any of Audubon's friends, is now known to us only
through such extracts as Ord and Waterton, his bitter
enemies, have seen fit to make public; the original has
probably been destroyed, for it cannot be traced later
than 1840, when it was still in the hands of George Ord.15
Charles Waterton gave similar extracts from this famous
journal in one of his philippics against Audubon in 1834,
when he said that it was the testimony of this record
that defeated Audubon's friends in their initial attempt
to bring him into the Academy of Natural Sciences at
Philadelphia. Wilson's narrative of his adventures at
Louisville in 1810, as given by Ord and Waterton, is
as follows:16

March 17. Take my baggage and grope my way to Louisville —
put up at the Indian Queen tavern, and gladly sit down to
rest myself.

March 18. Rise quite refreshed. Find a number of land-specu-
lators here.17

March 19. Rambling round the town with my gun. Examined

Mr. 's drawings in crayons — very good. Saw two new

birds he had, both Motacillae.

March 20. Set out this afternoon with the gun — killed nothing
new. [People in taverns here devour their meals. Many

"See Ord's charge of plagiarism against Audubon (Bibl. No. 145)
in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. i (1840).
So far as could be ascertained in the summer of 1915, Wilson's diary of
1810 was not in the possession of any library or scientific society in
Philadelphia, nor was it in the large collection of books which was
given by Ord to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of that city at the
time of his death in 1866.

18 The bracketed lines are from Waterton, who once stated that he
had examined the original.

17 This sentence is quoted from Burns' biographical sketch of Wilson
(Bibl., No. 161), but tenses are changed to correspond with other entries.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 225

shopkeepers board in taverns — also boatmen, land-specu-
laters, merchants &c] No naturalist to keep me company.

March 21. Went out shooting this afternoon with Mr. A. Saw
a number of Sandhill Cranes. Pigeons numerous.

March 22.

March 23. Packed up my things which I left in the care of a
merchant here, to be sent on to Lexington ; and having
parted with great regret, with my paroquet, to the gen-
tleman of the tavern, I bade adieu to Louisville, to which
place I had four letters of recommendation, and was taught
to expect much of everything there, but neither received
one act of civility from those to whom I was recommended,
one subscriber, nor one new bird; though I delivered my
letters, ransacked the woods repeatedly, and visited all the
characters likely to subscribe. Science or literature has
not one friend in this place. [Everyone is so intent on
making money, that they can talk of nothing else ; and they
absolutely devour their meals, that they may return sooner
to their business. Their manners correspond with their
features.]

In this fuller record we learn that Wilson spent five
days in Louisville ; he examined Audubon's drawings on
Monday, March 19, hunted alone on the 20th, went out
shooting with Audubon on the 21st, and finally left
Louisville on the morning of the 23d; no record was
admitted by Ord for Sunday, the 18th, or for the 22d,
a Thursday. Wilson noticed the drawings of two new
Motacillae, or Warblers, in Audubon's collection, and
it would have been only natural that he should have felt
a strong desire to copy them, yet not a word was said
about the loan of drawings to which Audubon refers;
Wilson merely stated that from those to whom he was
recommended he had received not "one act of civility, —
one subscriber, nor one new bird." Audubon was evi-

226 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

dently regarded as one of the "many shopkeepers" who
boarded "in taverns," and not as a "naturalist," for
Wilson said that he had none to keep him company, and
it is rather significant that Audubon's name is not once
mentioned in his Ornithology.

Twenty-nine years after Wilson's visit to Louisville,
when Audubon came to publish the fifth and last volume
of his Ornithological Biography, he maintained that
Wilson had copied his drawing of a certain bird, called
the Small-headed Flycatcher,18 without any acknowl-
edgment. To quote Audubon's words :

When Alexander Wilson visited me at Louisville, he found
in my already large collection of drawings, a figure of the
present species, which being at that time unknown to him
he copied and afterwards published in his great work, but
without acknowledging the privilege that had thus been granted
to him. I have more than once regretted this, not by any
means so much on my own account as for the sake of one to
whom we are so deeply indebted for the elucidation of our
ornithology.

This troublesome bird was first described by Wilson
in 1812, when he rightly pronounced it "very rare," and
said that the specimen from which his drawing was
made had been shot in an orchard, presumably near
Philadelphia, on the twenty-fourth day of April, and
that several had been obtained also in New Jersey.
His friend Ord, who came to his defense in 1840, con-
firmed this statement by declaring to the American
Philosophical Society of Philadelphia that he had been
with Wilson on the day in question and had examined

**Musicapa minuta, which appears in Figure 5, Plate 50, of volume vi
of Wilson's American Ornithology (pp. 62-G3 of the text), and in Figure 2,
Plate ccccxxxiv, of Audubon's Birds of America (Ornithological Biography,
vol. v, pp. 291-3).

A MEETING OF RIVALS 227

the specimen. Lawson also affirmed that in engraving
the plate he had worked directly from the bird which
Wilson had given him.

What has become of this mysterious phantom that has
been a wandering and disturbing voice among ornitholo-
gists for over a century? It has given rise to no end of
conflicting and sharp discussions between the partisans
of the two naturalists chiefly concerned, the only thing
certain being that if this supposititious species ever ex-
isted, it has forsaken its old haunts, if not the earth itself,
and has never returned. No doubt it was simply a case
of mistaken identity, and both Wilson and Audubon
were wrong, each having had in hand and mind an imma-
ture representative of one of our numerous Warblers,
which are now so much better known.19 If Wilson
copied Audubon's drawing of the bird, he must have
replaced it with one of his own, for the figures of the
two naturalists are verv unlike. Certainly Audubon
should not have made so serious a charge without offer-
ing more substantial evidence in proof; perhaps what he
had intended to convey was that Wilson had obtained
from him his first knowledge of the bird, and he was
nettled to find that he had been studiously ignored.20

18 Nevertheless so careful and discerning a naturalist as Thomas Nut-
tall confidently asserted that his friend, Mr. M. C. Pickering, had "obtained
a specimen several years ago near Salem (Massachusetts)"; see A Manual
of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada (Cambridge, 1832).
Dr. Elliott Coues at one time thought that it might have been the Pine-
creeping Warbler, and Professor Baird identified it as the female or young
of the Hooded Warbler.

20 Compare Ornithological Biography, vol. iii, p. 203, where in Audubon's
article on the Whooping Crane, there is this note: "Louisville, State of
Kentucky, March, 1810. I had the gratification of taking Alexander Wilson
to some ponds within a few miles of town, and of showing him many birds
of this species, of which he had not previously seen any other than
stuffed specimens. I told him that the white birds were the adidts, and
that the grey ones were the young. Wilson, in his article on the Whooping
Crane, has alluded to this, but, as on other occasions, he has not informed
his readers whence his information came."

228 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Among the originals of Audubon's Birds of America
in possession of the Historical Society of New York,
there is an early drawing of a Warbler which bears in
pencil, in the naturalist's hand, the following note: "This
bird was copied by Mr. Willson at Louisville." 21 The
misspelling of Wilson's name, which was common with
Audubon as late as 1820, would indicate that the note
was not added after that time, but if Wilson copied this
drawing, there is no evidence that he ever used it.

Ord made another charge in which Audubon does not
appear to such good advantage; though it refers to a
later day, it is best to consider it now. This critic
thought that a complaint of misappropriation came with
ill grace from one who had been guilty of it himself,
and maintained that Audubon had copied Wilson's fig-
ures of the female Red-wing Blackbird (The Birds of
America, Plate LXVII), and had also stolen his draw-
ing of the Mississippi Kite (Plate CXVII). Ord was
probably mistaken in regard to the blackbird, but with-
out a doubt the lower bird in the Kite plate was taken
from Wilson (American Ornithology, Plate 25) , though
the copyist has reversed the outlines, left out one of the
toes, added minor details, and misnamed the sex, which
in the Wilson original represents a male. Without a
doubt also the odium in this case must fall upon Audu-
bon, but we are not at all certain that he was directly
responsible for the theft. Audubon's plate of this spe-
cies, which is finished in elaborate detail, was probably
published towards the close of 1831, when he was in
America. He furnished his engraver, we believe, with

21 What appear to be the original legends, written on this drawing in
ink, are as follows: "Chute de l'Ohio. July 1, 1808. No. 31. J. A. Que
j'avais figur6 [?] 12 pennes a la queue." Above were later added, also
in ink, the names, "sylvia Trochilus delicata; Sylvia delieata, Aud."

a is

c -

M B

™ DC

A MEETING OF RIVALS 229

the drawing of the upper bird only, which he designated
as a male, and the original still exists, with clearly writ-
ten notes showing that it was executed in Louisiana in
1821.22

Audubon usually made up his drawings for the en-
graver with great care, but when pressed for time, Ha-
vell's skill was such that he often depended upon him to
complete or change his figures, to fill in backgrounds,
or even to combine several distinct figures into one
plate, specific directions for all such changes being usu-
ally written on the drawing itself.23 Inasmuch as no
penciled directions whatever occur on this particular
drawing, is it possible that Havell, in piecing it out to
improve the composition, followed his own initiative,
not fully appreciating the stigma that is rightly attached
to such methods? The bird in the lower half of the plate,
which was appropriated from Wilson, is misrepresented
as a female, so that the composite, as it stands, is a re-
markable product, supposedly depicting a pair but in
reality showing two males. Although the apparent dif-
ference in sex in this bird was admittedly slight, it is
improbable that so gross an error could have escaped
the naturalist's eye had he been directly concerned with
the result.

When Audubon was descending the Mississippi in
December, 1820, he saw the kites busily engaged "in
catching small lizards off the bark of dead cypress trees,"
but "having at that time no crayons or paper," he "did

22 On this drawing, which with Audubon's other originals is in the col-
lections of the Historical Society of New York, the legends are as follows:
"Mississippi Kite, Male, Falco mississippiensis ; Drawn from nature by
John J. Audubon, Louisiana, parish of Feliciana, James Perrie's Esq.,
Plantation. June 28th, 1821. Length 14 inches; Breadth 3 feet, ya inches;
Weight 10% ounces; Tail feathers, 12." It is drawn in his usual style of
that period, in pastel, water color and pencil, and has been dismounted.

23 See Vol. I, p. 305.

230 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

not draw one, and determined," as he then wrote in his
journal, "never to draw from a stuffed bird." "I first
saw the Mississippi Kite," he added, when "ascending
in the steamboat Paragon, in June, 1819." Wilson,
on the other hand, in his knowledge of this interesting
bird was far in advance of his later rival, for his first
observations were made in 1810, "in the Mississippi ter-
ritory, a few miles below Natchez, on the plantation of
William Dunbar, esquire, when the bird represented in
the plate was obtained, after being slightly wounded;
and the drawing made with great care from the living
bird." "For several miles, as I passed near Bayo Man-
chak," Wilson continues, "the trees were swarming with
a kind of cicada, or locust, that made a deafening noise ;
and here I observed numbers of the Hawk now before
us sweeping about among the trees like Swallows, evi-
dently in pursuit of these locusts; so that insects, it
would appear, are the principal food of this species."24
Wilson never succeeded in procuring the female of this
graceful hawk, and his editor, George Ord, evidently
continued the quest, for we find his correspondent, John
Abbot, writing him from "Scriven County Georgia Mar.
1814": "Are you acquainted with the female yet of
the Louisiana Kite?"25

We have entered into the detailed history of this plate
because of the unfavorable comment which it has pro-
voked, but it is easier to be critical than to be either just
or correct, and without more definite knowledge than
we possess, it would be unfair to censure Audubon too
much or to shift the blame too completely upon the
shoulders of another.

24 American Ornithology, vol. iii, p. 80.

20 See Witner Stone, "Some Letters of Alexander Wilson and John
Abbot," The Auk, vol. xxiii, 190G.

A MEETING OF RIVALS 231

To return again to the story of Wilson's diary, it
is evident that Wilson would never have published his
sentiments in the form in which they later appeared.
They were perfectly characterized by a just critic of an
early day,20 who said that Wilson's words were without
doubt written in a moment of keen depression and disap-
pointment and were an exact description of his feelings,
though, as we should also add, not of the facts. "A
man who has given his heart to the accomplishment of
an object, believing that he has no rival, must be some-
what more than human, if he be delighted to find that
another is engaged in the same purpose, with equal
energy and advantages far greater than his own." Bar-
ring his usual inaccuracies, it must be admitted that Au-
dubon's account bears the thumbmarks of truth. He
could not have known the bitter struggles of the proud
spirit whose history we have briefly told ; he saw only a
stranger, an ardent devotee of nature, it is true, but a
man of unbending disposition, who with a little more
suavity of address could probably have won his friend-
ship, if not his subscription. Of the literary quality of
Wilson's work, now so well appreciated, he could have
known nothing at all; after turning its pages in his
Louisville store for the first time in 1810, he probably
did not see it again for over ten years.

That Wilson was jealous of Audubon as a future
rival is probable, but the real "rivalry" between these two
pioneers was of later growth. It was fostered in this
country chiefly by George Ord and some of his friends,
together with others who were interested in the sale of
Wilson's work. Ord, who seems to have felt that the
mantle of this naturalist had fallen on his own shoul-

26 In 1840, by W. B. O. Peabody, naturalist; author of a Life of Wilson;
see Bibliography, No. 105.

232 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ders, strove continually, and after 1826 with the aid of
Charles Waterton in England, to hamper Audubon's
progress, to discredit him as a man of integrity, and
to break down his growing reputation as a naturalist.
Though Ord was justified to some extent in his attacks
upon Audubon which were made over Wilson's shoul-
ders long after that estimable man was laid in the grave,
the matter was carried too far. Neither of the rivals
was wholly without fault, and a century is far too long
to continue any quarrel, especially when one of those
whose reputation was concerned was never a party to
it.

Audubon, as we have seen, frankly attributed to per-
sonal vanity his failure to patronize Wilson's work,
and added that "even at that time my collections were
greater than his." But it should be noticed that money
was far from plentiful with him at that moment. He
was, in short, at the point of failure in the Louisville
enterprise, and with Rozier was obliged to move down
the river not long after the date of Wilson's visit. Au-
dubon has been represented as at this time a well-to-do
man of leisure, of fastidious tastes. Nothing could have
been wider of the mark. He was still more of a sports-
man than a naturalist, and when not occupied with
drawing, he spent most of his time in the forest, to the
neglect of his trade. We may be sure that he was
quite as used to roughing it as any man on the frontier.

CHAPTER XV

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE ON THE FRONTIER

The Ohio a hundred years ago — Hardships of the pioneer trader — Audu-
bon's long journeys by overland trail or river to buy goods — The
"ark" and keelboat — Chief pleasures of the naturalist at Louisville —
The partners move their goods by flatboat to Henderson, Kentucky,
and then to Ste. Genevieve, (Missouri) — Held up by the ice — Adventures
with the Indians — Mississippi in flood — Camp at the Great Bend —
Abundance of game — Breaking up of the ice — Settle at Ste. Genevieve —
The partnership dissolved — Audubon's return to Henderson — Rozier's
successful career — His old store at Ste. Genevieve.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the banks
of the Ohio River were but thinly settled, and over vast
areas the virgin forest still reigned in undisturbed vigor
and beauty. Yet traders were eagerly pushing west-
ward in ever growing numbers, and by 1810 Audubon
and Rozier found that competition at Louisville was
already keen. This city, «wrote Alexander Wilson in
describing his experiences in the spring of that year,
was as large as Frankfort, and possessed a number of
good brick buildings and valuable shops ; it would have
been salubrious, he thought, "but for the numerous
swamps and ponds that intersect the woods in its neigh-
borhood," and the indifference of the people, whom he
found too intent upon making money to give any heed
to the drainage and sanitation of their town.

The prosperity of the partners, as already intimated,
was shortlived. Audubon was doubtless right in ad-
mitting that his business abandoned him because he
could not bear to give it the necessary attention. The

233

234 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

conditions of life for the merchant-trader at that early
day were at best far from easy, and an honest success,
as then understood, required not only plenty of rough
work but careful planning as well. His goods, pur-
chased in the East, were laboriously transported across
the State of Pennsylvania, and if they came from Phil-
adelphia they must needs traverse the rough wagon
roads that led through Bedford to Pittsburgh. There
was an overland trail from Pittsburgh to Kentucky,
but merchants with heavy loads would naturally take
the easier river route. In going east to renew his stock
in trade, it was a common practice to travel on horseback
from as far west as St. Louis, but on returning the
merchant would often sell his mount at Baltimore, Phil-
adelphia or Pittsburgh, where a boat could be taken
for the remainder of the journey.

The "ark" or flatboat was considered most convenient
for the transportation of either passengers or merchan-
dise down the Ohio, for any well-to-do traveler, while
floating leisurely with the current, could make himself
comfortable by fitting up snug sleeping quarters and
a kitchen on deck, and could, go ashore at will, with the
certainty of satisfying his appetite for wild turkey, veni-
son and other game in the season. Wilson, who de-
scended the river in April, 1810, boarded and passed
many of these "arks," which he described as built in
the form of a parallelogram, from twelve to fourteen
feet wide and from forty to seventy feet long, with a
canopy to protect them from the weather; they were
casually helped along by means of two oars in the bow,
and steered by another and more powerful one in the
stern. "Several of these floating caravans," said Wil-
son, "were loaded with store goods for the supply of
the settlements through which they passed, having a

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 235

counter erected, shawls, muslins," and the like, "dis-
played, and everything ready for transacting business.
On approaching a settlement they blew a tin trumpet,
which announced to the inhabitants their arrival." These
"arks," he added, descended from all parts of the Ohio
and its tributary streams, but in greatest numbers in
the spring months. Although they cost originally about
$1.50 per foot of length, when arrived at their destina-
tion they would seldom bring more than one-sixth of
that amount. From forty to fifty days were commonly
required to cover the entire distance of two thousand
miles from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.

Another means of conveyance on the river, frequently
used by Audubon, was the keel boat or barge, which,
in some cases, was also roofed and would hold about
two hundred barrels of flour.1 When assisted by oars in
the bow, it could reduce the time of a journey to New
Orleans by ten or fifteen days. These barges were
pushed up stream with the aid of setting poles at an
average rate of about twenty miles a day, or, if loaded,
they were laboriously "cordelled," or drawn by the hands
of men who trudged along the banks pulling at the cor-
delle.

The chief pleasures which Audubon's business ven-
tures in the West seem to have afforded him were his
leisurely journey by river and long horseback rides to
Philadelphia to buy goods, when he could roam through
his "beautiful and darling forests of Kentucky, Ohio,
and Pennsylvania," which gave him grand opportunities
to make observations upon birds and animal life of
every sort. He would seldom hesitate to swerve from
his course to study his favorites, and has related how
on one occasion, when driving before him several horses

1 Vincent Nolte, Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres (Bibl. No. 176).

236 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

laden with merchandise and dollars, he quite lost sight of
the pack saddles and the cash they bore, in watching the
motions of a warbler. But few coaches, said Audubon,
were available in those days, and the post roads were
often unfit for lighter carriages. To cover the distance
from Louisville to Philadelphia on horseback required
about twenty days, and only a capable animal and rider
could make forty miles a day; when steamer traffic on
the Ohio2 was well in hand this time was reduced to six
or seven days, in performing a journey which the mod-
ern railroad has shortened to not far from as many hours.
Discouraged by the gloomy prospects which their
business at Louisville presented, Audubon and Rozier
determined in the spring of 1810 to move 125 miles
down the river to Henderson.3 Loading the residue of
their stock on a flatboat, they resolutely set out for the
new field, but great was their surprise to find, in place
of the thriving settlement which their imaginations had
pictured, only a cluster of log houses on the river bank,
with a population of less than 200 people and a demand
for little else than whisky, gunpowder and coarse woolen
goods. When the partners arrived, the little town was
eighteen years old, as the first log cabins were built
there in 1792, but the whole country above and below

2 The first steamboat on the Ohio was the Orleans, a vessel of 200-
400 tons, built at Pittsburgh in the summer and fall of 1811, by Robert
Fulton and Robert M. Livingston; her first voyage, when she touched at
Henderson, was signalized, as it seemed to many, by the great earthquakes
of that year. The first Kentucky steamer was built at Henderson in 1817,
the same year that a small vessel was constructed by Samuel Bowen
and J. J. Audubon at the same place (see Chapter XVI). Compare
Edmund L. Starling, History of Henderson County, Kentucky (Bibl. No.
186).

3 Known first as Redbank or Redbanks, to distinguish it from Yellow-
bank, or Owensboro, on a similar bend farther upstream; called also
Hendersonville, but this term had no official standing. The population of
Henderson in 1810 is given as 159, and that of the entire county, then
larger than at present, as 5,000. See Starling, op. cit.

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 237

them was, and for a considerable time remained, one
vast canebrake. All the commodities known to the pio-
neer store were scarce, but the people of Henderson
were friendly, and the new settlers had been provident in
bringing with them a goodly supply of flour and "bacon
hams." Moreover, the Ohio, which was half a mile wide
at that point, was well stocked with fish, and the woods
and canebrakes were alive with birds, not to speak of
larger and more important game. Not many years be-
fore, wild turkeys had been so plentiful that they were
not sold but were given away, while a large buck deer
could be bought in the season for fifty cents.

During their stay at Henderson, Rozier was in his
habitual place behind the counter and attended to what
little business was done, while Audubon with a Ken-
tucky lad named John Pope, who was nominally a
clerk, roamed the country in eager pursuit of rare birds,
and with rod and gun bountifully supplied the table.
Audubon's first abode in the town was, as he said, "a
log-cabin, not a log-house/' in which the richest piece of
furniture was their child's cradle. He soon began to
cultivate a garden, but his experience in horticulture
must have been limited, for he naively remarks that
the rankness of the soil kept the seeds they planted
"far beneath the tall weeds which sprang up the first
year."

Financial distress and hard times were already being
felt in the Blue Grass State, and these conditions were
not destined soon to improve. After experimenting for
six months, or more, at Henderson, our two "rolling
stones" determined to push still farther west and try
their luck at a more promising point. They had hoped
to reach St. Louis but finally went instead to Ste. Gen-
evieve, then a small French settlement in Upper Louis-

238 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

iana, on the right bank of the Mississippi, a hundred
miles north of the mouth of the Ohio.

This new venture promised to be both hazardous and
uncertain, and as Mrs. Audubon and Rozier were not
on the friendliest terms, Audubon decided to leave his
family at Henderson, where a home for his wife and
infant son could always be had under the hospitable roof
of Dr. Adam Rankin, who became one of the naturalist's
staunchest friends. If their stock in trade at this time
actually consisted of "three hundred barrels of whisky,
sundry dry-goods and powder," as Audubon affirmed,
the keel boat which they then engaged was certainly
calculated to bear a goodly load.4 At all events the
partners, with young Pope, their clerk, set out bravely,
in a snow storm, in December, 1810. They floated with
the current at a rate of about five miles an hour, while
they helped their craft along by means of four oars in
her bow and steered it with the aid of a slender tree
trunk, "shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a
dolphin."

This journey of upwards of 165 miles lasted altogeth-
er more than nine weeks. It proved adventurous enough,
but it was of no use to Audubon except in furnishing
him with drawings of new birds and the raw materials
for many "Episodes." The journal of his experiences
on the great rivers during that eventful winter of 1810
and 1811 is interesting for the sidelights which it throws
both upon his character and upon the state of the coun-
try at an elder day. Held up by the ice for several
weeks at Cash Creek, near the mouth of the Ohio, to
his own delight but to Rozier's sorrow, Audubon
tramped the country and hunted wild swans and larger
game with the friendly Shawnee Indians. "When one

4 See Vol. I, p. 235.

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 239

day's sport was over," he said, "we counted more than
fifty of these beautiful birds whose skins were intended
for the ladies of Europe. There were plenty of geese
and ducks, but no one condescended to give them a shot."
This was Audubon in 1810, when such "sport" was re-
garded as legitimate enough, and the feather-hunting
of such Indians was not considered the nefarious trade
that it proved to be. If we shift the scene to twenty
years later, when William MacGillivray needed thou-
sands of specimens of American birds for his studies
upon their anatomy and variability, we find Audubon
supplying him liberally, but he could not then bear to see
them killed wantonly or for mere sport; more than
once, out of compassion for individual birds that he
chanced to be studying, whether in Florida or in Labra-
dor, he would not permit them to be shot even when
needed for his collections.

At the Shawnee Indian camp, to relate a character-
istic anecdote, Audubon noticed that a squaw who "had
been delivered of beautiful twins during the night" was
busied on the next day at her usual task of tanning
deer skins. "She cut two vines," his record reads, "at
the roots of opposite trees and made a cradle of the bark,
in which the new born ones were wafted to and fro with
a push of her hand, while from time to time she gave
them the breast, and was apparently as unconcerned as
if the event had not taken place."

When at last our adventurers gained the Mississippi,
the mighty volume of which was running three miles an
hour, the patron ordered all hands ashore to pull at the
bow rope. This characteristic remark of the naturalist
is delightful, as showing the "single eye" which it has
been declared of old shall be "full of light": "we made,"
said Audubon, "seven miles a day up the famous river;

240 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

but while I was tugging with my back at the cordella, I
kept my eyes fixed on the forests or the ground, looking
for birds or curious shells."

Warping against the current was both difficult and
dangerous, and though they rose two hours before the
sun, they could make but one mile an hour or ten miles
in the day. At night they would go ashore, light a
good fire and cook their supper; then, after posting a
sentinel to guard against unfriendly surprises, they
would roll in their buffalo skins and sleep without fur-
ther concern. Notwithstanding all their efforts, when
they reached the Great Bend at Tawapatee Bottom,
they were obliged to unship their cargo, protect their
boat as best they could from being crushed in the grow-
ing pack, and await the final breaking up of the ice. "The
sorrows of Rozier," at this dismal announcement, said
Audubon, "were too great to be described; wrapped in
a blanket, like a squirrel in winter quarters with his
tail about his nose, he slept and dreamed his time away,
being seldom seen except at meals." There was not a
white man's cabin within twenty miles, but a new field
opened to the naturalist, who tramped through the deep
forests, and soon became acquainted with all the Indian
trails and lakes in the neighborhood.

The six weeks spent at this camp passed pleasantly
for Audubon, who devoted much of the time in studying
the Osage Indians, whom he thought superior to the
Shawnees, as well as in watching for wolves, bears, deer,
cougars, racoons and wild turkeys, some of which were
attracted by the bones and scraps of food thrown out for
them: "I drew," said he, "more or less, by the side of our
great camp-fire, every day." While detained at this
point, they used for bread the breasts of turkeys, but-
tered with bear's grease, and opossum and bear's meat,

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 241

until their stomachs revolted and they longed for a little
Indian meal, which was procured only with the greatest
difficulty.

When at last the ice broke up, splitting with reports
like the thunder of heavy artillery, their prospects were
dismal indeed, for their boat was immediately jammed
by the rushing ice, and they were powerless to move
her. "While we were gazing on the scene," to continue
Audubon's record, "a tremendous crash was heard,
which seemed to have taken place about a mile below,
when suddenly the great dam gave way. The current
of the Mississippi had forced its way against that of
the Ohio, and in less than four hours we witnessed the
complete breaking up of the ice." Having reloaded
their goods, they were ready to start at a favorable mo-
ment, and taking leave of the friendly Indians, "as when
brothers part," they pushed on through the floating ice,
j:>ast Cape Girardeau, to Sainte Genevieve, a town which
Audubon characterized as "not so large as dirty," de-
claring that the time spent there did not yield him half
the pleasure he had felt at Tawapatee Bottom. It was
near a granite tower which rose from a dangerous rock
in the river below Ste. Genevieve that Audubon caught
sight of what he afterwards described as "Washington's
Eagle," a bird now believed to have been the true "bird
of freedom," the "Bald-" or White-headed Eagle, but
in an immature state.

Though their whisky was welcomed at Ste. Gene-
vieve and what had cost the traders twenty-five cents,
brought them two dollars, a gallon, Audubon heartily
disliked the place and its people. Rozier, on the con-
trary, who had found plenty of Frenchmen with whom
he could freely converse, was resolved to stay. Audubon
accordingly proposed to sell out his share in the business,

242 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and the partnership was dissolved on April 6, 1811,
Rozier paying part of the price in cash and the re-
mainder in notes. In referring to the incident in his
journal of 1820, Audubon wrote: "I parted with Mr.
Rozier, and walked to Henderson in four days — 165

o

f^zgcs*

SIGNATURE TO THE RELEASE GIVEN BY AUDUBON TO FERDINAND ROZIER ON THE
DISSOLUTION OF THEIR PARTNERSHIP AT STE. GENEVIEVE, APRIL 6, 1811.

From the Tom J. Rozier MSS.

miles" ; but this does not agree with a later account, in
which he spoke of having "purchased a beauty of a
horse," and, happy in the prospect of again seeing his
family, set out for Dr. Rankin's house in Kentucky.
In the earlier record he also wrote that he once had a
friend in trade, referring to Ferdinand Rozier, "with
whom he did not agree, and so they parted forever";
but Audubon visited Ste. Genevieve in the autumn of
1811 and in the winter of 1812, probably for the pur-
pose of collecting his money and settling his affairs,
while the following letters of this period show that

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 243

friendly relations with his old partner were not seriously
impaired : 5

John James Audubon to Ferdinand Rozier

Louisville. 2d November 1811.
Mr. F. Rozier

St. Genevieve.
My Dear Rozier ;

I reached here on the 31st of last month a little fatigued,
as you can well imagine. Yesterday I wrote to T. W. Bake-
well at New Orleans, and doubt not he is sending you regularly
the prices current of the market there. I have found here a
letter addressed to my brother-in-law from Benj. Bakewell, who
complains of us, and says that we ought to settle with him in
one way or another; write to him at Pittsburgh; I will be with
him, possibly at the same time, and will speak with him ; by the
bill which he inclosed you will see that we are his debtor for
55$. I am leaving here in 2 or 3 days. I wish you health and
prosperity, and with the respects of my wife, I am always your

friend &

Servant

J. Audubon.
[Addressed] Mr. Fd. Rozier

Merchant

St Genevieve
u.L.

John James Audubon to Ferdinand Rozier

Shippixgport. 10th. Angst. 1812

My dear Rozier ; —

As it is quite likely that the present opportunity is safe,
I take pleasure in writing you a few words.

Your letter sent to Philadelphia was duly received, and an-

5 See translations from copies of the originals, in French, in possession
of the Louisiana Historical Society, New Orleans, in Appendix I, Document
No. 21.

244 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

swered promptly ; since I have heard news of you only by the
most indirect means, I would be happy if you can give a few
moments to your friends, if you would count me in their
number, and would write me from time to time; I left Phila-
delphia last month with my wife and son ; most of this time
was spent in descending the Ohio, which is at present very low ;
we had the barge and crew of G[en]l. Clark, with the com-
pany of Mr. R. A. Maupin, and of Mrs. Gait, who had spent
several months at New York & at Phila. I shall probably de-
scend [the river] to New Orleans this autumn with N. Ber-
thoud ; [all kinds of] merchandise are extremely scarce and very
dear, everywhere, but even more is this true of coarse woolens,
which one does not find at all.

I have no doubt your lead is selling very well, this article
having increased considerably [in value] since the war. In the
latter part of my stay in the East I received a letter from my
father, and one from your brother; all your family were then
well, that is, four months ago; your brother is very anxious
to hear from you ; if peace should come at a day not far remote
(and may it please God that this be so), I hope to get into
communication with him.

I have written to him and I urge you to do the same ; your
letters can be delivered, if sent to New York, and from thence
on the Cartel.6 My wife is well and [so is] my son ; may you
be the same, and count among the number of your friends him
who would esteem you always.

Adieu

J. Audubon.

Addressed] Mrs F. Roziers
Merch*

St Genevieve
u.L.

Friendly relations with his former partner in trade
were occasionally renewed by the naturalist in after life.

"Boat for the exchange of prisoners of war.

EXPERIMENTS IN TRADE 245

At one of their last meetings, in 1842, Rozier, who had
then returned from France, visited Audubon at his home
on the Hudson, and both were entertained in New York
by their mutual friend, Nicholas Berthoud.

Ferdinand Rozier, with whom we now part company,
lived to enjoy abundant prosperity as a trader and mer-
chant at Ste. Genevieve. Born in Nantes on November
9, 1777/ at the age of twenty-five he entered the French
navy, at a time when Napoleon was contesting with
England the supremacy of the sea. He made numerous
voyages, and we hear of him at the Cape of Good Hope,
the Island of France or Mauritius, at Cadiz, Teneriffe,
and at the Island of Bartholomew. Eventually, on
April 8, 1804, he embarked on the cutter Experiment,
with Captain Upton in charge, bound for the United
States, where he visited a number of American ports,
including Philadelphia and Norfolk. In the following
year he returned to France in the frigate President,
Captain Gallic Lebrosse, and entered the harbor of
Nantes on March 1, 1805.8 In the spring of that year
John James Audubon, as we have seen, had also re-
turned to that city, and plans were eventually laid for
their commercial aggrandizement in the New World
which both had so lately visited. To what extent Au-
dubon's dreams failed of realization may be gathered
from the following chapters.

Having settled finally at Ste. Genevieve, Rozier, at
thirty-six, married Constance Roy, a girl of eighteen,
who bore him ten children, four of whom, all octogena-
rians, were living in 1905. Ferdinand Rozier's thrift
and industry soon brought him substantial rewards. In
his earlier days he is said to have made six journeys to

7 Compare Note, Vol. I, p. 152.

8 See Note, Vol. I, p. 148.

246 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Philadelphia on horseback to purchase merchandise, and
these trading expeditions were uniformly successful.
His trade extended over the whole of Upper Louisiana,
and he lived to see the great growth of Missouri as a
sovereign state, along with the development of the fabu-
lous mineral wealth of the district.9

Rozier's old store at Ste. Genevieve, for long a land-
mark in that community and considered a pretentious
building in its day, was undoubtedly built after the
date of Audubon's visit. The front was devoted to the
service of customers and a large shed or stock room
was placed at the rear, while the family lived in the
main section, which was entered by a door not shown in
our illustration.10 When this building was demolished
to make way for modern changes, the wooden pins used
in joining the frame were treasured by many as souve-
nirs of pioneer times.

Ferdinand Rozier, who outlived Audubon by thirteen
years, died at Ste. Genevieve on January 1, 1864, at the
age of eighty-seven years. If he were one of those
who thought that Audubon was wasting his time in his
ardent zeal for natural history, it should not surprise
us, for their ideals were in conflict, and the naturalist's
way of working was certainly not conducive to success
in trade.

9 For this characterization of Ferdinand Rozier I am indebted mainly
to an account by his son, Firman A. Rozier, at one time mayor of
Ste. Genevieve and member of the State Legislature; see his History
of the Early Settlement of the Mississippi Valley (Bibl. No. 202) (St.
Louis, 1890)1

10 For a photograph of the old Rozier store at Ste. Genevieve, as well
as for the likeness of Rozier, made in 1862, when he was in his eighty-
fifth year, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Ruthven Deane, who
received them from a son of Ferdinand, Felix Rozier, in November, 1905,
when the latter had attained his eighty-third year.

~jffici6k*ia6c-t~*> c/%ra

IN HIS EIGHTY-FIFTH YEAR (1862)

FERDINAND ROZIEr's OLD STORE AT STE. GENEVIF.VE, MISSOURI.

This and the above published by courtesy of Mr. Ruthven Deane.

CHAPTER XVI

AUDUBON'S MILL, AND FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS

Dr. Rankin's "Meadow Brook Farm" — Birth of John Woodhouse Audu-
bon— The Audubon-Bakewell partnership — Meeting with Nolte — Failure
of the commission business— Visit to Rozier — Storekeeping at Hender-
son— Purchases of land — Habits of frontier tradesmen — Steamboats on
the Ohio — Popular pastimes — Audubon-Bakewell-Pears partnership—
Their famous steam mill — Mechanical and financial troubles — Business
reorganization — Bankruptcy general— Failure of the mill — Personal en-
counter— Audubon goes to jail for debt.

The seven years which followed the outbreak of war
with England in 1812 were the most disastrous in the
naturalist's career. In many respects they were critical
for the entire country, since hundreds who were not
affected directly by the war were ruined by the finan-
cial troubles which followed in its wake. To Audubon
reverses came at this time in rapid succession. Bereft
of one and then another of his children,1 with his family
in straitened circumstances in France, and reduced to
bankruptcy himself, he finally resolved to throw up
trade, for which he was never fitted, and to make his
avocation the real business of life. We shall see how,
by the unstinted use of such talents as he possessed,
through unremitting effort, and with the aid of his ener-
getic and capable wife, he was able, at the age of forty-
five, to turn failure into success.

After his return to Henderson in the spring of 1811,
Audubon began to look for another opening in trade,

1 While living at Henderson the Audubons lost their two daughters,
Rosa and Lucy, both of whom died when very young.

247

248 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

living meanwhile with his family at the home of Dr.
Adam Rankin, called "Meadow Brook Farm." Dr.
Rankin was the first educated physician in his district,
and was for many years an officer of the court. A doc-
tor of the older school and a genuine lover of his kind,
with a large heart and an open hand, he made his home
a hostelry where anyone in need could find refuge with-
out money and without price. No doubt he was at-
tracted to the naturalist by kindred tastes, and it is
known that they became life-long friends. The old
house, to which Audubon refers in one of his "Epi-
sodes," 2 was built of logs, and stood at some distance
from the pike, about two miles from the village in a
southeasterly direction. There were experienced in
greatest frequency, in the winter of 1811 and 1812, the
terrific earthquakes that repeatedly shocked the country
at that time; there also Audubon's younger son, John
Woodhouse, was born on November 30, 1812. The Ran-
kin farm became at a much later day the site of the vil-
lage of Audubon, which still later was to be incorporated
in the growing city of Henderson, when most of the old
landmarks had been obliterated. Dr. Rankin built a
more commodious and pretentious brick house in the
village itself, and was neighbor to the naturalist for
many years, their houses being on the same or adjoining
lots. He was thrice married and had many children,
the eldest of whom, William Rankin, became Audubon's
favorite companion in the field ; together they ransacked
the country for birds and animals of every sort.

Audubon's unfortunate business relations with his
brother-in-law, Thomas W. Bakewell, began in the au-
tumn or winter of 1811, when the naturalist was in the

2 "The Earthquake," Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2) vol. i,
p. 280.

FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 249

East and Bakewell was about to return to New Orleans
in the employ of a firm of Liverpool merchants who
dealt in cotton. Bakewell, who had seen much of the
South since the failure of his uncle in New York, in-
duced Audubon to join him in an independent commis-
sion business, with the assurance that his French
nationality would help their undertakings. According
to Vincent Nolte, when they were descending the Ohio
in December, 1811, Audubon displayed a business card,
showing the firm name of "Audubon and Bakewell,"
and indicating that they were to deal in such homely
products as pork, lard and flour. Thomas Bakewell,
we are told, taking with him all the disposable funds of
Audubon, who continued to send him "almost all the
money" that he could raise, oj)ened their business at New
Orleans in the winter or spring of 1812, just in time for
the war, which broke out in June, to destroy it. When
he returned north, in August of that year, Thomas
Bakewell, said the naturalist, suddenly appeared one
day at "Meadow Brook Farm," while he was making
a drawing of an otter, and after bewailing their misfor-
tune in trade, departed.

At the approach of spring in 1812 Audubon was hard
pressed for funds, and Rozier's notes to him being then
overdue he set out on foot for Ste. Genevieve to collect
his money in person. He went out with a party of
friendly Osage Indians, but returned, still afoot and
unpaid, with his faithful dog as his only companion.3
The prairies were then flooded and converted into vast

3 This journey was probably made in February, though the date
is given as April (see Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals,
vol. i, p. 44), if the legends of four drawings of this time are to be
trusted; all are labeled Pennsylvania, and bear the following dates: Swamp
Sparrow, March, 1812; Spotted Sandpiper, April 22, 1812; White-throated
Sparrow, April 24, 1812; and Whippoorwill, May 7, 1812.

250 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

lakes, but Audubon, anxious to reach his home, pressed
on, walking, as he said, "one hundred and sixty-five miles
in a little over three days, much of the time nearly ankle-
deep in mud and water." It was probably on this jour-
ney, though it may have been in the previous year, that
an incident occurred which he has related in "The
Prairie," 4 when, as he declared, for the first time in
the course of his wanderings for upwards of a quarter
of a century, his life was in actual danger from his
fellow man.

When at last he had obtained some ready money, Au-
dubon rode to Louisville, where he purchased on the
half-cash, half -credit basis a small stock of goods, and
again set up a retail shop at Henderson. This modest
venture promised so well that he bought land with the
intention of making that town his permanent home.
"I purchased," said he, "a ground-lot of four acres, and
a meadow of four more at the back of the first." On
the latter, to follow this account, were several buildings
and an excellent orchard, "lately the property of an
English doctor, who had died on the premises and left
the whole to a servant woman as a gift, from whom it
came to me as a freehold": other land, he added, adja-
cent to the first, was later secured.

These curiously embroidered statements regarding
land transactions at Henderson in 1813 are not in har-
mony with the existing records of that frontier town.
Henderson, as its historian 5 tells us, was laid out orig-

4 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 81. In his bio-
graphical sketch of 1835 Audubon said that this occurred on his first
return from Ste. Genevieve to Henderson (in 1811), a contradiction char-
acteristic of his manner of dealing with biographical and historical details.
For an account of this "Episode," see Chapter XVIII.

5 For early references to Henderson I am indebted mainly to Edmund
L. Starling, History of Henderson County, Kentucky (Bibl. No. 186),
who had access to all the town and county records.

-^ )

<#£ 6£+

»<=j-^ ^^

yf^y^f. /S^*** *+&*-~

s**"**

LETTER OF AUDUBON TO FERDINAND ROZIER, SIGNED AUDUBON & BAKEWELL, AND
DATED OCTOBER 19, 1813, DURING THE FIRST PARTNERSHIP UNDER THIS STYLE.

From the Tom J. Rozier MSS.

251

252 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

inally in 1797 into 264 one-acre lots, of which compara-
tively few had been sold at the time of which we speak,
though nominal prices were asked and a few had been
given away to encourage settlement.6 Audubon is re-
corded as having purchased four one-acre lots from the
town, two in 1813 and two in the following year, while
a long lease was taken upon land adjacent to the river
where later rose his famous mill.7

The old Audubon store for general merchandise, built
of hewn logs, in a single story, stood at the corner of
Main and Mill Streets (now Second Street), fronting
the latter, at a point where a modern departmental
establishment has since risen. Adjoining this primitive
store, on the main street, was his log dwelling,8 of one
and a half stories, with a square porch at the entrance.
Immediately opposite, on the two-acre strip of land pur-
chased in 1814, lay a small pond which Audubon is
said to have stocked with turtles in order to gratify his
special fondness for this delicacy.

Audubon's winning manners made him a popular

6 In 1819, the year of Audubon's departure, 129 town lots had been
sold, while 29 had been given to privileged persons or to prospective
settlers.

7 According to the town records, as quoted by Starling, on December
22, 1813, Audubon purchased lots numbers 95 and 96, which were one-
half of the square lying on the west side of Third Street and between
Green and Elm Streets, from General Samuel Hopkins, agent of the
Messrs. Richard Henderson & Company; on September 3, 1814, he bought
lots numbers 91 and 92, or one-half of the square on the west side of
Second Street, between Green and Elm. The mill site on the Ohio River
was a part of the land given to Henderson by the Transylvania Com-
pany, the original owners of a large part of Kentucky; this site was
leased for 99 years to J. J. Audubon, was sold and resold, but reverted
to the city of Henderson in 1915. In the latter year the project was
broached of obtaining the original mill site, together with adjoining prop-
erty along the river, and converting the whole into a public park dedicated
to Audubon.

* At a somewhat later time the naturalist occupied a one-story frame
house, built in 1814, which stood at the corner of Fourth and Main Streets;
see Starling, op. cit.

FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 253

figure among the early settlers of this region, and for
the space of three years he enjoyed life as never before;
"the pleasures," he said, "which I have felt at Hender-
son, and under the roof of that log-cabin, can never be
effaced from my heart until after death." But in a
community of exacting business men he could never
have made a permanent success; he was too good a
target not to be riddled by many who were ready to
take advantage of his liberality and easygoing ways.
Traveling from Frankfort to Lexington in 1810, Wil-
son complained that the people were all traders but
no readers, even of the newspaper; every man, he
said, had "either some land to buy or sell, some law-suit,
some coarse hemp or corn to dispose of; and if the
conversation does not to lead to any of these, he will
force it."

Many stories, and no doubt much idle gossip, concern-
ing Audubon's life and habits, were current at Hen-
derson long after he left the village. It was said that
he would often go into the woods in his pursuit of birds
and remain from home for weeks at a time ; that he was
once known to have followed a hawk for three days in
succession and in practically a straight course, swimming
creeks when necessary, until it finally fell to his gun.
When steamboats made their first appearance on the
Ohio, they naturally excited the greatest interest, and
a favorite pastime of many of the men and boys was
diving from the side of a boat into the river. On one
of these occasions Audubon is said to have made his
appearance in the crowd of sightseers and to have as-
tonished everyone by plunging from the bow and emerg-
ing from beneath the stern of the vessel after swimming
under her entire length. According to traditional ac-
counts, Mrs. Audubon, who was also an expert swimmer,

254 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

would enter the river clad in a regular bathing costume
and cross with ease to the Indiana shore.

In spite of the hard times Audubon managed to keep
out of serious business troubles until he entered into
another partnership with Thomas Bakewell, his brother-
in-law. Their project in this second association was to
erect a steam lumber and grist mill at Henderson, which
of all mortal follies the naturalist considered in the retro-
spect to have been one of the worst. It is recorded that
on the sixteenth day of March, 1817, John James Au-
dubon and Thomas W. Bakewell, under the designation
of "Audubon and Bakewell," applied to the trustees of
the village for a ninety-nine year lease of a section of
land on the river front. Their petition was granted,
upon a consideration of $20 per annum, and the part-
ners began to build their mill on the property and com-
pleted it within that year. Thomas W. Pears,9 a former
fellow-clerk of both Audubon and Bakewell in New
York, early joined the enterprise, which was regarded
at the time as one of considerable magnitude. Their
mill, which stood for ninety-five years, became famous
in the annals of the Ohio Valley.10 Said the historian of
Henderson County, writing in 1879:

The weather boarding, whip-sawed out of yellow poplar, is
still intact on three sides. The joists are of unhewn logs, many
of them over a foot in diameter, and raggedly rough. The
foundation walls are built of flat, broken rock and are four and
a half feet thick. Mr. Audubon operated the mill on a large
scale for those times. His grist-mill was a great convenience,
and furnished a ready market for all of the surplus wheat
raised in the surrounding country. His saw-mill also was a
wonderful convenience, doing the sawing for the entire county.

9 See Note 15, Vol. I, p. 124.

10 A Henderson correspondent of Joseph M. Wade, under the signature
of "W. S. J.," August 8, 1883, gave the following account of the structure.

AUDUBON S MILL AT HENDERSON, KENTUCKY, SINCE DESTROYED, AS SEEN FROM

THE BANK OF THE OHIO RIVER.

Alter a photograph of 1894, published by courtesy of Dr. B. W. Evermann.

FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 255

Mr. and Mrs. Pears, who had no liking for Hender-
son, early withdrew and sold their interest in the mill xl
to Audubon and Bakewell, thus adding to their financial
embarrassment. The engines, which seem to have given
no end of trouble, were constructed by David Prentice,
an intelligent Scotch mechanic; since his first work after
coming to this country was to erect a steam threshing
mill at "Fatland Ford," his services were probably se-
cured by William Bakewell, who afterwards helped to
establish him at Philadelphia. While at Henderson he
is said to have fitted a small engine and paddlewheels to
a keel boat, which was christened the Pike, and to
have taken it up the river to Pittsburgh. Prentice
seems to have entered the partnership and to have re-
tired with Bakewell.

In order to extend the sphere of their operations, Au-
dubon is said to have purchased at this time a tract of
1,200 acres of government land,12 and to have engaged a
band of stalwart Yankees to fell and deliver the timber.
According to one account, they were a party of emi-
grants who had come to Henderson with their families
and encamped on the river bank. For a time all went
well, but one day when they failed to deliver their usual

The original mill covered forty-five by sixty-five feet, and consisted of four
stories and basement; the basement walls of stone stood four feet thick,
while at the third story the thickness was three feet; the three upper
stories were in frame. The studding measured three by six, and the rafters
four by eight, inches. Many of the large timbers that could then be
seen were sound and apparently good for a century or more. Parts of the
old machinery that had been used in the grist mill were lying about under
the eaves; the building was then used as a tobacco stemmery. See Joseph
M. Wade (Bibl. No. 182), Ornithologist and Oologist, vol. viii, p. 79 (1883).

The old Audubon mill in more recent times was incorporated into
a warehouse for the storage of leaf tobacco; it was burned to the
ground on March 18, 1913.

"The mill is supposed to have cost about $15,000; of this sum Thomas
Pears is said to have contributed from $3,000 to $4,000, and William
Bakewell a similar amount in the interest of his son, while Audubon
presumably furnished the balance.

13 Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 47.

256 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

supply of logs, it was found that they had decamped
and fled down the river towards the Mississippi, taking
on their flatboat Audubon's draft oxen and in fact all
the plunder that they could lift. Nothing was ever
recovered and but one of the fugitives was ever seen
again; this man boarded a river boat on which the nat-
uralist happened to be traveling, and it is said that upon
being recognized he jumped into the river and swam
to the shore like a frightened deer.

When Bakewell finally withdrew, Audubon appears
to have been left stranded, and the business was taken
over by a new set of men, including another brother-in-
law, Nicholas Berthoud, and Benjamin Page of Pitts-
burgh, who continued it under the name of J. J. Audu-
bon & Company.13 Agents were also secured at various
points on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Excepting,
as we must assuredly do, his ever staunch friend, Nicho-
las Berthoud, Audubon believed that he was "gulled by
all of these men."

In 1818 a new era of building and general prosperity
seemed to dawn in the valley of the Ohio. A new bank
was chartered at Henderson, and the woodwork of its
brick structure was furnished by Audubon's mill.14

"In his journal of 1820 Audubon said that after the withdrawal of
Bakewell, "men with whom I had long been associated offered me a
partnership. I accepted, and a small ray of light appeared in my busi-
ness, but a revolution occasioned by a numberless quantity of failures put
all to an end."

"One of J. J. Audubon & Company's bills is here reproduced from

Starling, op. cit.

"To the President and Directors of the Bank of Henderson
to Henderson steam mill:

"To three pieces of scantling, 56 feet, 4y2 c $ 2.52

"To ten pieces of scantling, 34 feet

"To sixty rafters, 714 feet, at 4 c 28.56

"To five pieces scantling, 40 feet, at 3 c 1.20

"To fifteen joists [ ?], 278y2 feet, at 6 c 16.71

"J. J. Audubon & Co." $48.99

FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 257

This bank, however, failed in the course of two
years, and forty others scattered throughout that sec-
tion broke in rapid succession, after having done little
more than add to the flood of worthless paper notes that
was demoralizing business and sending hundreds into
bankruptcy.

The mill was in operation barely two years. The ma-
chinery, of which a wooden bolting shaft and wooden
cog wheels remained as a curiosity to recent times, seems
to have worked badly from the start. But aside from
the inexperience of the builders and the financial trou-
bles of the day, the enterprise was foredoomed to fail-
ure in a district which raised but little wheat, and in
which the demand for lumber was then comparatively
slight. "How I labored," said Audubon, "at that in-
fernal mill! But it is over now; I am old, and try to
forget as fast as possible all the different trials of those
sad days."

In the course of the Audubon and Bakewell partner-
ship 15 the naturalist became involved in a personal quar-
rel with a man whose initials are given as "S

B ." It seems that in 1817 Audubon's mechanic,

David Prentice, had built for him a small steamboat,
though for what purpose is not known. When their in-
terests were severed, we are told, Mr. B purchased

this steamer, but paid for it in worthless paper. The
captain of the craft ran her down to the Mississippi and
thence to New Orleans, and Audubon, who was deter-
mined to arrest this man if necessary, started in pursuit
in a skiff. He failed, however, to overhaul the fugitive,
and reached New Orleans only to find that his vessel

"According to W. G. Bakewell, Bakeivell-Page-Campbell (Bibl. No.
200), Thomas Bakewell sold his interest in the store and mill to Audubon
in 1817, but this is contradicted by other accounts. For the incident which
follows, see Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 34.

258 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

had been surrendered to another claimant. This was
probably in May, 1819, for in his journal of the follow-
ing year, under date of November 23, when he was again
moving down the rivers but in more leisurely fashion,
he speaks of two large eagle's nests, one of which he
remembered having seen as he "went to New Orleans
eighteen months" before.

Through the researches of a later historian I am now
able to give a more exact account of this affair. The
purchasers of the steamboat were William R. Bowen,
Samuel Adams Bowen, Robert Speed, Edmund
Townes, Obediah Smith, George Brent and Bennett
Marshall, who immediately sued Audubon in the sum of
$10,000, on the plea that he had maliciously taken out
an attachment upon the vessel in New Orleans, where it
had been detained. They represented to the judge of
the circuit court, Henry P. Broadnax, that Audubon
was about to leave Kentucky, and a warrant was issued
to arrest him ; he was taken into custody, said the narra-
tor whom I am following, "but executed a bail bond in
the sum of $10,000 with Fayette Posey as surety, and
was released." Convinced that a trial at Henderson
would lead only to a defeat of justice, Audubon now
served notice that he would apply for a change of venue
to another county. "That notice together with the other
papers in the action, is among the records of the Daviess
circuit court, at Owensboro, Kentucky. It was written
and signed by Audubon. Application for a change of
venue was made at Hardinsburg and the case was trans-
ferred to the Daviess circuit court." When the case was
called, the plaintiffs asked for a continuance, and it was
granted them, but when the case was called again at the
next term of court, the plaintiffs failed to appear, and
the action was finallv dismissed.

FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 259

Returning home, Audubon was obliged to walk from
the mouth of the Ohio River to Shawnee Town. Upon
reaching Henderson he found that Mr. Bowen had an-
ticipated him. Acting upon advice, he was prepared for
an encounter with this man, who as his neighbors de-
clared, had sworn to kill him, and "whose violent and
ungovernable temper was only too well known." The
anticipated encounter ensued. Audubon, who was then
carrying his right hand in a sling from a recent injury
received in his mill, waited, as he said, until he had re-
ceived twelve severe blows from his assailant's bludgeon ;
then with his left hand he drew a dagger and struck in
his own defense. His assailant was felled to the ground,
but happily the wound inflicted was not mortal. Mr.
Bowen was carried away on a plank, and when the affair
was settled in the judiciary court, according to a Hen-
derson tradition, Judge Broadnax gravely left the
bench, approached the man who had been under charge
of assault, and said: "Mr. Audubon, you committed a
serious offense — an exceedingly serious offense Sir — in

failing to kill the d rascal."16 "Thomas Bakewell,"

added the naturalist, "who possessed more brains than I,
sold his town lots and removed to Cincinnati, where he
has made a large fortune, and I am glad of it.17

When the mill was finally closed and the company
dissolved in 1819, Audubon as usual was the heaviest

16

See Dixon L. Merritt (Bibl. No. 226a), "Audubon in Kentucky,"
The Taylor-Trotwood Magazine, vol. 10 (1909), p. 293.

17 Thomas Bakewell later became a successful builder of steamboats,
first at Pittsburgh, and after 1824 at Cincinnati, where he was an im-
portant factor in the rising commerce of the Ohio Valley, and where
he left his mark on the history of that city. As a theoretical mechanic
in iron and wood he is said to have had no superior; his business was
nearly destroyed in the panic of 1837, and he never regained his financial
position. To his credit also it must be added that in 1860, at the age
of seventy-two, he began at the bottom of the ladder again by engaging
as a clerk with a paper company at Cincinnati, and, refusing the proffered

260 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

loser. Arrested and sent to the Louisville jail for debt,
he was able to obtain release only by declaring himself
a bankrupt in court. "I paid all I could," 1S he said in
his journal of the following year, "and left Henderson
poor and miserable in thought. My intention to go to
France and see my mother and sister was frustrated,
and at last I resorted to my poor talents to maintain
you and your dear mother, who fortunately became easy
at her change of condition, and gave me a spirit such
as I really needed, to meet the surly looks and cold re-
ception of those who so shortly before were pleased to
call me their friend." "I parted," to revert to his later
account, "with every particle of property I held, to my
creditors, keeping only the clothes I wore on that day,
my original drawings, and my gun." Without a dollar
in his pocket he left Henderson and walked to Louisville
alone; "this," he said on reflection, "was the saddest of
all my journies, the only time in my life when the Wild
Turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thou-
sands of lesser birds that enlivened the woods and the
prairies, all looked like enemies, and I turned my eyes

aid of his children, he did not give up work until his eightieth year, seven
years before his death in 1874. See W. G. Bakewell, Bakeioell-Page-
Campbell (Bibl. No. 200).

18 Audubon was not so accurate when in his biographical sketch of
1835 he said: "Finally I paid every bill, and at last left Henderson
probably forever . . . ," for when at Charleston with Bachman in 1834,
one of his former creditors attempted to sue him for debt and apparently
carried his case to court. When Bachman asked for an explanation,
Audubon wrote from New York, April 5, 1834, as follows: "Respecting
the suit let me tell you . . . that I went to Gaol at Louisville after having
given up all to my creditors, and that I took the benefit of the act of
insolvency at the Louisville Court House, Kentucky, before Judge Fortunatus
Crosby & many witnesses, and that a copy of the record of that step
can easily be had from that court ... I wish friend Donkin to do all
he can to put a Conclusion— stop to this matter, for it makes me sick
at heart." The lawyer here referred to was probably Judge Dunkin,
friend of Bachman and distinguished in his profession, who had a planta-
tion at Waccamaw, near Charleston, South Carolina (see Chapter XXVII,
Vol. II, p. 64.

FINAL REVERSES IN BUSINESS 261

from them, as if I could have wished that they never
existed."

Passing down the Ohio in the following year Audu-
bon made these entries in his diary:

November 2nd, 1820. Floated down slowly within two miles
of Henderson. I can scarcely conceive that I stayed there
eight years, and passed therein comfortably, for it is undoubt-
edly on the poorest spot in the country, according to my pres-
ent opinion.

Nov. 3rd, 18°20. We left our harbor at daybreak, and
passed Henderson about sunrise. I looked on the mill perhaps
for the last time, and with thoughts that made my blood al-
most run cold bit it an eternal farewell.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE AND THE HISTORY
OF HIS FAMILY IN FRANCE

Death of Lieutenant Audubon — Contest over his will — Disposition of his
estate — The fictitious $17,000 — Unsettled claims of Formon and Ross —
Illusions of biographers — Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau — Audubon's
relations with the family in France broken — Death of the naturalist's
stepmother — The du Puigaudeaus — Sources of "enigma."

Lieutenant Jean Audubon, as already recorded, died
at Nantes in 1818, at a time when his son's financial
troubles in America were culminating, and left an estate,
then none too large, for the sole enjoyment of his widow
during her lifetime. The naturalist, so far as is known,
never received a penny in payment of bequests made by
either his father or stepmother, but the reasons for this
fact were far different from those which his biographers
have assigned.

We have referred to the curious wording which
appears in the six different wills that were executed by
Lieutenant Jean Audubon and Anne Moynet, his wife,
between the years 1812 and 1821. x The first four of
these documents 2 were of a mutual nature, and were
so drawn that the survivor should enjoy the entire
property of the other during his or her lifetime, but this
eventually was to be divided between their two children,
or heirs of the latter should any exist. In Jean Audu-
bon's last will, made at Coueron on the 15th of March,

1 See Chapter IX, p. 63.

2 For complete text of these wills, in the original, See Appendix I,
Documents 13-18.

262

THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE 263

1816, he added the provision that in case his "disposi-
tions in favor of Jean Rabain and Rose Bouffard, wife
of Loyen du Puigaudeau, should be attacked and an-
nulled," he bequeathed his entire estate, without excep-
tion, to his wife, Anne Moynet, for her sole use. His
fears, as already intimated, were well grounded, and
his will was immediately contested by four nieces,
Mme. Lejeune de Vaugeon of Nantes, Mme. Jean
Louis Lissabe, whose husband was a pilot, and Anne
and Domenica Audubon, seamstresses at Bayonne.3
This trial dragged on in the courts for a long time, and
served further to impoverish Madame Audubon, who
was obliged to dispose of most of her valuable effects,
but it was finaly settled by a compromise in 1820. In
that year, at the age of eighty-five, she left "La Ger-
betiere" to live with her daughter and son-in-law at
"Les Tourterelles" close by, where she remained until
her death on October 18, 1821.

It seems incredible that Audubon should not have
heard of the death of his foster mother, since he had been
devotedly attached to her in his youth and was moreover
a beneficiary under her will. Yet on August 6, 1826,
he wrote in his journal: "My plans now are to go to
Manchester, to Derbyshire to visit Lord Stanley, Bir-
mingham, London for three weeks, Edinburgh, back to
London, and then to France, Paris, Nantes, to see my
venerable stepmother, Brussels, and return to Eng-
land." On September 30 of the same year he wrote
from Liverpool: "I long to enter my old garden on
the Loire and with rapid steps reach my mother, — yes,
my mother! the only one I truly remember; and no son

3 See Note 4, Vol. I, p. 27. The suit brought by these plaintiffs was based
upon a French law, which at that time debarred a natural child from
inheriting property.

264 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ever had a better, nor more loving one." 4 Again in
1828 he spoke of this estimable woman as if she were
then alive, although she had been dead seven years.

In Madame Audubon's last will, which was made in
the July preceding her death, she left her property to
be equally divided between her two adopted children,
"Mr. Jean Audubon, called Jean Rabin, husband of
Lucy Bakewell, and who I believe is at present in the
United States of America, and to Rose Bouffard, wife
of M. Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, my son-in-law,
who is living at Coueron"; she also took care to guard
against the pretensions of any spurious heirs, and to
make provision for her grandchildren in case of the
death of either or both of her heirs direct.

Having given the precise, if somewhat prosaic, re-
corded facts of the case, we will quote the story nar-
rated by the naturalist's biographers, who never could
have seen the legal documents and who thus had only
hearsay and conjecture on which to build:

At this juncture [of critical business affairs at Henderson],
the father of Audubon died; but for some unfortunate cause
he did not receive legal notice for more than a year. On be-
coming acquainted with the fact he traveled to Philadelphia to
obtain funds, but was unsuccessful. His father had left him his
property in France of La Gibitere [Gerbetiere], and seven-
teen thousand dollars which had been deposited with a mer-
chant in Richmond, Virginia. Audubon, however, took no steps
to obtain possession of his estate in France, and in after years,
when his sons had grown up, sent one of them to France, for
the purpose of legally transferring the property to his own
sister Rosa. The merchant who held possession of the seventeen
thousand dollars would not deliver them up until Audubon

4 Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
pp. iii and 130.

AN OLD STREET IN THE COUEROS OF TO-DAY.

LES TOURTEREI.LES, COUF.RON, FINAL HOME OF ANNE MOYNET AUDUBON, AND
THE RESTING PLACE OF EXACT RECORDS OF THE NATURALIST'S
BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.

THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE 265

proved himself to be the son of Commodore Audubon. Before
this could be done the merchant died insolvent, and the legatee

never recovered a dollar of his money.5

r

A key to the origin of the fictitious seventeen thou-
sand dollars is probably to be found in the letters of
Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta, written in 1805,6
where he refers to certain unsettled business claims
against his former partners, Messrs. Formon and Ross,
Mho had been respectively interested with him in two
vessels, L,e Comte d'Artois and the Annette, the history
of which has already been noticed.7 They were also en-
gaged at a later time in certain iron-works above Rich-
mond, Virginia, but with these Lieutenant Audubon was
not directly concerned. Formon, his partner in Santo
Domingo trade, who was charged with having drawn
$1,650 in excess of his share, had died without making
any final settlement of their accounts; another asso-
ciate, Edward, had died in London leaving an unset-
tled claim of $300; while David Ross, who was owing
a certain sum, had also died without liquidating his debt.
The amount of the latter claim probably was not large,
since Dacosta was instructed to use this sum for his
needs in developing the mine at "Mill Grove" should
he be so fortunate as to collect it; "when you receive my
papers from Miers Fisher," said Lieutenant Audubon
in his letter of the 22d of June, 1805, "you will find a
promissory note of Mr. Samuel Plaisance of Richmond,
for the business of the widow Ross. If there were jus-
tice there this sum should be paid to me with the costs."

Lieutenant Audubon was never able to collect these

5 Lucy B. Audubon, ed., The Life of John James Audubon (Bibl. No.
73), p. 55.

6 See Chapter VIII, p. 121.

' See Chapter II, pp. 33 and 34.

266 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

different amounts, which probably did not much exceed
$2,000, but an echo of one of these transactions ap-
peared as late as 1819, when Audubon's brother-in-law
sent him a document referring to the claim on the Ross
estate, in the hope that some money might still be forth-
coming, writing as follows : 8

In turning over some letters I have found a letter of Mr.
David Rost [Ross], and a memorandum that I thought pointed
to what was referred to in it. As I have sometimes heard it
said that this Mr. David Rost owed a considerable sum, it
should be possible that this letter, which is in English, might
be of use to you. I cannot say anything about it, not knowing
your language, and not having ventured to get it translated,
from fear of compromising us, I am sending it to you, [and]
you will judge of its importance. Should chance will that it
bring you money, send me some of it, I beg you, for I am in
great need of it.

The same biographer whom we have just quoted
said in reference to "La Gerbetiere" : "This estate was
left by Commodore Audubon to his son John James,
who conveyed it to his sister without even visiting the
domain he so generously willed away." We have now
seen what provisions were actually made for the dis-
position of this property under the terms of the various
wills of Lieutenant Audubon and his wife. We need
only add that not long after his father's death, the nat-
uralist lost touch with his family in France; his one-
half interest in his stepmother's estate, which was heav-
ily encumbered, was never claimed, and at a much later
day was informally relinquished in favor of his sister
and her family.

8 From G. L. du Puigaudeau's copy of his letter to John James Audu-
bon (at Henderson), dated "Coueron, August 15, 1819," translated from
the French. (Lavigne MSS.)

THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE 267

During his Henderson period Audubon was in
communication with his brother-in-law, Gabriel Loyen
du Puigaudeau, who kept him informed in regard to
all that transpired in their French home; on July 26,
1817, the naturalist had given him a power of attorney,
the curious wording of which has already been noticed.9
Whether deterred by the legal complications which soon
followed, displeased by the mode of settlement, or for
what other cause now unknown to us, Audubon seems
to have severed all relations with his family at Coueron,
or to have written to them only after long lapses of
silence. On New Year's Day, 1820, Gabriel du Puigau-
deau dispatched to him a friendly letter 10 of greeting :

I take the opportunity at the renewal of the year, to offer
you the good wishes of the entire family. Our every desire is
that you, your beloved wife, and dear children may be happy,
that you may prosper, that you may enjoy good health, and
this is the wish of your nieces also. But, awaiting the pleasure
of seeing you all, by what fatality during the past eighteen
months have I not had any news of you, why no reply to at
least twenty letters that I have written to you? Can I have
been so unfortunate that some one has given you any report
that would prejudice you against me? I do not believe that
there could exist any one who would be able to do this, at least
with truth ; if some one has really sought to estrange your
friendship for me, act with frankness, and tell me your sus-
picions. I do not believe it would be difficult to destroy them,
and I even promise that I would offer you no reproach for
having momentarily believed it, should this after all have oc-
curred. For what concerns our business affairs, I refer you to
my letters which have preceded this.

9 See Vol. I, p. 64.

10 This, and the letter to follow, translated from Gabriel du Puigau-
deau's copies. (Lavigne MSS.)

268 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

This letter was sent to Henderson, Kentucky, more
than a year after the naturalist had finally left that
state; at the moment it was written he was making his
way down the Ohio River to New Orleans in a flathoat,
"the poorest man aboard," as he thought at the time.
Writing in his journal on December 26, 1820, when
they had touched at Natchez, Audubon said that on
that day he had received letters from his wife, who was
then at Cincinnati, written on November 7 and 14, and
that the last "contained one from my brother, G. Loyen
Dupuigaudeau, dated July 24, 1820." If the month in
this instance was misnamed, this might have been the
following letter, which was written at Coueron on the
twenty-fourth of June, 1820, and sent to Henderson
like the last.

Two years have passed without our having any news of
you. What a long lapse of time, and in what anxiety are we
plunged! In God's name give us some news about yourself, if
it be but a word to set us at rest in regard to your condition.
I should not know how to persuade myself that you were not
on friendly terms with me, since I have given you no cause
[for grievance] ; if it is so, be generous enough to relieve me
from this anxiety. The business matters of Mr. Audubon are
at last concluded, and I await only the return of the papers
from Cayes to set them in order with justice [to all].11

Profiting by an opportunity for New York, I have only
time to refer to my letters of 15 September, 30 October, 19
December, 1818, 1st February, 15 April, 15 May, 3d August,
1819, in all their contents.

Madam Audubon is coming to live with us ; she found her-
self isolated at "La Gerbetiere," and was very dull there; I
wish that she may be contented here. She does not cease to

"This reference is evidently to the litigation over Lieutenant Audu-
bon's will and the final disposition of his estate.

THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE 269

speak of you, and is as much astonished as I am that we re-
ceive no news of you.

The naturalist's elder son, Victor, visited Coueron
about the year 1835, when his cousin, Gabriel Loyen du
Puigaudeau the second, who was nearly of the same age,
returned from military service to meet him. He was
disappointed at the appearance of his father's old home,
"La Gerbetiere," which had not been occupied by the
family for fifteen years.12

Rosa Audubon du Puigaudeau, the naturalist's sis-
ter, died at "Les Tourterelles" after August 3, 1842,
leaving a daughter, Rose du Puigaudeau, who died
without issue, October 20, 1881, and, if we are correctly
informed, one son, Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau the
second, who died at "Les Tourterelles," Coueron, June
23, 1892, when past his eightieth year; a daughter of
this only son was married to Monsieur L. Lavigne,
notary at Coueron. At the time of her uncle's death,
his property, including the personal records of Lieuten-
ant Jean Audubon, passed into the hands of Madame
Lavigne, who is a grand step-niece of the naturalist, and
who aside from her children, so far as known, is the
only surviving member of his family in France.

At this point we must examine a little more care-
fully the peculiar status of what Audubon referred to

12 It was thought that Victor had come to settle the family's financial
affairs, and his uncle and aunt asked if this were the case; he replied
that it was not, that the children of Jean Audubon who were in America
had taken their [share of the] property in that country, while those in
France had theirs in France; he considered that all was settled, but if
Rosa's children wished for any money, they had but to ask for it, and
the heirs in America would send them what they desired; the subject
was then dropped. A considerable correspondence followed this visit, but
the letters were all destroyed about twenty-five years ago by Monsieur du
Puigaudeau, when putting his effects in order. This account is given on
the authority of Monsieur Lavigne.

270 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

as the "enigma" of his life. In some of his private
journals and letters 13 he dramatically declared that a
mystery had surrounded his early existence, which he
was bound by a solemn oath exacted by his father never
to reveal, and that this secret must be carried by him
to the grave. If it be the duty of a biographer to make
the true character of his subject known, the passage of
time would now seem to sanction reference to many
personal matters which a century ago should have been
more rigidly guarded. I enter upon this task solely
with the view of placing Audubon's character in a truer
and fairer light.

The essential facts regarding Audubon's birth and
early years have now been given, and this is the true,
though possibly not the complete, story. Anything
which we now add, however, can be regarded as little
better than speculation. Audubon is said to have received
through his father a large sum of money from an un-
known or unnamed source,14 but as such stories are apt
to be exaggerated, especially when an ocean intervenes
between a testator and his heir, the statement may be
erroneous ; we have seen that Lieutenant Audubon was
not in a position to make such gifts himself had he been
so disposed. If the report were true, the money may
have come from the estate of his mother, and through
the agency of the mysterious "Audubon of La Ro-

13 These passages, which were shown to me by his granddaughter, Miss
Maria R. Audubon, in 1914, but not for publication, occur in his journals
under the following dates; June 4, 1826, at sea; March 15, 1827, at Edin-
burgh, after describing a visit of Lady Selkirk and her daughter; again
on the 18th of March of the same or the following year; and on October
8, 1828, when writing to his wife from Paris and reflecting on the advisabil-
ity of visiting his old home at Nantes. While these extraordinary passages
are not quoted, out of deference to the wishes of his granddaughters, it
seems only just to Audubon, in view of the revelations that have already
been made, to add this brief reference to the incidents in question.

14 This statement was made to me in 1914 by Miss Maria R. Audubon.

THE ENIGMA OF AUDUBON'S LIFE 271

chelle," who is said to have been a politician.15 In some
of the passages which we do not quote, the naturalist
would have his family believe that he was of noble birth,
that his adoptive father was not his true father, and
that both he and Lieutenant Audubon had received
irremediable injury through the treachery of the mys-
terious uncle, "Audubon of La Rochelle." Now these
strange statements of the naturalist, though not in
accord with the facts as they are known to us, should be
interpreted, I believe, in the light of possible stories that
may have come to him in the glamour of his youth; his
mind may have been diverted by them, he may have
believed them, but of this nothing now can positively
be known. To continue our conjectures, it is possible
that the plain conflict between these supposititious tales
and the facts that were revealed at his adoption, his
baptism, and in the wills of his father and stepmother,
as well as by the lawsuit which followed the former's
death, all led him to resort to "enigma." We should
also remember that the naturalist, who was careless of
dates and historical facts, had finally left his home at
the age of twenty, when young men as a rule are not
curious about their family history, and that he reached
the reminiscent stage late in life. It seems probable
that the wording of his father's will and the later at-
tempt to annul it finally induced him to wash his hands
of the whole matter, even to breaking off relations with
his family in France. Feeling, as undoubtedly he did,
that public knowledge of those conditions, for which
he was in no way responsible, might be a bar to all
future aspirations, he was not loath to let the matter
rest, so far as he and his immediate family were con-
cerned, under a cloak of mystery. If such were in truth

15 See Note, Vol. I, p. 27.

272 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the case, I think few would find cause to blame him-
When we view the whole subject in this double light,
of a duty owed to his family and of the possibility that
conflicting stories had come to him at an earlier day,
any embroidery or confusion which appears in many of
his statements of a personal nature can be better under-
stood. Such an explanation would be quite convincing
if payments had actually come to him from his own
mother's estate.

We will only add that Mrs. Audubon, who seemed
to have shared her husband's intimate thoughts, ap-
parently believed to the last in his high birth. When
her younger son, John Woodhouse Audubon, lay at the
point of death, in February, 1862, she was summoned
to his bedside, but reached it too late to see him alive;
upon entering the room Mrs. Audubon is said to have
exclaimed: "Oh, my son, my son! you died and never
knew!"

CHAPTER XVIII

EARLY "EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE

Methods of composition — "A Wild Horse" — Henderson to Philadelphia in
1811 — Records of Audubon and Nolte, fellow travelers, compared —
The great earthquakes — The hurricane — The outlaw — Characterization
of Daniel Boone — Desperate plight on the prairie — Regulator law in
action — Frontier necessities — The ax married to the grindstone.

Audubon's sketches of life and scenery in America,
which he designated as "Episodes," were interspersed
in his Biography of birds x to brighten the narrative
and beguile the reader. Extending to the number of
sixty, and dealing mainly with events between the years
1808 and 1834, they abound in tales of adventure and
graphic pictures of pioneer life which for their per-
sonal charm, local coloring, and human interest are
worthy of high praise. Some of these sketches have
been copied widely and some have been translated into
Audubon's native tongue; some have even found their
way into schoolbooks. While they have deservedly won
the naturalist many readers, not a few have subjected
him to harsh criticism on the score of too vivid coloring
or historical inaccuracy, a fault to which he was par-
ticularly prone. Whenever Audubon went directly to
nature to exercise his pencil or brush or wrote with his
subject before him, he was truth itself, but in writing
offhand and from memory of past events he was wont

1 In the first three volumes only of the Ornithological Biography
(Bibl. No. 2), being omitted from the last two on account of the
exigencies of space.

273

274 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

to humor his fancy, disregarding dates as readily as
he did the accents on French words. This tendency is
particularly apparent in the accounts of some of his
early adventures in the western country, such as "Louis-
ville in Kentucky" (1808-10), "The Prairie" (1812),
"A Wild Horse" (1811-13), and "The Eccentric Nat-
uralist" (1818), the history of which is detailed in the
following chapter. We shall examine some of these
stories at this point, though their composition belongs to
a later period, in order to reach a just conclusion in
regard to the author's method, as well as for the intrinsic
interest of the narratives themselves.

During Audubon's early life in Kentucky, as we
have seen, he frequently visited the East, whether in the
interest of birds or business, traveling by way of the
river and the forest roads. Incidents of these journeys
frequently occur in the "Episodes," but since dates com-
monly are omitted and the order of events is liable to be
blended or confused, they cannot be trusted always for
historical accuracy. Thus, "The Wild Horse" episode 2
professes to be an account of a single journey from
Henderson, in Kentucky, to Philadelphia and back
again, whereas some of the events recorded occurred in
reality at least two years apart, such as the meeting with
Nolte at the Falls of the Juniata River in December,
1811, and the naturalist's return from Pennsylvania
with the proceeds of "Mill Grove," which could not have
been earlier than 1813, the date of its sale to Mr. Samuel
Wetherill, Junior.3

Audubon visited Philadelphia in November, 1811,

2 Ornithological Biography, vol. iii, p. 270.

3 While the object of this visit is not mentioned in the "Episode," it
is stated in the second biographical sketch; the ambiguities connected
with the sale of this farm, in which others besides Audubon were then
interested, are discussed in Chapter XI.

"EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE 275

and returned to Kentucky in December of that year,
but whether it was upon this or some other journey
that he rode a wild horse through seven states in going
from his home at Henderson to the Quaker city, or
whether such a journey ever occurred, is immaterial
to the interest of the narrative. In this instance, how-
ever, we have the advantage of comparing the notes of
a fellow traveler, Vincent Nolte, then a merchant at
New Orleans.4 First to follow Audubon's account, as
given in his "Episode," we are told that he rode a wild
mustang, named "Barro," that had never known a shoe,
having been recently captured near the headwaters of
the Arkansas. In going east he diverged from the
beaten track to extend his knowledge of the country and
of its bird life. From Henderson he passed through
the heart of Tennessee to Knoxville, thence to Abing-
ton, the Natural Bridge, and Winchester in Virginia,
crossed the corner of West Virginia to Harper's Ferry,
then to Frederick, Maryland, and on through Lancas-
ter to Philadelphia; there, he said, he remained four
days, and returned by way of Pittsburgh, Wheeling,
Zanesville, Chillicothe, Lexington and Louisville, to
Henderson. He estimated the whole distance traversed
at "nearly two thousand miles," and at a rate of "not
less than forty miles a day." Much is said in praise of
his favorite bay horse, and its food and daily treatment
are duly recorded. This horse was very docile, and
would wade swamps, swim rivers, and clear a rail fence
like an elk; corn blades as well as corn and oats entered
into his daily ration, to which a pumpkin and fresh eggs,
when procurable, were occasionally added.

It was upon his return journey that the naturalist
met with Vincent Nolte, who twelve years later did his

4 Vincent Nolte, Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres (Bibl. No. 176).

276 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

chance acquaintance a good turn, when the latter was
about to sail for England in 1826.5 Nolte, said
Audubon,

was mounted on a superb horse, for which he had paid three
hundred dollars, and a servant on horseback led another as a
change. I was then an utter stranger to him, and when I
approached and praised his horse, he not very courteously ob-
served that he wished I had as good a one. Finding that he was
going to Bedford to spend the night, I asked him what hour he
would get there: "Just soon enough to have some trouts ready
for our supper, provided you will join when you get there."
I almost imagined that Barro understood our conversation;
he pricked up his ears, and lengthened his pace, on which Mr.
Nolte caracolled his horse, and then put him to quick trot, but
all in vain ; for I reached the hotel nearly a quarter of an hour
before him, ordered the trouts, saw to the putting away of my
good horse, and stood ready at the door to welcome my com-
panion. From that day to this Vincent Nolte has been a friend
to me.

Audubon added that they rode together as far as
Shippingport, now a part of Louisville, where his
brother-in-law, Nicholas Berthoud, was then living.

We shall now follow the equally circumstantial but
widely divergent account of this meeting and the sub-
sequent journey as given by the other traveler. Nolte
had sailed from Liverpool in September, 1811, and
landed in New York after a perilous voyage of forty-
eight days. He had no servant, but was accompanied
by a young Englishman, named Edward Hollander,
whom he had engaged in a business capacity while in
London and with whom he was making his way to New
Orleans. Hollander had been sent in advance to Pitts-

5 See Chapter XXI, p. 352.

"EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE 277

burgh to purchase two flatboats, for in addition to their
horses they had planned to carry 400 barrels of flour,
from the sale of which in the South they expected to
defray the expenses of their journey. Having pur-
chased a fine horse in Philadelphia, Nolte left that city
in December, and with saddle-bags strapped to his
horse's back, rode on "entirely alone." He crossed the
highest point of the Alleghany ridge at ten o'clock of a
winter's morning and later in the same day reached a
small inn "close by the Falls of the Juniata River."
"The landlady," to quote his narrative, "showed me into
a room, and said, I perhaps would not mind taking my
meal with a strange gentleman, who was already
there." This stranger, who immediately struck him as
"an odd fish," "was sitting at a table, before the fire,
with a Madras handkerchief wound around his head,
exactly in the style of the French mariners, or laborers,
in a seaport town." In the course of the conversation
which then ensued he declared that he was an English-
man, but Nolte was the last person to be deceived on a
question of nationality and remarked at once that his
speech betrayed him. "He showed himself," to quote
our senior traveler again, "to be an original throughout,
but at last admitted that he was a Frenchman by birth,
and a native of La Rochelle. However, he had come
in his early youth to Louisiana, had grown up in the sea-
service, and had gradually become a thorough Ameri-
can." When asked how this account squared with his
earlier statement, said Nolte, "he found it convenient
to reply in the French language: 'when all is said and
done, I am somewhat cosmopolitan; I belong to every
country.' This man," to conclude, "who afterwards
won for himself so great a name in natural history, par-
ticularly in ornithology, was Audubon, who, however,

278 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

was by no means thinking, at that time, of occupying
himself with natural history."

In the interview as thus far recorded, Audubon was
clearly chaffing his new acquaintance, for not one of
the statements attributed to him was true, if we accept
the fact of his French extraction. Nolte, to be sure,
writes as a somewhat vain and garrulous man, and after
a lapse of forty-three years, but he professes to speak
the truth and there is no reason to suppose that his nar-
rative is pure invention. Nolte further informs us that
Audubon's father-in-law, Mr. Bakewell, "formerly of
Philadelphia," was "then residing and owning mills at
Shippingport," which was not the case. To continue,
finding that Audubon, who was bound for Kentucky,
was a companionable man and devoted to art, a field
which he had cultivated himself, Nolte proposed that
they should travel together, and offered the naturalist
a berth on one of his flatboats.

He thankfully accepted the invitation, and we left Pitts-
burgh in very cold weather, with the Monongahela and Ohio
rivers full of drifting ice, in the beginning of January, 1812. I
learned nothing further of his traveling plans until we reached
Limestone, a little place in the southwestern corner of the State
of Ohio.'6 There we had both our horses taken ashore, and I
resolved to go with him overland, at first to visit the capital,
Lexington, and from there to Louisville, where he expected to
find his wife and parents-in-law. . •. . We had hardly finished
our breakfast at Limestone, when Audubon, all at once, sprang
to his feet, and exclaimed in French ; "Now I am going to lay
the foundation of my establishment." So saying, he took a
small packet of address cards from his pocket, and some nails
from his vest, and began to nail up one of the cards to the
door of the tavern, where we were taking our meal.

8 Limestone or, as it was later called, Maysville, was on the left bank
of the river, in Kentucky, and about a hundred miles east of Cincinnati.

"EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE 279

Later they rode on together as far as Lexington, where
they appear to have parted company.

The discrepancies between these accounts could
hardly be greater, and they serve to illustrate the lib-
erties which Audubon sometimes took with facts in com-
posing his "Episodes." The travelers met, not on horse-
back, but at the supper table of a country inn; Nolte
was then alone and had but one horse, while the greater
part of the return journey was made by flatboat with
Audubon as his guest ; corn blades, pumpkins and trout
suggest any other season than midwinter, with heavy
snows on the mountains and rivers choked with ice.
Audubon in this instance, as already explained, com-
bined the incidents of two different journeys and col-
ored the narrative to suit his fancy. There was no ap-
parent motive to mislead the reader, and one of his
readers he must have known would probably be Vincent
Nolte, though he was not a subscriber to The Birds of
America', Nolte did read the story, and was pleased with
the "flattering acknowledgment of the little service"
that he was able to render Audubon at that time as well
as later in his career.

Both travelers felt the great earthquakes while mak-
ing this journey, but probably not until they had parted
company at Lexington. Audubon has given a vivid
account of this experience in a characteristic sketch, but
as usual there are no dates.7 He was overtaken, as he
said, while "traveling through the Barrens of Kentucky
... in the month of November," when he thought his
terrified "horse was about to die, and would have sprung
from his back had a minute more elapsed, but at that
instant all the shrubs and trees began to move from
their very roots; the ground rose and fell in successive

' "The Earthquake," Ornithological Biography, vol. i, p. 239.

280 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

furrows, like the ruffled waters of a lake." For
"November" he should have written "January" of the
year 1812.8

This series of memorable earthquakes was followed
in 1813 by a hurricane, more terrific than destructive,
which swept the lower part of Henderson County, Ken-
tucky, and cut a wide swath through the virgin forests,
without causing any loss of life. Audubon's account
of this event 9 is that of a close observer who escaped
destruction by a hair's breadth and who related only
what he himself had experienced. Critics inclined to be
supercilious have complained that he exaggerated the
importance of a merely local event and stretched the
course of the storm some 800 miles until it had covered
several states. "Sir," said Waterton, in pointing a dart
through Audubon to another target, "this is really too
much even for us Englishmen to swallow, whose gullets
are known to be the largest, the widest, and the most
elastic, of any in the world." What Audubon said was:
"I have crossed the path of this storm, at a distance of
a hundred miles from the spot where I witnessed its
fury, and, again four hundred miles farther off, in the
State of Ohio. Lastly, I observed traces of its ravages
on the summits of the mountains connected with the

8 These historic earthquakes, which were most destructive of life and
property in the lower Mississippi Valley, began on December 16, 1811,
and therefore before Audubon and Nolte had reached the western country.
They were noted for their remarkable frequency and persistence, 221
shocks having been recorded in a single week at Henderson, Audubon's
home at that time; though their force was mostly spent after the first
three months, they did not wholly die away in the Ohio Valley until
December 12, 1813, when the last feeble vibration was recorded by Dr.
Daniel Drake at Cincinnati; the worst shocks at this point were experi-
enced on December 16, 1811, on January 23 and February 7, 1812. See
Daniel Drake, Natural and Statistical View of Cincinnati, and the Miami
Valley; with an appendix, containing observations on the late Earth-
quakes, (Cincinnati, 1815); and Edmund L. Starling, History of Hender-
son County, Kentucky (Bibl. No. 186).

9 "The Hurricane," Ornithological Biography, vol. i, p. 262.

"EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE 281

Great Pine Forest of Pennsylvania, three hundred
miles beyond the place last mentioned. In all these
different parts, it appeared to me not to have exceeded
a quarter of a mile in breadth." Audubon was doubt-
less mistaken in his hasty inference that marks of forest
devastation observed at such widely separated points
were due to the same storm, but this would only illus-
trate a lack of caution which he sometimes displayed.

A contemporary writer 10 declared that Audubon's
account of "Mason," the outlaw, whose name we are
told should be spelled "Meason," was altogether fabu-
lous; that he was not killed by a regulator party, nor
was his head stuck upon a tree in the way described.11
The same critic further discredited the naturalist's ac-
count of Daniel Boone, whom he had characterized as
follows: 12 "The stature and general appearance of this
wanderer of the western forests approached the gigan-
tic. His chest was broad and prominent; his muscular
powers displayed themselves in every limb; his coun-
tenance gave indication of his great courage, enter-
prise, and perseverance." "Boone," said this writer,
"was under six feet high, probably not more than five
feet, ten inches, and of that round, compact build, which
makes little show. Though very active, he had the ap-
pearance of being rather slender and did not seem as
large as he really was." In the case of the outlaw,
Audubon no doubt retold a story that had passed from
mouth to mouth, but he later learned to be wary of
second-hand information, which in matters of natural
history sometimes led him into more serious difficulties.
In his description of Boone there was no more apparent

10 James Hall (Bibl. No. 123), Western Monthly Magazine, vol. ii
(1834).

""The Regulators," Ornithological Biography, vol. i, p. 105.
12 "Colonel Boone," ibid., vol. i, p. 503.

282 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

motive to deceive than in the case of his own father, to
whom his imagination had added nearly half a foot in
stature.13

When Audubon was returning from Ste. Gene-
vieve in the spring of 1812, an incident occurred in
which, for the first time in the course of his wanderings
for upwards of twenty-five years, he felt his life to be
in danger from his fellow man.14 Overtaken by night
on the prairie, he approached the hearth fire of a small
log cabin, which at first was mistaken for the campfire
of some wandering Indians. On craving shelter, he
was admitted by a tall, surly woman in coarse attire,
who displayed both an evil eye and a repellent counte-
nance; but she offered him a supper of venison and
jerked buffalo meat and bade him to make his bed upon
the floor. When she espied his gold watch and chain,
her demeanor suddenly changed and she asked to take
them in her hand ; she put the chain around her brawny
neck and by her manner betrayed every token of cov-
etous desire. Meanwhile, a young Indian stoic, who
was nursing a recent arrow wound, had been sitting in
silence by the fire; though he spoke not a word, he cast
an expressive glance in Audubon's direction whenever
the woman's back was turned, and having drawn his
knife from its scabbard, expressed in pantomime what
the confiding stranger might eventually expect.

Audubon's suspicions were at last thoroughly
aroused. He asked for his watch, and under pretense
of forecasting the weather, took up his gun and saun-
tered out of the cabin ; in the darkness outside he slipped
a ball in each of the barrels of his gun, scraped the ed^es
of his flints, renewed the primings, and returned with a

13 See Chapter V, p. 88.

""The Prairie," Ornithological Bior/raph]!. vol. i, p. 81.

"EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE 283

favorable report of his observations. Then laying some
deer skins on the floor in a corner and calling his faith-
ful dog to his side, he lay down and to all appearances
was soon asleep. Presently sounds of approaching
voices were heard, and at length two sturdy youths,
who were evidently the woman's sons, appeared bear-
ing a dead stag, which they had slung to a pole; they
asked at once about the stranger, and called loudly for
whisky. Audubon tapped his dog, who showed by eye
and tail that he was already alert. Observing that the
whisky bottle was paying frequent visits to the mouths
of the trio, he hoped that they would soon be reduced
to a state of helplessness, but the woman was seen to
take in her hands a large carving knife and go delib-
erately outside to whet its edge on a grindstone; then,
calling to her drunken sons, she asked them to settle
the stranger and bade them do their bloody work with-
out delay. Audubon cocked both barrels of his gun,
touched his dog again, and was resolved to shoot at the
first suspicious move. At this dramatic moment the
door suddenly opened and two burly travelers with
rifles on their shoulders entered the cabin. Audubon
sprang to his feet, and welcoming the strangers with
open arms, lost no time in making known to them his
desperate position. No parley was necessary, for, said
he, they were regulators, who then and there took the
law into their own hands. The woman and her sons
were promptly secured, bound, and left until morning to
sober off; they were then led into the woods and shot.
"We marched them into the woods off the road," said
Audubon, "and having used them as Regulators were
wont to use such delinquents, we set fire to the cabin,
gave all the skins and implements to the young Indian,
and proceeded, well pleased, towards the settlements."

284 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Would you believe, he added, that not many miles from
where this happened, "and where fifteen years ago, no
habitation belonging to civilized man was expected, and
very few ever seen, large roads are now laid out, culti-
vation has converted the woods into fertile fields; tav-
erns have been erected, and much of what we Americans
call comfort is to be met with? So fast does improve-
ment proceed in our abundant and free country."

I have given a paraphrase of this "Episode" as a
further illustration of Audubon's tales of adventure.
There is doubtless a certain amount of invention, and
it reads like the setting of a dime novel incident, but we
see no reason to doubt the substantial truth of either
the local coloring or the fact. In answer to the question
of a recent commentator,15 "Did remote prairie cabins
have grindstones and carving knives?" we would reply
that the knife and the ax have followed man to the
frontier posts of civilization everywhere, and without
the grindstone the ax is useless. As a concrete instance
in point, compare this minute entered in the Proprie-
tors' Book of Records of Perrytown, afterwards Sut-
ton, New Hampshire,16 for the third day of September,
1770: "Voted a grindstone of about 8 shillings to be
sent up to Perrystown, for the use of the settlers there";
the first settler had entered that wilderness but three
years before, and at the time this vote was taken the
number was five.

15 John Burroughs, John James Audubon (Bibl. No. 87), p. 37.
,n See History of Sutton, New Hampshire, compiled by Augustus
Harvey Worthen, pt. 1 (Concord, 1890).

CHAPTER XIX

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE

The "Eccentric Naturalist" at Henderson — Bats and new species — The
demolished violin — "M. de T.": Constantine Samuel Rafinesque
(Schmaltz) — His precocity, linguistic acquirements and peripatetic
habits— First visit to America and botanical studies — Residence in
Sicily, and fortune made in the drug trade — Association with Swain-
son — Marriage and embitterment — His second journey to America ends
in shipwreck— Befriended— Descends the Ohio in a flatboat— Visit with
Audubon, who gives him many strange "new species" — Cost to
zoology— His unique work on Ohio fishes— Professorship in Transylvania
University— Quarrel with its president and trustees— Return to Phila-
delphia— His ardent love of nature; his writings and fatal versatility —
His singular will— His sad end and the ruthless disposition of his
estate.

Audubon's humorous sketch of "The Eccentric
Naturalist" has often been quoted, and it presents a
picture which is amusing, however short of the truth
it may fall or however it may fail in doing justice to
its subject. Though his real hero is not named, no
doubt as to his identity has ever been entertained. This
episode occurred at Henderson in the late summer of
1818, and was published thirteen years after in the
Biography of birds.1 Since the story was not fully told
then and the after-effects were productive of much harsh
criticism, it cannot be overlooked if we would do justice
to both the writer and his subject.

When walking one day by the river, to follow Audu-
bon's story, he saw a man landing from a boat with
what appeared like a bundle of dried clover on his back;

1 "The Eccentric Naturalist," Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2),
vol. i, p. 455.

285

286 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

he concluded from his appearance that the stranger
must be "an original," a term which had been applied
also to himself. A meeting followed, and the stranger,
who had inquired for Mr. Audubon's house, explained
that he was a naturalist, and had come to see Audubon's
drawings of birds and plants; he bore also a letter from
a friend, introducing "an odd fish" which might "prove
to be undescribed." The visitor was made welcome in
Audubon's Henderson home, where, to quote the
naturalist,

at table his agreeable conversation made us all forget his singu-
lar appearance. ... A long loose coat of yellow nankeen,
much the worse of the many rubs it had got in its time, and
stained all over with the juice of plants, hung loosely about
him like a sac. A waistcoat of the same, with enormous pockets,
and buttoned up to the chin, reached below over a pair of tight
pantaloons, the lower parts of which were buttoned down to
the ankles. His beard was as long as I have known mine to be
during some of my peregrinations, and his lank black hair hung
loosely over his shoulders. His forehead was so broad and
prominent that any tyro in phrenology would instantly have
pronounced it to be the residence of a mind of strong powers.
His words impressed an assurance of rigid truth, and as he
directed the conversation to the study of the natural sciences,
I listened to him with as much delight as Telemachus could have
listened to Mentor.

All had retired for the night when of a sudden a
great uproar was heard in the visitor's room. To his great
astonishment, Audubon found his guest running about
the apartment naked, holding the "handle" of his host's
favorite violin, the body of which had been battered
to pieces against the walls in the attempt to secure a
number of fluttering bats which had entered by an open
window. "I stood amazed," said Audubon, "but he

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 287

continued jumping and running round and round, until
he was fairly exhausted, when he begged me to procure
one of the animals for him, as he felt convinced they
belonged to 'a new species.' Although I was convinced
to the contrary, I took up the bow of my demolished
Cremona, and administering a sharp tap to each of the
bats as it came up, soon had specimens enough." Other
incidents of this visit, which Audubon said lasted three
weeks, are fully recorded. The eccentric naturalist
collected an abundance of plants, shells, bats and fishes.
One evening he failed to appear, and after a prolonged
search was nowhere to be found; nor were the Audu-
bons wholly assured of his safety until some weeks later
they received a letter with due acknowledgments of their
hospitality.

The "M. de T." of this episode was Constantine
Samuel Rafinesque, in many respects the most singu-
lar figure that has ever appeared in the annals of Ameri-
can science. Although young in years, for Rafinesque
was then but thirty-five, he was already old in experi-
ence and that of the bitterest sort ; and although already
known to many in both hemispheres, he had few friends.
It is certain that neither Audubon nor anyone else in
that part of Kentucky had ever heard of him before.

Born in Constantinople, of a father who was a
French merchant from Marseilles and of a mother with
a German name who by nativity was Greek, Rafinesque
had known life in many lands, and was destined, as he
said, to be a traveler from the cradle to the tomb.2 His

2 For the characterization of Rafinesque given in the present chapter I
am chiefly indebted, aside from his own writings, to his two most sym-
pathetic biographers, Richard Ellsworth Call and T. J. Fitzpatrick, as well
as to David Starr Jordan; see Bibliography, Nos. 198, 228, and 183. Fitz-
patrick gives photographic reproductions from Rafinesque's exceedingly
diversiform and scattered works; his bibliographic titles extend to 939,
and "Rafinesquiana" to 134.

288 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

first voyage, made with his parents on their return to
France, by way of Scutari in Asia, Smyrna, and Malta,
led to his first discovery, when he was a year old, for he
was able to announce that "infants are not subject to
sea-sickness." At eleven he read Latin and collected
plants; at thirteen he wrote his first scientific paper,
"Notes on the Apennines," which he had seen when
traveling from Leghorn to Genoa. His father, who
set out for China in 1791, fell in with pirates, but man-
aged to reach America; he died of the yellow fever in
Philadelphia in 1793. To escape the Reign of Terror in
France, Rafinesque's mother fled with her children to
Italy, where four years were passed at Leghorn. There
Constantine studied with private tutors, but his educa-
tion was never formal and he was allowed to follow
his omnivorous tastes, reading, as he said, ten times
more than was taught in the schools. His writings are
mainly in French, Italian, and English, and his facility
with languages was no doubt remarkable, even if we
discount his egotized estimate of his own attainments:
"I have undertaken to read the Latin and Greek, as
well as the Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, and fifty other
languages, as I felt the need or inclination to study
them."

In 1802 Rafinesque was sent with his brother to
America and became a shipper's clerk at Philadelphia,
where he spent all of his spare time in the study of
nature, plants being his first and greatest love. Here
he was befriended by Dr. Benjamin Rush, and during
this period he made the acquaintance of many pioneer
naturalists in the United States. In 180.5 the offer of
a lucrative situation in Sicily lured him back to the Old
World and to a country already known to him. There
he soon discovered the medicinal squill, of ancient re-

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 289

pute and thought to be an antidote, which in the form
of syrup was long the bane of childhood ; this and other
medicinal drugs he exported to the European and
American markets in such quantities that before the
secret of his trade became known to the jealous Sicil-
ians, he had reaped from it, in conjunction with his
other enterprises, a small fortune. During the ten years
that were spent in Sicily we find him the manager of a
successful whisky distillery, the chancellor or secretary
of the American Consulate at Palermo, editor, writer,
and correspondent of learned men in Europe, as well as
traveler and explorer in every part of the island, which
he proposed to monograph with all of its contents. At
Palermo Rafinesque met the English naturalist,
William Swainson, his lifelong correspondent; together
they tramped over the island and together they worked
for a number of years on the fishes of the western coast.3
Swainson, who became the friend of Audubon, was one
of the few who later defended Rafinesque.

Rafinesque espoused a Sicilian woman of the Cath-
olic faith, and had by her two children, of whom a
daughter lived to maturity; this experience seems to
have embittered him against the sex, for no other
woman excepting his mother, to whom his Life of
Travels was dedicated, was ever mentioned in his writ-
ings, and this one was disinherited in his extraordinary
will. Through fear of being drafted into the French
wars, he assumed for a time his mother's family name of
Schmaltz, and finally left Sicily in disgust ; taking with
him his fortune and "fifty boxes of personal goods,"

3 "At Palermo," said Swainson, "I had the pleasure of meeting . . .
Rafinesque Schmaltz, whose first name is familiar to most zoologists. In
the society of such congenial minds, I passed many happy hours, and
made many delightful excursions ... by the inducement of the latter, I
was led to investigate the ichthyology of the western coast." (See
Bibliography, No. 170.)

290 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

he set out again for America in 1815. Sicily, he de-
clared in epigram, offered "a fruitful soil, a delightful
climate, excellent productions, perfidious men, deceitful
women."

This second voyage to the New World began late
in July but did not end until 100 days later, when, on
the night of November 2, his ship ran on the Race Rocks
near New London, at the western end of Long Island
Sound, and eventually went down within sight of land
with all his possessions. "I had lost everything," he
said, "my fortune, my share of the cargo, my collec-
tions and labors for twenty years past, my books, my
manuscripts, my drawings, even my clothes ... all
that I possessed, except some scattered funds, and the
insurance ordered in England for one third of the value
of my goods." "I have found men," he continued, "vile
enough to laugh without shame at my misfortune, in-
stead of condoling with me! But I have met also with
friends who deplored my loss, and helped me in need."
One of these friends was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell of
New York, who had given a helping hand to Audubon,4
and it was probably through him that Rafinesque ob-
tained a position as private tutor in a family living on
the Hudson. Traveling up and down the country, col-
lecting objects in natural history, writing, with frus-
trated attempts at business, occupied a number of the
following years; meanwhile he had aided in founding
the Lyceum of New York and had become a member of
the Literary and Philosophical Society. At Philadel-
phia he found another friend in Mr. John O. Clifford,
of Lexington, Kentucky, who encouraged him to visit
the West, and in the spring of 1818 he descended the
Ohio in an "ark" in company with several others who

4 See Vol. I, pp. 171 and 33(5.

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 291

had joined him in the enterprise. At Shippingport he
was welcomed by the Tarascon brothers, flour mer-
chants, formerly of Marseilles and Philadelphia, and it
was through them, possibly, that he first heard of Audu-
bon's drawings of birds.

Such was the "odd fish" who a little later greeted
Audubon on the river bank at Henderson. Had Audu-
bon known the true history of his visitor either then or
at a later time, he would not, we believe, have held him
up to ridicule in the "Episode" quoted above, and could
he have foreseen the unpleasant consequences that
ensued, his conduct would assuredly have been different.
A part of the episode, which Audubon does not relate,
was supplied by another naturalist at a much later day.5
Audubon, it seems, was at that time a good deal of a
wag, and whether to vent his dislike of species-mongers,
to avenge the loss of his violin, or to gratify some spirit
of mischief, he played upon the credulity of his guest,
in a way that could be deemed hardly creditable, in
giving him detailed descriptions and even supplying
him with drawings of sundry impossible fishes and mol-
lusks. Rafinesque took the bait eagerly, duly noted
down everything on the spot, and, what was more un-

BSee David Starr Jordan (Bibl. No. 183), Popular Science Monthly,
vol. xxix (1886). "The true story of this practical joke was told me
by the venerable Dr. Kirtland, who in turn received it from Dr. Bach-
man;" the latter, I might add, was the friend and correspondent of the
"Sage of Rockport" after a visit at his home near Cleveland in the
summer of 1852. In the private notebooks of Rafinesque copies of Audu-
bon's drawings are still to be seen, and "a glance at these," said Dr. Jordan,
"is sufficient to show the extent to which science through him has been
victimized."

Audubon was also responsible for a number of extraordinary "new
species" of bird-;, the most notorious of which was the Scarlet-headed Swal-
low, of which Rafinesque published the following account in 1820: "Hirundo
phenicephala. Head scarlet, back gray, belly white, bill and feet black.
A fine and rare swallow seen only once by Mr. Audubon near Henderson,
Kentucky . . ." See Samuel N. Rhoads, "Constantine S. Rafinesque as an
Ornithologist," Cassinia, No. XV (Philadelphia, 1911).

292 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

fortunate for American zoology, a year later began to
publish the results. The fictitious species of fish, to the
number of ten, "communicated by Mr. Audubon," first
appeared as a series of articles in a short-lived and long
forgotten western magazine,0 but in 1820 they were
gathered into a little volume T now considered so quaint
and rare that it has been reproduced in its entirety. In
this pioneer work on the ichthyology of the Ohio River
and the great Middle West, 111 kinds of American
fresh- water fishes are briefly described. Those ten "new
species," representing apparently a number of new
genera, "so like and yet so unlike to anything yet
known," long remained a stumbling block to American
zoologists; naturally they tended to discredit the work
of Rafinesque.

6 The Western Review and Miscellaneous Magazine, Lexington, 1819-20.

7 Ichthyologia Ohiensis, or Natural History of the Fishes inhabiting
the River Ohio and its tributary Streams, preceded by a physical descrip-
tion of the Ohio and its branches, By C. S. Rafinesque, Professor of
Botany and Natural History in Transylvania University, Author of the
Analysis of Nature, &c. &e. Member of the Literary and Philosophical
Society of New- York, the Historical Society of New-York, the Lyceum of
Natural History of New-York, the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia, the American Antiquarian Society, the Royal Institute of
Natural Sciences of Naples, the Italian Society of Arts and Sciences, the
Medical Societies of Lexington and Cincinnati, &c. &c.

"The art of seeing well, or of noticing and distinguishing with accuracy
the objects which we perceive, is a high faculty of the mind, unfolded in
few individuals, and despised by those who can neither acquire it, nor
appreciate its results."

Lexington, Kentucky: printed for the author by W. G. Hunt. (Price
one dollar.) (Pp. 1-90. Lexington, 1820.)

Fitzpatrick (see Bibliography, No. 228) gives a list of 14 copies of
this work, the whereabouts of which are known; we can add another
from the library of Dr. Jared P. Kirtland, now in the collections of
Western Reserve University; it is bound up with Dr. Kirtland's notebook
on birds and fishes, and labeled "Scraps of Natural History. My Note
Book;" a written notice on the inside of the cover, imploring the finder
to return the volume to its owner if lost, is signed by Dr. Kirtland and
dated "Cleveland, O., Oct. lGth, 1839." Probably fewer than 20 original
copies of the work now exist. It was reproduced in a limited edition, with a
sketch of Rafinesque's life and works by Richard Ellsworth Call, published
by the Burrows Brothers' Company of Cleveland in 1899.

EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWINGS OF AMERICAN BIRDS: ABOVE, 'VALCION d'aMEH-

1QUE SEPTENTRIONALE BUFFON. KING FISHER. CHUTE DE l'oHIO JULY 15,

1808. BELTED KING FISHER A. W.-.T. A. AI.CEDO ALCION. DRAWN BY

J. J. AUDUBON. NO. 110;" BELOW, "PASSENGER PIGEON A. W.

COI.UMBA JIIGRATORIA. CHUTE DE l'oHIO. DECEMB. 11,

1809. 12 PENNES A LA QUEUE TRES ETAGEE.

APPET.E ICI WILD PIGEON. J. AUDUBON.

NO. 109."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 293

As a specimen of these spurious fish stories, which
were previously published in both America and Europe,
we reproduce a part of Rafinesque's description of the
"91st. Species. Devil-Jack Diamond-fish. Litholepis
adamantinus" :

This may be reckoned the wonder of the Ohio. It is only
found as far uj) as the falls, and probably lives also in the
Mississippi. I have seen it, but only at a distance, and have
been shown some of its singular scales. Wonderful stories are
related concerning this fish, but I have principally relied upon
the description and figure given me by Mr. Audubon. Its
length is from 4 to 10 feet. One was caught which weighed
four hundred pounds. It lies sometimes asleep or motionless
on the surface of the water, and may be mistaken for a log
or a snag. It is impossible to take it in any other way than
with the seine or a very strong hook, the prongs of the gig
cannot pierce the scales which are as hard as flint, and even
proof against lead balls ! Its flesh is not good to eat. It is a
voracious fish: Its vulgar names are Diamond fish, (owing to its
scales being cut like diamonds) Devil fish, Jack fish, Gar jack,
&c. . . . The whole body covered with large stone scales laying
in oblique rows, they are conical, pentagonal, and pentsedral
with equal sides, from half an inch to one inch in diameter,
brown at first, but becoming of the colour of turtle shell when
dry: they strike fire with steel! and are ball proof!

While we cannot defend Audubon in his treatment
of Rafinesque, it would be hardly fair to judge such
incidents wholly in the light of after events, for, as our
narrative will show, it is unlikely that he ever saw
Rafinesque or heard of him again until long years after
this incident, certainly not until after his "Episode"
was published in 1831.8 Rafinesque evidently enjoyed

K Probably not before October of that .year, when Audubon first
met John Bachman, at Charleston, South Carolina.

294 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

this sketch of himself, for he gave unstinted praise to the
work in which it was published. As late as 1832, when
the appearance of The Birds of America seems to have
stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptions of
his own merits than was usual, he declared that his dis-
coveries were counted by the thousand, and that he had
traveled twenty thousand miles, always collecting and
drawing. In view of the fact that drawing was a talent
which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is inter-
esting to read this boast that an unfriendly critic drew
forth: "My illustrations of 30 years' travels, with 2,000
figures will soon begin to be published, and be superior
to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and variety,
if not equal in beauty. I shall study and write as long
as I live, in spite of all such mean attempts against my
reputation and exertions, trusting in the justice of lib-
eral men." 9

After leaving Audubon at Henderson in the sum-
mer of 1818, Rafinesque passed down the Ohio into the
Mississippi, pausing only to pay his respects at the
famous communistic settlement of New Harmony, by
the mouth of the Wabash in Indiana, later the abode
of Thomas Say, David Dale Owen, and Charles Le
Sueur, all of whom have left bright and honored names
in the annals of American science. He eventually re-
turned to Philadelphia by way of Lexington, Kentucky,
where he was induced to settle and teach natural his-
tory and the modern languages in the Transylvania
University, at that time the most important seat of
learning in the West. After closing up his business

9 Reply to a criticism of G. W. Featherstonhaugh (The Monthly Ameri-
can Journal of Geological Science), in Rafinesque's Atlantic Journal and
Friend of Knowledge, No. 3, p. 113 (Philadelphia, 1832). Rafinesque occa-
sionally spoke of meeting "my friend Audubon," who, he declared, had
invited him to join his expedition to Florida in 1831-32.

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 295

affairs in Philadelphia, Rafinesque entered upon his
new labors at Lexington in the autumn of 1819. He
was probably the first teacher of these subjects west
of the Alleghanies, and certainly the first in that section
of the country to use the present object method in the
elucidation of natural history. The lot of a pioneer in
education has never been a sinecure, and the post which
Rafinesque then filled was not a 'chair" but a hard
"settee." In those days the classics were in the saddle
and "rode mankind," while the natural sciences, when
tolerated at all, were given short shrift; yet this eccen-
tric foreigner held his position for seven years and ac-
complished an extraordinary amount of work. As
usual he spread his energies over the whole field of
knowledge, lecturing, writing and publishing on almost
every subject, but concentrating upon none. Mean-
while, he roamed far and wide and made extensive col-
lections.

While at the Transylvania University Rafinesque
seems to have applied for the master of arts' degree, but
was at first refused, as he said, "because I had not stud-
ied Greek in a college, although I knew more languages
than all of the American colleges united, but it was
granted at last; but the Doctor of medicine was not
granted, because I would not superintend anatomical
dissections."

One of his many projects, as meritorious as it was im-
practical, at that time, was a Botanic Garden with a
Library and Museum for Lexington, which was then
but a small village; though land was actually secured
and a start in tree planting begun, the project of course
came to nothing and had to be abandoned. Rafinesque
also invented, as he believed, the present coupon system
of issuing bonds, the "Divitial Invention," as he called

296 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

it; in 1825 he set out for Washington in order to secure
his patent rights, but his journey and idea never brought
him any returns. On the contrary, the incident marked
the culmination of his troubles with the president of the
University and its governing board, whom he seems to
have constantly nettled by his independent ways and
roaming habits. Upon returning from Washington he
found that Dr. Holley, who, he said, "hated and de-
spised the natural sciences" and wished to drive him out
altogether, had broken into his rooms during his ab-
sence, and had "given one to the students, and thrown
all my effects, books and collections in a heap in the
other," besides depriving him of certain other privi-
leges. "I took lodgings," he continued, "in town and
carried there all my effects ; thus leaving the college with
curses on it and Holley ; who were both reached by them
soon after, since he died next year at sea of the yellow
fever, caught at New Orleans ; having been driven from
Lexington by public opinion ; and the College has been
burnt in 1828 with all its contents."

After this unpleasant experience Rafinesque re-
turned to Philadelphia, where he spent the last and
saddest part of his checkered career. His insistent
ideas, which were undoubtedly the index of an unbal-
anced mind, increased, especially his mania for describ-
ing "new species" of animals and plants; this mania
perverted everything that he wrote, especially toward
the end of his life, and made him a thorn in the side of
every naturalist who tried to verify his work. A non-
conformist and a respecter of no authority but his own
is never popular, though a part of the antagonism which
Rafinesque aroused was due to the conservatism of his
age. He boldly advocated organic evolution when al-
most the whole world believed that species were fixed

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 297

and unchangeable things, and in many other respects
was fifty years ahead of his time ; but nothing was ever
carefully worked out in his fertile mind, with the conse-
quence that the world paid no heed to his crude and
undigested ideas.

The great mass of Rafmesque's books and mono-
graphs, his "tracts," broadsides, and ephemeral papers
of all sorts, extending to nearly a thousand titles, must
have gone into paper rags, when not used to kindle
fires, for he was generous in their distribution, and they
are now exceedingly rare. He touched nearly every-
thing, it is true, but little that he touched, especially
in this later period of his life, did he ever truly orna-
ment. His best pioneer work, in the opinion of com-
petent students, was that done upon the fishes of Sicily
and the natural history of the Ohio Valley ; his Medical
Flora, in two volumes (1828 and 1830) , is also admitted
to have possessed real value; but his writings are now
sought after as literary or scientific curiosities, and as
such they are unique.

No doubt Rafinesque was often treated unjustly,
either through ignorance or intent, while many natural-
ists were exasperated by the barbed arrows which he
shot into the air or direct at the mark. Others through
sheer inability to follow him gave up the attempt, one
writer 10 saying that such an attitude was justified when
it appeared that he had made six species out of one,
not to speak of several different genera and two sub-
families. If anyone still believes that Rafinesque has
been misjudged, says Giinther,11 let him read his letters
to Swainson, from 1809 to 1840, fifty-three in number,

10 Isaac Lea, in A Synopsis of the Family of Naiades, £>p. 8-9 (Phila-
delphia, 1836).

11 See Bibliography, No. 204.

298 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

covering 178 closely written quarto or folio pages, now
in possession of the Linnsean Society of London.
"Rafinesque," continues this critic, "was a man deeply
to be commiserated, not merely on account of the un-
fortunate circumstances which left him in his youth to
himself, without teacher or guide, but still more on the
ground of that natural disposition by which his uni-
versal failure in life was brought about. He was pos-
sessed of a feverish restlessness which entirely disquali-
fied him from serious study of any of the multitudinous
subjects which attracted his mind in rapid succession."

Rafinesque, bereft of friends and fortune, unknown
even to his neighbors, by whom he seems to have been
regarded as a harmless herb doctor, was left to struggle
on alone, without recognition and without sympathy or
support. Reduced finally to abject poverty, he con-
cocted and sold medicines which were advertised much
like quack remedies at the present day, especially his
"Pulmel," which without a doubt he thought had cured
him of the pulmonary consumption. To advertise this
he wrote a little treatise, hoping to realize something
from its sale and at the same time to avoid any undue
appearance of empyricism.

Toward the very end of his life, Rafinesque pro-
jected a savings bank, and, strangely enough, this seems
to have been a success, though just how is not clear,
since it both borrowed and loaned money at six per
cent. He had already attempted to secure rights on a
"steam-plough," a "submarine boat," "incombustible
houses," and similar novelties which abler inventors have
later perfected. For a long time he led the life of a
perfect recluse in a garret in a poor quarter of Phila-
delphia, in the midst of his collections, his books and
his manuscripts, never the world forgetting but ever by

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE 299

the world forgot. There, in the direst misery, he died
in 1840, at the age of fifty-six, without a word of cheer
or a tear of regret. His body was barely saved from
the dissecting table and given decent burial through the
loyalty and promptitude of one of his few remaining
friends, Dr. William Mease, who with undertaker
Bringhurst, broke into the room where his body lay and
let it down through a window by ropes.12 Even his will
was ruthlessly violated, and all of his effects, in eight
dray-loads, were hurried off to the public auction rooms
and sold in bargain lots, his books and all else bringing
but a mere pittance, not even enough to pay his land-
lord and the administrator of his estate.

Thus died the "eccentric naturalist" whom Audubon
had portrayed, and for whom the world in general had
shown scant sympathy. Rafinesque, nevertheless, pos-
sessed a mind of extraordinary acumen and an energy
and versatility little short of marvelous. He dipped
into every field of knowledge, looking for precious
metal, but much that he brought to the surface was
dross. His restless versatility alone would probably
have ruined him, for nothing short of an analysis of
the globe with all of its contents would have satisfied
his ambitious spirit. His was the ardor of the traveler
and the explorer, with a passionate love for nature sel-
dom equaled, but without the incentive and the patience
of the investigator or a balance-wheel in the judgment.
His ambition in early life was to become the greatest
naturalist of his age ; had his early training and environ-

12 The landlord, to whom Rafinesque had been in arrears for rent, had
locked his body in the room and refused permission for its burial, think-
ing to find a market for it in one of the medical schools of the city.
Rafinesque was buried in a little churchyard, then outside of the limits
of the city, known as Ronaldson's cemetery, now at Ninth and Catharine
Streets. See Call and Fitzpatrick, Bibliography, Nos. 198 and 228.

300 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ment been suited to his needs, and had fortune favored
him more consistently with her smiles, this ambition
possibly might have been realized, but we suspect that
in this case nature would have proved stronger than
nurture, and that he would have been Rafinesque to
the end.

CHAPTER XX

AUDUBON'S ^NEID, 1819-1824: WANDERINGS THROUGH

THE WEST AND SOUTH

Pivotal period in Audubon's career — His spur and balance-wheel — Resort
to portraiture — Taxidermist in the Western Museum — Settles in Cin-
cinnati— History of his relations with Dr. Drake — Decides to make his
avocation his business — Journey down the Ohio and Mississippi with
Mason and Cummings — Experiences of travel without a cent of capital —
Life in New Orleans— Vanderlyn's recommendations — Original draw-
ings— Chance meeting with Mrs. Pirrie, and engagement as tutor at
"Oakley" — Enchantments of West Feliciana — "My lovely Miss Pirrie" —
The jealous doctor — Famous drawing of the rattlesnake — Leaves St.
Francisville and is adrift again in New Orleans — Obtains pupils in
drawing and is joined by his family — Impoverished, moves to Natchez,
and Mrs. Audubon becomes a governess — Injuries to his drawings —
The labors of years destroyed by rats — Teaching in Tennessee — Parting
with Mason — First lessons in oils — Mrs. Audubon's school at "Beech-
woods" — Painting tour fails — Stricken at Natchez — At the Percys'
plantation — Walk to Louisville — Settles at Shippingport.

Audubon's failure at Henderson was the crucial
turning point in his career. For the five years that
immediately followed he led a peripatetic existence in
the southern and western states, seldom tarrying long
at one point, often leaving his family for months at a
time, living from hand to mouth, but ever bent on per-
fecting those products of his hand and brain, his life
studies of American birds and plants.

At this crisis Audubon could have accomplished
nothing but for the intelligent devotion of his capable
wife. Generous, emotional, inclined to be self-indul-
gent, Audubon needed both the example and the spur
of a strong character such as his wife possessed, and at
this time Lucy Audubon furnished both the motive

301

302 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

power and the balance-wheel that were requisite for the
development of her husband's genius. Without her
zeal and self-sacrificing devotion the world would never
have heard of Audubon. His budding talents event-
ually would have been smothered in some backwoods
town of the Middle West or South. For the space of
nearly twelve years, Mrs. Audubon, now as the head
of a small private school, now as a governess in some
friendly family who appreciated her worth, practically
assumed the responsibility for the support and educa-
tion of their children in order that her husband's hands
might be free, and with her hard-earned savings was
able to aid him materially in the prosecution of his
labors. When relatives or friends upbraided him for
not entering upon some form of lucrative trade, she
recognized his genius and always came to his support,
being fully persuaded that he was destined to become
one of the great workers of the world. Whatever oth-
ers may have said or done at that time, both Audubon
and his wife were confident of the ultimate success of
his mission. In short, the work in which the naturalist
was engaged became a family interest, in which every
member was destined sooner or later to bear a part.

Audubon recalled a somber incident of this time
which he thought might furnish a lesson to mankind,
and he shall relate it in his own words :

After our dismal removal from Henderson to Louisville,
one morning when all of us were sadly desponding, I took you
both, Victor and John, from Shippingport to Louisville. I had
purchased a loaf of bread and some apples ; before you reached
Louisville you were hungry, and by the river side we sat down
and ate our scanty meal. On that day the world was with me
as a blank, and my heart was sorely heavy, for scarcely had I
enough to keep my dear ones alive ; and yet through those dark

AUDUBON'S iENEID 303

days I was being led to the development of the talents I loved,
and which have brought so much enjoyment to us all. . . .

At Shippingport Audubon was welcomed by his
brother-in-law, Nicholas A. Berthoud. Wasting no
time in vain regrets, he began doing portraits in crayon,
and with such success that he was able to rent a modest
apartment and have his family about him again. From
no charges for his tentative efforts the price was grad-
ually raised until he received five dollars or more a
head ; with the spread of his fame orders filled his hands,
and he was called long distances to take likenesses of
the dying or even of the dead. Audubon's facility in
portraiture was a valuable resource, and it kept him
from the starving line at many a pinch in later years.

Through the influence of friends the naturalist was
offered a position as taxidermist at a museum which had
just been started at Cincinnati; here his family joined
him in the winter of 1819-20, and here he remained for
nearly a year. The published accounts of this Cincin-
nati experience are strangely confused and have led to
aspersions of bad faith which were, we believe, quite
undeserved. "I was presented," said Audubon, "to the
president of the Cincinnati College, Dr. Drake, and
immediately formed an engagement to stuff birds for
the museum there, in concert with Mr. Robert Best, an
Englishman of great talent," adding that his salary was
large ; so industrious were they, to continue his account,
"that in about six months we had augmented, arranged,
and finished all that we could do," but they found to
their sorrow "that the members of the College museum
were splendid promisers and very bad paymasters." *

1 Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
p. 36.

304 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

It has been stated that Audubon got nothing from Dr.
Drake, but that "Mrs. Audubon afterwards received
four hundred dollars, of the twelve hundred due," and
that the remainder was never paid.2 This matter can
now be fully cleared up, and it will appear that the
Cincinnati College was in no way involved; Dr. Drake
was not its president, although he drew its charter and
was one of its trustees; the Museum in which the nat-
uralist worked was an independent foundation; and
Mrs. Audubon was probably paid in full for the service
which her husband had rendered.

Audubon wrote in his journal in 1820, when this
experience was fresh in his mind, that owing to his
talent for stuffing fishes he entered the service of the
Western Museum at a salary of $125 a month; he made
no complaint at that time of any lack of pay. More-
over, on the day before he started on his cruise down
the Ohio River on the 11th of October of that year,
the Rev. Elijah Slack gave him a letter of introduction
in which he said that Audubon had "been engaged in
our museum for 3 to 4 months, and that his perform-
ances do honor to his pencil." Since Mr. Slack, like
Dr. Drake, was one of the managers of the Western
Museum, he must have known of Audubon's term of
service. We are convinced that Dr. Daniel Drake,3

2 Ibid., vol. i, p. 49.

3 Dr. Daniel Drake (1785-1852) was one of the most versatile and
prolific writers on medicine which the West has ever produced, and
Cincinnati owed to him much, for he was instrumental in organizing
in that city a church, a literary society, a museum, a hospital, a college,
and a school of medicine, while he enjoyed a large medical practice, lectured
on botany, and was a partner in two mercantile establishments. We might
also add that his "Notice concerning Cincinnati" (pp. 1-28, i-iv. Printed
for the author at Cincinnati, 1810), of which only three copies are known
to exist, is the earliest and rarest published record of that city. This
little pamphlet included a "Flora" of the city for 1809, and from it we
transcribe this interesting extract (p. 27): "May 10. Black locust in full
flower."

AUDUBON'S iENEID 305

whose character was above reproach and who was a
keen naturalist himself, was Audubon's good friend,
and that no misunderstanding ever rose between them.
In writing offhand from memory, years after the events,
Audubon misstated the facts but evidently without
design.

In 1818 Dr. Drake organized the Western Museum
Society, of which he said: "I have drawn up the con-
stitution in such a manner as to make the institution a
complete school for natural history, and hope to see
concentrated in this place, the choicest natural and arti-
ficial curiosities in the Western Country." The first
meeting of the Society was held in the summer of 1819,
not long before Audubon was engaged to work for it.
The membership fee was $50, a considerable sum for
that period, but the enterprise was well patronized. It
was in charge of a board of whom Dr. Drake was the
moving spirit; another member, as we have seen, was
Rev. Mr. Slack, who became the first president of the
Cincinnati College, which was organized in 1818-19.
The collections of the Museum were placed in one of
the buildings of the College in order better to serve the
students and public, which would account for some of
the confusion noted above.

Dr. Drake's hands at this time were more than full ;
in October, 1819, he wrote to a friend: "The ties which
bind me to the world at large seem every day to increase
in strength and numbers. The crowd of mankind with

"It is highly probable that the flowering of this beautiful tree, the
Robinia pseudocaeia of Linnaeus, indicates the proper time for planting
the important vegetable the Indian corn. For several successive years I
have observed our farmers generally to plant corn during some stage of
its flowering. This from the 10th to the 20th of May."

For the privilege of examining one of the original copies of this
paper, I am indebted to Mr. Wallace H. Cathcart of the Western Re-
serve Historical Society of Cleveland.

306 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

whom I have some direct or indirect concern, thickens
around me, and I see little prospect of more leisure,
nor any of retirement and seclusion." At this juncture
also, when Audubon and Best were working for his
Museum, Dr. Drake was experiencing the first disas-
trous check in his energetic career. In January, 1820,
in spite of the opposition and intrigue of professional
rivals, he succeeded in organizing the Medical College
of Ohio, and Robert Best became the assistant in chem-
istry and the curator of the Western Museum. Opposi-
tion did not abate, but instead of strangling the College
which he had founded, the marplots succeeded in. ex-
pelling the Doctor from its staff. At last, feeling
obliged to leave the city, Dr. Drake accepted in 1823
a position in the rival medical school of Transylvania
University, and thus became a colleague of Constantine
Rafinesque. It will be seen that Audubon's engage-
ment at Cincinnati fell in a troubled era, and the annoy-
ance which he may have felt at lack of pay was probably
no fault of the harassed doctor.

While at Cincinnati Audubon was obliged to resort
to his crayon portraits; and he also started a drawing
school, but it required all of Mrs. Audubon's skill in
management to keep the family out of debt. In 1820
he began for the first time seriously to consider the pos-
sibility of publishing his drawings, and under the spur
of this incentive began to exert himself as never before.
He planned a long journey through the Middle West
and South, his intention being to descend the Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers, explore the country about New Or-
leans, and then proceed as far east as the Florida Keys ;
he wished also to ascend the Red River, cross Arkansas,
and visit the Hot Springs, before returning again by
river to Cincinnati. Lack of readv money was no draw-

AUDUBON'S ^ENEID 307

back, for he was now confident of being able to live
by his talents alone.

Accordingly, he left his wife to care for their two
boys, and on October 12, 1820, started down river in a
flatboat, bound for New Orleans. His companions on
this journey were Captain Cummings,4 an engineer who
had been in the government service, to whom Audubon
became much attached ; Joseph R. Mason, a promising
artist of eleven, in the role of pupil-assistant, and his
dog "Dash." Although Audubon had no funds, he was
careful to provide himself with letters to or from men
of mark who could be of assistance to him and this cus-
tom was followed to good effect at a much later day.
On this occasion he bore recommendations from
William H. Harrison, who afterwards became Presi-
dent, to Governor Miller of Arkansas, and from Henry
Clay, as well as his letter from Rev. Elijah Slack, in
which it was stated that the naturalist was traveling to
complete his collection of the birds of the United States
which he intended to publish at some future time.
Audubon also wrote a personal letter to Governor
Miller, fully outlining his plans, and asking for infor-
mation ; he told the Governor that he had been working
fifteen years, and that his drawings of birds and plants
were all from nature and life-size, showing that the idea
of publication which was afterwards realized was then
fixed in his mind. Audubon kept a careful journal on
this journey, which extended over a year, the last entry
being for the close of 1821.5

4 See Audubon's letter to Thomas Sully, reproduced in Vol. II, p. 68. In
his Ohio and Mississippi Rivers Journal Audubon wrote on April 5, 1821:
"Cap. dimming left us on the 10 for Phila; the poor man had not one cent
with him."

5 This early journal fills a large unruled book, measuring about 13 by
8 inches, of 201 pages, beginning with Oct. 12, 1820, and closing with
December 31, 1821; it forms a part of the John E. Thayer collection of

308 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

As their flatboat stopped at many towns and planta-
tions on the rivers, Audubon could hunt game and birds
to his heart's content. Having resolved, as he said,
never to draw from a stuffed specimen, he worked at
every new bird with the greatest diligence. It seems
almost incredible that he should never have met with
the Hermit Thrush before this journey, yet under date
of "Oct. 14, 1820," there is this entry: "We returned
to our boat with a Wild Turkey, a Telltale Godwit and
a Hermit Thrush, which was too much torn to make a
drawing of it ; this was the first time I had met with this
bird, and I felt particularly mortified at its condition." G

Their visit to Natchez furnished Audubon with ma-
terials for at least two of his "Episodes." 7 This inci-
dent of his generosity may be taken as characteristic;
finding that one of his companions was down at the
heel and as short of ready money as himself, he sought
out a shoemaker and offered to do a portrait of the
man and his wife for two pairs of boots; the proposal
was accepted forthwith, and he set to work; the sketches
were finished in the course of two hours, and Audubon

Audubon and Wilson manuscripts and drawings in possession of Harvard
University, having been once included in the estate of Joseph M. Wade.
The collection embraces four early drawings by Audubon, presumably at
one time in the hands of Edward Harris (see Note 9, Vol. I, p. 180) ; 73 of
Audubon's original letters, comprising largely his correspondence with Dr.
John Bachman; 60 letters by Victor G. Audubon; and a few by other mem-
bers of the naturalist's family. See the Annual Report of the Curator of
the Museum of Comparative Zoology for 1910-1911.

Through the courtesy of Professor E. L. Mark, and the Director of
the Museum, Dr. Samuel Henshaw, I have been permitted to examine
these numerous documents. In any direct or casual reference to this
valuable material, I have endeavored not to overstep the bounds of pro-
priety, in view of the fact that the University contemplates publishing
copious extracts from it at an early day. It should be noticed that
excerpts from this journal have already appeared in print. See following
Note.

6 See Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 41), The Auk, vol. xxi, pp. 334-338.

' "Natchez in 1820" and "The Lost Portfolio," Ornithological Biography
(Bibl. No. 2), vol. iii, pp. 529 and 564.

AUDUBON S ^NEID 309

and his companion, having selected their boots, went on
their way rejoicing.

Audubon left Natchez on December 31, 1820, on a
keel boat belonging to his brother-in-law, Nicholas A.
Berthoud, who accompanied him, and at one o'clock the
steamer Columbus hauled off from the landing and
took them in tow. Towards evening, when they were
looking up their personal belongings, the naturalist
found to his dismay that a portfolio containing all of
the drawings that he had made on the voyage down the
river was missing. Letters were despatched to Natchez
friends, but it was not until the 16th of March that his
anxiety was relieved; the missing portfolio had been
found and left at the office of The Mississippi Repub-
lican, whence it was forwarded on his order, and reached
his hand on the 5th of April. "So very generous had
been the finder of it," he said, "that when I carefully
examined the drawings in succession, I found them all
present and uninjured, save one, which had probably
been kept by way of commission."

On New Year's Day, 1821, they came to at Bayou
Sara, at the mouth of the inlet of that name, which
later saw much of Audubon and his family. On the
following day he made a likeness of the master of their
craft, Mr. Dickenson, for which he was paid in gold;
he also outlined two warblers by candle-light in order
to have time to finish them on the morrow. The captain
of their steamer in his anxiety to make haste had set
them adrift at this point, and they were obliged to make
their way as best they could, by aid of the current and
oars, to the port of New Orleans, which was finally
entered on Sunday, January 7, 1821.

Audubon landed at New Orleans without enough
money to pay for a night's lodging, for someone had

310 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

relieved him of the little he possessed, and he was obliged
to pass several nights on the boat while looking for work.
Undismayed by his financial straits, his first visit at day-
break on Monday was to the famous markets of the
southern city, where he found dead birds exposed for
sale in great numbers — mallard, teal, American wid-
geon, Canada and snow geese, mergansers, tell-tale god-
wits, and even robins, bluebirds and red-wing black-
birds ; he added that the prices were very dear.

Upon leaving Cincinnati Audubon had resolved
upon making one hundred drawings of birds; this was
actually accomplished, but only after repeatedly modi-
fying his plans and working in more humble capacities
than he was at first inclined to consider. On the 12th
of January he wrote in his diary of meeting an Italian
painter at the theater, and of showing him his drawing
of the White-headed Eagle 8 at the rooms of Mr. Ber-
thoud; "he was much pleased," and took him "to his
painting apartment at the theater, then to the directors,
who very roughly offered me one hundred dollars per
month to paint with Monsieur l'ltalien. I believe really
now that my talents must be poor," said Audubon. His
refusal of this offer in view of his straitened circum-
stances, and the entry which followed, were character-
istic: "Jan. 13th, 1821. I rose up early, tormented by
many disagreeable thoughts, again nearly without a
cent, in a bustling city where no one cares a fig for a
man in my situation." The following day Audubon
applied to a self-taught portrait painter, John W.

8 The original of this admirable drawing had been shot at New Madrid,
on the Ohio, on November 23, and Audubon, who immediately began to
work on it, recorded his conviction that the White-headed or Bald Eagle
and the "Brown Eagle," which he later called "The Bird of Washington,"
were two d'fferent species; he thought that the young of the former, which
was also brown, was much smaller in size. See Vol. I, p. 241.

AUDUBON'S iENEID 311

Jarvis, and after showing his drawings, was engaged
to assist him in finishing the "clothing and ground"; but
this artist's manners were declared to be so uncouth
and the pay so poor that he left him in disgust.

When he had made a hit, as he said, with the like-
ness of a well known citizen, orders came to him, and
he was able to resume his drawing of birds. On Feb-
ruary 22 he recorded that he had spent his time in
"running after orders for portraits, and also in vain
endeavors to obtain a sight of Alexander Wilson's
'Ornithology,' but was unsuccessful in seeing the book,
which is very high priced." Later, however, he appears
to have succeeded in this quest, for on the 17th of that
month he was able to send his wife twenty drawings of
birds, eight of which were marked as "not described by
Willson." Among them were the originals of some of
the most famous of his plates, such as the Great-footed
Hawk, the White-headed Eagle, and the Hen Turkey.9

Having seen in a newspaper a notice of an expedi-
tion which the Government was about to send to the

9 These drawings were as follows :

"Common gallinule; Not described by Willson;

"Common gull; Not described by Willson;

"Marsh hawk;

"Boat tailed grackle; Not described by Willson;

"Common Crow;

"Fish Crow;

"Rail or Sora;

"Marsh Tern;

"Snipe; Not described by Willson;

"Hermit Thrush;

"Yellow Red poll Warbler;

"Savannah Finch;

"Bath Ground Warbler; Not described by Willson;

"Brown Pelican; Not described by Willson;

"Great Footed Hawk;

"Turkey Hen; Not described by Willson;

"Cormorant ;

"Carrion Crow or Black Vulture;

"Imber Diver;

"White Headed or Bald Eagle."

312 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Pacific Coast, to survey the boundary of the territory
that had been recently ceded by Spain, Audubon be-
came much excited over a possible appointment as
draughtsman and naturalist. He sat down at once and
wrote a personal letter to President Monroe, while hun-
dreds of imaginary birds of new and interesting kinds
seemed to come within the range of his gun; on the 31st
of March he was still pondering on the project, and al-
though it is not likely that his letter ever reached the eye
of the President, he did receive a recommendation from
Governor Robertson of Louisiana. It was with this
expedition in view that he sought an interview with John
Vanderlyn,10 an eminent painter of historical subjects,
then working in New Orleans ; according to one version
Vanderlyn treated him as a mendicant, and ordered
him to lay down his portfolio in the lobby, but ended
by giving him a very complimentary note, in which he
praised his drawings without stint, particularly his
studies of birds.

During the five months spent at New Orleans in
1821, Audubon attempted to support himself and his
companion by means of their artistic talents, while he
was pushing forward his ambitious design of figuring all
of America's birds and most characteristic plants. That
he received scant encouragement but many rebuffs is
not surprising. They did succeed in obtaining a few
pupils in drawing, and Audubon made a number of
rapid portraits, but after living for a time on Ursuline
Street, near the old Convent, and later shifting from

10 Vanderlyn, like Audubon, had been a pupil of David at Paris; he
produced historical paintings of merit, as well as panoramas, then coming
into vogue; some of the latter were exhibited in the "Rotunda" which he
erected for that purpose in City Hall Park, New York, but this enter-
prise failed, and his building was seized by the city for debt. Vanderlyn
died in absolute want in 1852. See Samuel Isham, The History of Ameri-
can Painting (New York, 1915).

AUDUBON'S ^ENEID 313

one quarter to another, their finances had reached so
low an ebb by the beginning of June that a move was
imperative. Audubon then decided to go to Shipping-
port, Kentucky, and on the 16th of June, with young
Mason, he again boarded the steamer Columbus, John
D'llart, captain, and started up river. An incident
now occurred which affected the naturalist's whole after
life by introducing him to one of the most favored spots
in Louisiana, if not in the whole country, for the study
of bird life, not to speak of the impressions which the
charm of new scenery, a rich flora, and natural products
of the most varied description must have then made
on his mind. Mrs. James Pirrie, wife of a prosperous
cotton planter of West Feliciana Parish, happened to
be their fellow-passenger. Doubtless her curiosity was
piqued by the winning manners and flowing locks of
the artistic traveler, whose Gallic accent at once be-
trayed his nationality. Whether Audubon had made
her acquaintance previous to this journey or not is not
known, but before it was ended his fine enthusiasm and
ambitious plans had found a sympathizer, and he was
engaged as tutor to Mrs. Pirrie's daughter at $60 a
month. To further his ornithological pursuits it was
understood that he and his companion should live at
"Oakley," her husband's plantation, five miles from St.
Francisville, on Bayou Sara, and that one-half of his
time should be absolutely free for hunting and drawing.
Thus, on June 18, 1821, was forged the link that
bound the heart of Audubon to the State which was
first in his affections, and which he would fain believe
might have been the scene of his nativity. Well may
the Louisianians of today adopt him as their son, for
from that early time he cherished their State as in a pecu-
liar sense his own.

314 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

It was a hot and sultry day when our wanderers
landed at Bayou Sara,11 a small settlement at the junc-
tion of the sluggish stream which bears that name and
the Mississippi, and proceeded to climb to St. Francis-
ville, the village a mile away on the hill. Mrs. Pirrie,
who seems to have preceded the travelers by carriage,
sent some of her servants to relieve them of their lug-
gage, which Audubon said they found light. They
rested in the village at the house of Mr. Benjamin
Swift, where they were invited to stay to dinner, then
at the point of being served, but feeling somewhat ill
at ease, they thanked their host and again took to the
road. Following their leisurely guides, they now
traversed a country so new, so strange, and so enchant-
ing, that the five miles to the Pirrie house seemed short
indeed, "The rich magnolias, covered with fragrant
blossoms, the holly, the beech, the tall yellow poplar, the
hilly ground, and even the red clay," to quote Audu-
bon's record made at the time, "all excited my admira-
tion. Such an entire change in the face of nature, in
so short a time, seems almost supernatural, and sur-
rounded once more by numerous warblers and thrushes,
I enjoyed the scene."

In passing up the Mississippi from New Orleans,
the topography of the country suddenly changes at

11 "Bayou," in Louisiana, is a term commonly applied to any slow-
running stream. According to the tradition gathered on the spot by Mr.
Stanley C. Arthur, both stream and settlement were formerly called "New
Valentia," while the present name was derived from an old woman called
"Sara," who many years ago lived at the mouth of the Bayou, where she
practiced some sort of spurious physic. St. Francisville, on the hill, re-
ceived its name from the circumstance that the brothers of St. Francis,
who had a mission at Pointe Coupee, on the opposite bank, were in the
habit of ferrying their dead over the river, in order to bury them on
the high ground; "Bayou Sara" and "St. Francisville" are used interchange-
ably by the inhabitants. See S. C. Arthur (Bibl. No. 230), Times-Picayune,
New Orleans, August 6, 1916.

BAYOU SARA LANDING, WEST FELICIANA PARISH, LOUISIANA, AT THE JUNCTION
OF BAYOU SARA AND THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.

SCENE ON BAYOU SARA CREEK, AUDUBON'S HUNTING GROUND IN 1821.

This and the above after photographs by Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur. 1916.

AUDUBON'S ^ENEID 315

about this point; in the parish of West Feliciana the
alluvial lowlands of the river valley give place to beau-
tiful highlands, which still harbor as rich and distinctive
a flora and fauna as in Audubon's day. Following
Audubon's course in June, 1916, or ninety-five years
later, Mr. Arthur found the region about St. Francis-
ville wonderfully rich in birds, and there noted seventy-
eight resident kinds which were seen on the same day,
from shortly before noon to seven o'clock in the evening.

Upon reaching the plantation house, Audubon and
his companion were kindly received by the Scotchman,
James Pirrie, who introduced to them his daughter,
Eliza, then a beautiful and talented girl of seventeen —
"my lovely Miss Pirrie, of Oakley," as Audubon once
characterized her in his journal — who was to become his
pupil in drawing, and who, as after events proved, was
destined to a romantic and checkered career.

The "Oakley" house, which by a strange turn of
fortune's wheel thus became the naturalist's home in the
summer of 1821, has changed but little since that time,
but the century that has nearly sped its course has added
strength and beauty to the moss-hung oaks which now
encompass it and temper the heat of the southern sun
in the double-decked galleries which adorn its whole
front. Built of the enduring cypress, as my correspond-
ent remarks, the house stands as firm and sound as the
gaunt but living sentinels of that order which tower
from the brake not far away.

Audubon spent nearly five months at the Pirrie
estate. He worked with great ardor at his Ornithology
and produced the originals of many of his plates that
were afterwards published, while his assistant, Joseph
Mason, who had followed him from Cincinnati, labored
with equal diligence at the plants that were chosen as a

316 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

setting for the birds.12 An early drawing of the Chuck
Will's Widow is dated "Red River, June, 1821," and it
is probable that he followed this stream into Arkansas,
for on leaving Cincinnati in the autumn of the previous
year, he had planned to enter that State, and later ref-
erences in his journals clearly imply that this object
was attained. Another favorite hunting ground was
Thompson's Creek, and he often recalled its heated
banks, where, on a Fourth of July, he once satisfied his
hunger by "swallowing the roasted eggs of a large soft
shelled turtle."

On August 11, 1821, while Audubon was living at
"Oakley," he made this entry in his journal:

Watched all night by the dead body of a friend of Mrs.

P ; he was not known to me, and he had literally drunk

himself to an everlasting sleep. Peace to his soul! I made a
good sketch of his head, as a present for his poor wife. On
such occasions time flies very slow indeed, so much so that it
looked as if it stood still, like the hawk that poises over its
prey.

In the same journal also, for August 25, occurs a
record which throws light on one of Audubon's most
discussed and questionable pictures, that of the mock-
ing-birds defending their jessamine-embowered nest
from the sinister designs of a rattlesnake ; 13 little did he

12 On the original drawing of the Pine-creeping Warbler The Birds of
America (Plate cxl), the following legends appear in Audubon's autograph:
"Drawn from Nature by John J. Audubon, James Pirrie's Plantation,
Louisiana, July 10, 1821. Plant, J. R. Mason."

Sixteen of Audubon's originals, which still bear the designations of
time and place, were produced during this interval, in the year 1821;
they embrace the Mississippi Kite (Plate cxvii, see Vol. I, p. 228), June 28;
Yellow-throated ATireo (Plate cxix), July 11; Red-cockaded Woodpecker
(Plate ccclxxxix), July 29; American Redstart (Plate xl), August 13;
Summer Red-bird (Plate xliv), August 27; Prairie Warbler (Plate xiv),
Sept. 3; and the Tennessee Warbler (Plate cliv), Oct. 17.

13 The Birds of America, Plate xxi.

AUDUBON'S iENEID 317

think at the time how much discord this venomous rep-
tile, when coiled in the branches of a tree, could later
breed.14 The entry was:

Finished drawing a very fine specimen of a rattlesnake,
which measured five feet and seven inches, weighed six and a
quarter pounds, and had ten rattles. Anxious to give it a
position most interesting to a naturalist, I put it in that which
the reptile commonly takes when on the point of striking madly
with its fangs. I had examined many before, and especially
the position of the fangs along the superior jaw-bones, but
had never seen one showing the whole [of the fangs] exposed at
the same time.

He then described the generous provision which nature
has made to keep the rattlesnake in fighting trim, by
giving it a dental arsenal on which it can draw in case
of loss ; he added that the heat of the day was such that
he could devote only sixteen hours to the drawing.

At this time Audubon was a handsome and attrac-
tive man; his pupil, who did not enjoy the best of health,
was attended by a young physician who was also her
lover. It is not surprising therefore to learn that jeal-
ousy on the part of the doctor led to a misunderstanding,
and that the naturalist suddenly made his departure and
returned to New Orleans. In recording this incident
Audubon could not repress his amusement at the pre-
scription of the physician, who ordered the young lady
to abstain from all writing and drawing for a period of
four months, but meanwhile permitted her to eat any-
thing which pleased her fancy, in spite of the relapses
of fever that occasionally occurred. Audubon was al-
lowed to see her only at appointed hours, as if, he said,
he were an extraordinary ambassador to some distant

14 See Chapter XXVIII, p. 73.

318 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

court, and was obliged to preserve the utmost decorum
of manner ; he expressed the belief that he had not once
laughed in the presence of the young lady during the
entire term of his tutorial engagement, which lasted
from the 18th of June to the 21st of October. Later,
in December of the same year, when his former pupil
passed him without recognition in the streets of New
Orleans, he indulged in the reflection that she had ap-
parently quite forgotten the great pains with which at
her own request he had done her portrait in pastels,
but, thanks to his talents, he thought that he could run
the gauntlet of the world without her help.15

At New Orleans Audubon soon found new pupils,
particularly through the aid of Mr. R. Pamar and Mr.
William Brand,13 who came to his assistance, Mrs.
Brand and her son paying him at the rate of three dol-
lars for a lesson of one hour. On November 10, 1821,
he wrote:

Continued my close application to my ornithology, writing
every day, from morning until night, omitting no observations,
correcting, re-arranging from my notes and measurements, and
posting up; particularly all my land birds. The great many
errors I found in the work of Wilson astonished me. I try to
speak of them with care, and as seldom as possible, knowing
the good will of that man, and the vast many hearsay accounts
he depended on.

15 The vivacious Miss Pirrie did not marry the young doctor, hut
eloped to Natchez with the son of a neighboring planter, who died within
a month in consequence of a cold, said to have been contracted when he
waded a deep stream with his lady-love in his arms. Audubon's pupil
was thrice married, and bore five children; she died April 20, 1851, and
her ashes now rest by the side of her second husband, the Reverend
William Robert Bowman, the parish minister at St. Francisville. See
Arthur (Bibl. No. 230), loc. cit.

10 Mistakenly written "Braud" in the first edition of the present
work.

ROAD LEAPING FROM BAYOU SARA LANDING TO THE VILLAGE OF ST. FRANC1SV1LLE,
WEST FELICIANA PARISH, LOUISIANA.

OAKLEY, JAMES PIRRIE S PLANTATION HOUSE NEAR ST. FRANCISVILLE.

This and the above after photographs by Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur, 1916.

AUDUBON'S ^NEID 319

Again, on the 25th of that month is this entry:

Since I left Cincinnati I have finished 62 drawings of birds
and plants, 3 quadrupeds, 2 snakes, fifty portraits of all sorts,
and the large one of Father Antonio,17 besides giving many
lessons, and I have made out to send money to my wife suffi-
cient for her and my Kentucky lads, and to live in humble com-
fort with only my talents and industry, without one cent to
begin on. I sent a draft to my wife, and began to live in New
Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and much anxiety to
pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of America.

The close of the year 1821 found Audubon teaching
a few pupils at New Orleans, where, he said, his style of
work and the large prices he received caused him the
ill will of every artist in the city. The figure which he
cut in the streets, with his loose dress of nankeen and
long, flowing locks, made him wish to appear like other
people, and he was soon able to rejoice in a new suit of
clothes. Though still in need of work, when he was
asked to aid in painting a panorama of New Orleans,
he refused, begrudging the time, saying that he did not
wish to see any other perspective than that of the last
of his drawings.

Having been from home for over a year, Audubon
now wished to have his family about him again.18 His

17 Father Antonio de Sedella, popularly known as "Pere Antoine,"
after 1791 pastor of St. Louis Cathedral; an idol of the people, but
execrated by historians.

"This seditious priest is a Father Antoine; he is a great favorite
of the Louisiana ladies; has married many of them, and christened all
their children; he is by some citizens esteemed an accomplished hypocrite,
has great influence with the people of color, and, report says, embraces
every opportunity to render them discontented under the American Gov-
ernment." Executive Journal of Governor Claiborne. See Charles Gayarre,
History of Louisiana, vol. iv, pp. 154-155 (New Orleans, 1903).

18 This item occurs in Audubon's journal for October 25; "Rented a
house in Dauphine street at seventeen dollars per month, and determined
to bring my family to New Orleans."

320 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

plan did not appeal to his practical wife, who had many
friends at Cincinnati, where she was assured of a good
income through her teaching; Mrs. Audubon also felt
that to be constantly shifting about was anything but
favorable to the education of their children. Her re-
luctance, however, gave way, and in December she
joined her husband in New Orleans, but only to find
that the city could afford them no settled means of sup-
port. The situation of the Audubon family during the
winter of 1821-22 became precarious in the extreme, and
for two months Audubon gave up his habit of journal-
izing, one reason being that he could not afford the
paltry sum necessary to buy a blank book for this pur-
pose.

Compelled at last to make a new move, Audubon
started for Natchez, on the 16th of March, 1822, paying
for his passage on the steamer Eckit by doing a crayon
portrait of the captain and his wife. It was while going
up the river at this time that he opened a chest containing
two hundred of his drawings to find them sadly dam-
aged by the breaking of a bottle of gunpowder, but the
loss then sustained was apparently slight in comparison
with that which he had experienced in an earlier disaster.
To follow his account of this earlier and better known
incident, when leaving Henderson for Philadelphia,
he carefully placed all of his drawings in a wooden
box and entrusted them to the care of a friend, with in-
junction that no harm should befall them; upon return-
ing several months later, his treasure chest was opened,
but only to reveal that "a pair of Norway rats had taken
possession of the whole, and had reared a young family
amongst the gnawed bits of paper, which but a few
months before represented nearly a thousand inhabi-
tants of the air." The heat that was immediately felt

AUDUBON'S iENEID 321

in his head, said the naturalist, was too great to be en-
dured, and the days that followed were days of oblivion
to him; but upon recuperation he took up his gun, his
notebook and his pencils, "and went forth to the woods
as gaily as if nothing had happened"; after a lapse of
three years his portfolio was again filled, and the earlier
work replaced by better. Audubon's drawings and
plates were also repeatedly ravaged by fires, but this
was at a much later day.

While Audubon was engaged in teaching French,
music, or drawing, now to private pupils at Natchez,
now in a school at Washington, Mississippi, nine miles
away, the summer of 1822 passed with the outlook as
ominous as ever. On August 23 he wrote: "My friend,
Joseph Mason, left me today, and we experienced great
pain at parting. I gave him paper and chalks to work
his way with, and the double barrelled-gun . . . which
I had purchased in Philadelphia in 1805." Mason, who,
for a year and nine months, was Audubon's aid and con-
stant companion, seems to have settled eventually as an
artist in Philadelphia, where we hear of him in 1824
and again in 1827.19

In the following December Audubon received a
fresh impetus towards the goal of his ambition by the
arrival at Natchez of a traveling portrait painter, named
John Stein, who gave him his first lessons in the use
of oils ; his initial attempt was the copy of an otter from
one of his own drawings. Audubon and Stein together
later painted a full-length portrait of Father Antonio
which was sent to Havana. Artists who have worked
long in one medium are not always successful in another,
but those who have seen some of Audubon's later and
better works in oil, such as his large canvas of the Wild

19 See Audubon's letter to Sully, Vol. II, p. 69.

322 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Turkeys,20 must admit that he attained a high degree
of skill. As will be seen, this acquisition was a strong
string to his bow; when in England his brush helped
largely to pay for the issue of his early plates.

Mrs. Audubon, who joined her husband in New
Orleans on December 8, 1821, soon felt obliged to seek
employment. She engaged as nurse or governess in the
family of Mr. Brand, presumably the same whose wife
and son had received instruction in drawing from the
naturalist the previous autumn, and remained with that
family until September, 1822, when the death of the
child that was placed in her charge left her free to follow
her husband to Natchez. After attempting a similar po-
sition in the home of a clergyman there and finding it
impossible to obtain her salary, in January, 1823, she
was invited by the Percys to West Feliciana,21 then a
prosperous cotton district, at the apex of the salient
made by the neighboring state of Mississippi and bor-
dered on two sides by the great river. Her worth was
evidently appreciated, for she was encouraged to estab-
lish a private school on the Percys' plantation, which
she conducted successfully for five years.

Captain Robert Percy, who before coming to Amer-
ica in 1796 had been an officer in the British Navy,
was living at this time with his wife and five children
at their plantation of "Weyanoke," on Big Sara Creek,
fifteen miles from St. Francisville ; this town, owing to
its large shipments of cotton, was then at the height

20 Now in the collection of Mr. John E. Thayer, Lancaster, Mass.

"Mr. Stanley C. Arthur, whose recent visit to this region has already
been noticed, gathered there from the lips of old residents, some of whom
were descendants of those who had known the Audubons, a store of reliable
data by which the history of the naturalist at this important phase of
his life is revealed in its true light; to him I am indebted for a series
of excellent photographs of the region, its historic houses and people, as
well as for much needed information. See Arthur (Bibl. No. 230), loc. cit.

AUDUBON'S ^NEID 323

of prosperity, and its population no doubt exceeded
that of the present day ; it now stands at about one thou-
sand souls. Letters and journals of the period constant-
ly refer to "Beechwoods," which was not the mansion
house, though it undoubtedly belonged to the Robert
Percy estate. There it was that the wife of the natural-
ist lived, and there she started her school, for the benefit
not only of the Percy boys and girls, but also of a lim-
ited number of children of their wealthy neighbors ; her
own son, John Woodhouse Audubon, then eleven years
of age, at this time received instruction at her hands.
The parish of West Feliciana, at this early period, was
one of the richest cotton-producing sections of the entire
State; its care-free planters led an easy life until the
"king" was unceremoniously dethroned by a small, but
not insignificant insect which has proved mightier than
either fire or sword, namely, the boll-weevil ; now many
a fine old estate which has languished under the influ-
ence of the pest could probably be bought for a song.
"Beechwoods," thus devoted to educational purposes,
later came into the hands of Thomas Percy, but the
house, like that of "Weyanoke," was long since burned
to the ground.

While Mrs. Audubon was establishing her rules and
authority at the Percy school, the naturalist was paint-
ing with Stein at Natchez, and he remained there with
his elder son until the spring of 1823. At this period
he wrote in his journal: "I had finally determined to
break through all bonds, and follow my ornithological
pursuits. My best friends solemnly regarded me as a
madman, and my wife and family alone gave me encour-
agement. My wife determined that my genius should
prevail, and that my final success as an ornithologist
should be triumphant."

324 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

In March, 1823, Audubon and friend Stein bought
a horse and wagon, and in the hope of raising money
through their joint efforts as itinerant portrait painters,
set out with Victor on a tour of the Southern States.
This venture, however, did not succeed, and after visit-
ing Jackson and a number of other towns, they disband-
ed at New Orleans. Audubon then started north with
his son for Louisville, but upon paying a visit to his wife
at the "Beechwoods" school, he was invited by the Percys
to remain there for the summer and "teach the young
ladies music and drawing." According to a tradition
which has survived among the Percy descendants, Audu-
bon spent most of his time in roaming through the woods,
but he also taught his wife's pupils to swim in the large
spring house at "Weyanoke," where the water could be
deepened at pleasure. It was also said that he painted
the Wild Turkeys in the woods of Sleepy Hollow near
by, but I have already given Audubon's own record in
regard to one of these pictures, and, as Mr. Arthur re-
marks, the places in Louisiana where he drew these
famous subjects are as numerous as the beds in which
Lafayette slept when at New Orleans.

Audubon remained with the Percys during the
greater part of the summer, or until some misunder-
standing arose, when he was again adrift and upon a sea
of difficulties. While visiting a plantation near Natchez,
both he and Victor were stricken with fever ; his faithful
wife hastened to them, and after nursing both back to
health, she returned with them to the Percy plantation,
where they remained from the 8th to the 30th of Sep-
tember.

In the autumn of 1823 Audubon was determined to
visit Philadelphia, in the hope of finding a sponsor for
his "Ornithology." Although the work was then far

AUDUBON'S ^NEID 325

from ready for publication, he felt that at least he might
better his condition, and with this end in view he sent
his drawings from Natchez to that city; a hasty visit
was made also to New Orleans, for the purpose, no
doubt, of obtaining credentials to possible patrons in
the East. At last, on October 3, he started with Victor
on the steamer Magnet12 for Louisville. Low water
quickly held them up after entering the mouth of the
Ohio, and they were obliged to disembark at the little
village of Trinity, at the mouth of Cash Creek, the scene
of Audubon's misadventures with Rozier thirteen years
before. The remoteness of the situation and the state
of their funds, which corresponded with that of the
river, left no alternative but to walk, and they under-
took to reach Louisville, several hundred miles distant,
afoot. Two other travelers joined them, and with Vic-
tor, then a lad of nearly fourteen, the party left the creek
at noon on October 15 and struck across country through
the forests and canebrakes. At Green River, which was
reached on the 21st, Victor gave out from sheer exhaus-
tion,23 and the remainder of the journey was finished
in a Jersey wagon. At length, said Audubon, "I en-
tered Louisville with thirteen dollars in my pocket."
At Shippingport, then an independent town at the Falls
of the Ohio, he was obliged to settle down for the win-
ter. A place for Victor was found in the counting-
house of Nicholas A. Berthoud, while the father under-
took anything that came to hand, painting portraits,
landscapes, panels for river boats, and even street signs,

"One of the early steamboats on the Ohio that had been built at
Pittsburgh, in 1821, by Thomas W. Bakewell, his brother-in-law and
former partner.

23 See "A Tough Walk for a Youth," Ornithological Biography (Bibl.
No. 2), vol. iii, p. 371; and "The Hospitality of the Woods," ibid., vol. i,
p. 383.

326 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

so hard pressed was he at times to eke out a subsistence
for them both. Yet Audubon was as sanguine as ever,
and on November 9 he recorded the resolution "to paint
one hundred views of American scenery," and added:
"I shall not be surprised to find myself seated at the
foot of Niagara," a prediction which was fulfilled in
the following year.

During the winter spent at Shippingport, Audubon
lost a gentle friend in Madame Berthoud,-4 the mother
of Nicholas. In his journal for January 20, 1824, we
read his emotional words:

I arose this morning by the transparent light which is the
effect of the moon before dawn, and saw Dr. Middleton passing
at full gallop towards the white house ; I followed — alas ! my
old friend was dead ! . . . many tears fell from my eyes, ac-
customed to sorrow. It was impossible for me to work ; my
heart, restless, moved from point to point all round the com-
pass of my life. Ah Lucy ! what have I felt to-day ! . . . I
have spent it thinking, thinking, learning, weighing my
thoughts, and quite sick of life. I wished I had been as quiet
as my venerable friend, as she lay for the last time in her
room.

"This lady had a remarkable history. She was the widow of the
Marquis de Saint Pie, and was at one time a dame d'honneur of Queen
Marie Antoinette; like many others of noble birth, she had fled from Paris
during the Revolution, and emigrated to America, where with her husband
she assumed the name of Berthoud. Her son, Nicholas Augustus, had
married Mrs. Audubon's sister, Eliza Bakewell, in 1810.

CHAPTER XXI

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST

Audubon makes his bow at Philadelphia — Is greeted with plaudits and
cold water — Friendship of Harlan, Sully, Bonaparte and Harris-
Hostility of Ord, Lawson and other friends of Alexander Wilson — A
meeting of academicians— Visit to "Mill Grove"— Exhibits drawings in
New York and becomes a member of the Lyceum — At the Falls of
Niagara— In a gale on Lake Erie — Episode at Meadville — Walk to
Pittsburgh — Tour of Lakes Ontario and Champlain — Decides to take his
drawings to Europe— Descends the Ohio in a skiff — Stranded at Cin-
cinnati— Teaching at St. Francisville.

In 1824 after five hard years of struggle and em-
barrassment, Audubon decided that the time had come
to bring his labors to the light of day. At thirty-nine,
he read and spoke two languages but was without ade-
quate training in either ; he had never written a line for
publication, and to the scientific world he was a stranger.
Though without a definite plan, he cherished the ardent
hope of presenting the birds of his beloved America as
he had depicted them, to the size of life, and with all
the added interest and zest that a natural environment
could give them.

To Philadelphia the naturalist now turned his steps,
for that city was then a Mecca for scientific men. Leav-
ing Shippingport in March, he reached the Quaker
capital on the fifth day of April. There he purchased
a new suit of clothes, and, dressed "with extreme neat-
ness," paid his respects to Dr. William Mease, the one
friend there whom he had known intimately in his
younger and more prosperous days. It was primarily

327

328 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

through this excellent man's interest that Audubon met
the leading artists and scientific men of the city, in-
cluding Thomas Sully, Robert and Rembrandt Peale,
Richard Harlan, Charles Le Sueur, and Charles L.
Bonaparte, the latter then a rising young ornithologist
of one and twenty. It was Bonaparte who introduced
Audubon to the Academy of Natural Sciences, where
his drawings were exhibited and generally admired.
Among his critics on that occasion was George Ord,
who from their first interview seems to have looked upon
the new luminary with jealous eyes. Whether this was
true or not, there is no doubt that Ord became one of
his few really bitter and implacable adversaries, and
not many days elapsed before Audubon came to feel
that many in Philadelphia would be glad to see him
return to the backwoods of the Middle West, from
which, like an apple of Sodom, he seemed suddenly to
have dropped into their midst. Those who were most
interested in the continued sale and success of Wilson's
Ornithology, he declared, advised him not to publish
anything, and threw not only cold water but ice upon
all his plans. Thus began that unseemly rivalry, fos-
tered for many years by George Ord in this country,
between the friends of Alexander Wilson and those of
John James Audubon, the dead embers of which are oc-
casionally stirred even to this day.1

Ord, who was about Audubon's own age, was a quiet,
persistent, and unassuming worker, held in high esteem
by many of his associates. Audubon seems to have done
his best to conciliate him then and at a later day, but
all to no purpose ; Dr. Harlan once advised him to give
up the attempt, since Ord, he declared, had no heart
for friendship, having been denied that blessing by

1 See Chapter XIV.

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 329

nature herself. Ord, as we have seen, had edited the
eighth and written the ninth, or concluding, volume of
Wilson's American Ornithology, as well as a life of its
author ; the appearance of a new star in the ornithologi-
cal horizon may not have been a welcome sight. At
all events, we soon find him engaged upon a new edition
of Wilson's work.2 Ord had objected to Audubon's
method of combining plants and other accessories with
his drawings of birds, a criticism that in the case of
purely technical works could be easily sustained, and
some of his later charges, though carried too far, were
not wholly without foundation.3

Bonaparte,4 on the other hand, was captivated by

2 This was the third edition of the American Ornithology, issued by
Messrs. Collins & Company in New York and by Harrison Hall of Phila-
delphia, in three octavo volumes, with an atlas of 7G plates colored by
hand, in 1838-9. Mr. Hall, who appears to have been the person most
interested financially in this edition, was a brother of James Hall, author
of a notorious review in which this work was praised at the expense of
Audubon, who was viciously attacked (see Bibliography, No. 133). Friends
of Audubon repeatedly asserted that as soon as his popularity and success
began to check the sales of Wilson's work, Ord and a few others, aided by
interested publishers, began a systematic series of attacks, some notice of
which is taken in Chapter XXVIII.

3 See Chapter XIV.

4 Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte, Prince of Canino and
Musignano, the eldest son of Lucien, and nephew of Napoleon, Bonaparte,
was born at Paris in 1803, and died there in 1857. At this time he
was settled with his uncle and father-in-law, Joseph Bonaparte, former King
of Spain, at Philadelphia, and there and at Bordentown, New Jersey,
where Joseph had an estate, he undertook the study of American birds.
His best known scientific works are: American Ornithology, or the Natural
History of the Birds of the United States, not Given by Wilson, 4 volumes,
quarto, with 27 colored plates, Philadelphia, 1825-1833; and Iconographica
della Fauna Italica, Rome, 1833-1841. In 1828 he retired to Italy, where
he was devoted to literary and scientific pursuits. He was an early sub-
scriber to Audubon's Birds of America, but their relations were somewhat
strained on the publication of the Ornithological Biography in 1831 (see
Chapter XXIX). Bonaparte later entered politics in Italy, and was
leader of the republican party at Rome in 1848 and 1849; after having been
expelled from France by the order of Louis Napoleon, he was permitted
to return in 1850, and became director of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

He was a closet naturalist rather than a field student, but did much
for the reform of nomenclature. In his Ornithology the number of American
birds was raised to 3G6, nearly one hundred having been added since the

330 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon's drawings and anxious to secure his services
for his own work, then well in hand. This was the
American Ornithology, for which Titian R. Peale was
then making the drawings, and Thomas Lawson, who
had been Wilson's engraver, was engaged on the plates ;
though quite distinct in itself, this was much in the style
of Wilson's earlier work, of which it was virtually a
continuation. When Bonaparte introduced Audubon
to these men, it is not surprising that the meeting was
not productive of the best of feeling on either side.
Peale's stiff and rather conventional portraits of birds
naturally failed to awaken enthusiasm in "the trader
naturalist," as some who looked upon him as a rival
rather contemptuously called him. The interview with
Lawson, if correctly reported by his friend,5 shows that
his interest could not have been of the most disinterested
sort. "Lawson told me," said this reporter, "that he
spoke freely of the pictures, and said that they were ill
drawn, not true to nature, and anatomically incorrect."
Thereupon Bonaparte defended them warmly, saying
that he would buy them and that Lawson should en-
grave them. "You may buy them," said the Scotchman,
"but I will not engrave them . . . because ornithology
requires truth in the forms, and correctness in the lines.
Here are neither." Other meetings are said to have fol-
lowed, but to have ended only in mutual dislike. Never-
theless, one of Audubon's drawings was engraved by
Lawson and appeared in Bonaparte's work,0 but most

work of Wilson was revised by Ord, but he added only two that were
new, Cooper's Hawk, (Accipiter cooperi), named after William Cooper of
New York, and Say's Phosbe (Sayornis saya), dedicated to Thomas Say, and
first procured by Titian R. Peale in the Rocky Mountain districts of the
Far West. Perhaps his most important technical work, the Conspectus
Gene-rum Avium, begun in 1850, was incomplete at the time of his death.

5 William Dunlap, History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of
Design in the United States (Bibl. No. 59), vol. ii, p. 402 (New York, 1834).

6 The Boat-tailed Grackle, vol. i, plate iv.

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 331

of the figures in Bonaparte's concluding volumes were
by the hand of a German named Alexander Rider. It
was doubtless a fortunate circumstance that the preju-
dice and obstinacy of this overbearing Scot was a bar
to any further absorption of Audubon's talents.7

Audubon met at this time a more appreciative en-
graver in Mr. Fairman, who urged him to take his draw-
ings to Europe and have them engraved in a superior
style; on July 12 the naturalist wrote that he had drawn
"for Mr. Fairman a small grouse to be put on a bank-
note belonging to the State of New Jersey." By some
lucky chance this incident brought him the acquaintance
of Edward Harris,8 whom he met that summer in Phila-
delphia, and who became one of his most constant and
disinterested friends. It was Harris who a few days
after their meeting took all of the drawings which Au-
dubon had for sale and at the artist's own prices ; 9 who
for years was continually sending him rare or desirable
specimens of birds; who accompanied him through the
Southern States to Florida in 1837 and on the famous

7 He seems, however, to have supplied Bonaparte liberally with notes,
for after devoting fifteen pages to the biography of the Wild Turkey,
Audubon said: "A long account of this remarkable bird has already
been given in Bonaparte's American Ornithology, volume I. As that
account was in a great measure derived from notes furnished by myself,
you need not be surprised, good reader, to find it often in accordance
with the above." Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 16.

8 Edward Harris was born at Morristown, New Jersey, in 1799, where
he died in 1863. Without the incentive to earn money or the ambition
to acquire fame, he lived the life of a gentleman of leisure, devoted to
natural history, to sport and to the cultivation of his paternal acres. He
had the gift of friendship, was widely traveled, wrote charming letters,
and kept careful records of his observations, but rarely published any-
thing. The breeding of fine stock was one of his hobbies, and as a
result of a journey to Europe in 1839, when he visited a horse fair in
Normandy, he is credited with having first introduced the Norman breed
into America. "The beneficent results of his quiet, unobtrusive life," says
an appreciative biographer, "reach down to our time, and, after half a
century, we are glad that Edward Harris lived." See biographical sketch
by George Spencer Morris, in Caasinia, vol. vi (Philadelphia, 1902).

9 See Chapter XII, p. 179.

^^*^i^O^%&. //2S*

thxe- *W ^i ^ ~7~"y VX ^

AN EABLY LETTER OF AUDUBON TO EDWARD HARRIS, DATED JULY 14, 1824, AT THE
BEGINNING OF THEIR LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP.

From the Jeanes MSS. Audubon's last letter to Edward Harris, from the
same source, is reproduced in Volume II, page 287.

332

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 333

Missouri River Expedition in 1843. Edward Harris
became a patron of science through his friendship with
scientific men, and many besides Audubon were indebted
to him for judicious advice as well as more substantial
benefits.

The Academy of Natural Sciences, founded in 1812,
was well established at this time, and its rapidly grow-
ing Museum was already the largest and most valuable
in the New World; ornithology was a favored subject,
and the Academy's roll embraced every American pio-
neer worker of note in the entire field of the natural
sciences. The following account of a meeting of the
Academy, held on October 11, 1825, when Ord presided,
has been preserved in a letter of the period :

10

A few evenings since I was associated with a society of gen-
tlemen, members of the Academy of Natural Sciences. There
were present fifteen or twenty. Among the number were Le
Sueur, Rafinesque, Say, Peale, Pattison, Harlan, and Charles
Lucien Bonaparte.

Among this collection life was most strikingly exemplified:
Le Sueur, with a countenance weather-beaten and worn, looked
on, for the muscles of his ironbound visage seemed as incapable
of motion, as those on the medals struck in the age of Julius
Caesar. Rafinesque has a fine black eye, rather bald and black
hair, and withal is rather corpulent. I was informed that he
was a native of Constantinople ; at present he lives in Ken-
tucky. Dr. Harlan is a spruce young man. . . . Peale is
the son of the original proprietor of the Philadelphia Museum,
and one who visited the Rocky Mountains with Major Long;
he is a young man, and has no remarkable indications of
countenance to distinguish him. Say, who was his companion

10 Written by Dr. Edmund Porter of Frenchtown, New Jersey, to
Dr. Thomas Miner of Haddam, Connecticut, on October 25, 1825. See
Witmer Stone, "Some Philadelphia Ornithological Collections and Col-
lectors, 1784-1850," The Auk, vol. xvi (Xew York, 1899).

334 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

in the same expedition, is an extremely interesting man ; to
him I am particularly obligated for showing me their Museum
and Library. I think he told me that their society had pub-
lished nine volumes. . . . Bonaparte is the son of Lucien Bona-
parte and nephew to the Emperor Napoleon ; he is a little set,
black-eyed fellow, quite talkative, and withal interesting and
companionable.

Among the working naturalists at Philadelphia Dr.
Richard Harlan was possibly one whose friendship was
most valuable to Audubon; the artist from whom he
received most encouragement was Thomas Sully, the
portrait painter, who took him into his studio and gave
him lessons in the use of oils. Sully was one of those
who saw the good side of Audubon's character, discerned
his talent, and predicted for him a great future; at a
later day Sully was able to rejoice in finding his predic-
tion amply fulfilled.11

Convinced that the advice which Fairman and Bona-
parte had given him was sound, Audubon decided to
look to Europe for a publisher of his Birds, and with this
end in view, set hard to work at his drawings. "I had
some pupils offered," he said, "at a dollar per lesson;
but I found the citizens unwilling to pay for art, al-
though they affected to patronize it. I exhibited my

"Thomas Sully (1783-1872), Englishman by birth, who had come to
America at an early age, and like Audubon had waged a bitter struggle
before success was achieved, became one of the first portrait painters of the
early American School.

In 1831 Sully wrote to Audubon that his success in England and
France had charmed all of his friends in America, that it was like a
personal triumph to them, and that it would soon silence his few remain-
ing enemies; "Be true to yourself, Audubon," he added, "and never doubt
of success." It has been said that when Audubon first came to Philadel-
phia in 1824 he applied to Sully for instruction, saying that he wished
to become a portrait painter (see Dunlap, op. cit.); again that he was
ready to sell his drawings to the highest bidder; but the records of his
journals from 1820 onward are sufficiently consistent to show what his
purpose really was.

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 335

drawings for a week, but found the show did not pay,
and so determined to remove myself." Audubon re-
mained in Philadelphia until August, and while in doubt
as to what step he should take next, he was cheered by
a visit to "Mill Grove," made in the carriage of his
Quaker friend, Reuben Haines. To quote his journal:

As we entered the avenue, which led to the farm, every
step brought to my mind the memory of past years,
and I was bewildered by the recollections until we reached the
door of the house, which had once been the residence of my
father as well as of myself. The cordial welcome of Mr. Wether-
ill, the owner, was extremely agreeable. After resting a few
moments, I abruptly took my hat and ran wildly to the woods,
to the grotto where I first heard from my wife that she was
not indifferent to me. It had been torn down, and some stones
carted away; but raising my eyes towards heaven, I repeated
the promise we had mutually made. We dined at Mill Grove,
and as I entered the parlor I stood motionless for a moment
on the spot where my wife and myself were forever joined.

In this dramatic rehearsal the naturalist clearly im-
plies that he was married in the parlor of his own home,
but his excellent wife, who was surely in this instance
the better authority, explicitly states that their marriage
took place in her father's house at "Fatland Ford."
Since Audubon was in the habit of sending extracts
from his journal to his family, it is clear that errors
of this sort were the simple result of an impulsive tem-
perament; the moment his imagination pictured his
wedding as having taken place in his old abode, down
went the jotting in the journal, which was written at
odd moments anywhere, often at late hours, and with
no care in revision or thought of future publication.

On August 1, 1824, Audubon recorded in his diary

33G AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

that he had left Philadelphia for New York on the day
before, "in good health, free from debt, and free from
anxiety about the future." Sully had given him glow-
ing letters of introduction to Gilbert Stuart, Washing-
ton Allston and Colonel Trumbull, but then as now mid-
summer was not a propitious time to find city people
at home, and he began to consider the advisability of
visiting both Albany and Boston. Alternately elated
or depressed by the prospects of the day or the hour,
Audubon wrote on August 4 that he had called with a
letter of introduction on Dr. Mitchell, who had given
him "a kind letter to his friend Dr. Barnes." This hur-
riedly penciled note from the Nestor of American sci-
ence of that day has been carefully preserved, and reads
as follows : 12

Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell to Dr. Barnes

Mr. A. who brings strong testimonial of excellence from
our friends in Pha is now sitting with me — I have been de-
lighted and instructed by a Display of his Port Folio contain-
ing Drawings Done from Life of North American Birds and
illustrating the Connect, of ornithology with Botany, he has
Superior attainments & skill in the natural sciences which he
has cultivated for more than 20 y.

he wishes to show his Elegant performances to the Mem-
bers of the Lyceum and to be made a Member of that Society —
it is his intention to Leave this City for Boston on Sunday
morning. Meanwhile I recommend him to your good offices.

Yours Truly as ever

Sam, L. Mitchell,
Aug t 4 t 1824

12 For the favor of examining a collection of interesting autograph
letters written to Audubon in Europe and America, some of which are
here reproduced, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Henry R. Howland,
secretary of the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences. This note was written
on a narrow strip of manila-colored drawing paper.

i^ (PL t ,'j »v*w tAu^^ *^HL

$ /V£fc*-W*vS<, <2<*VI*, C"i*-y>v °&~ifa

w?. **■ — ^-<*

NOTE OF DR. SAMUEL L. MITCHELL, WRITTEN HURRIEDLY IX PENCIL, RECOMMEND-
ING AUDUBON TO HIS FRIEND, DR. BARNES, AUGUST 4, 1824

From the Howland MSS.

337

338 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Dr. Mitchell, who was the father and first president
of the Lyceum of Natural History, had been a friend
of young Audubon when he was clerking in New York
in 1807.13 His recommendation was accepted, and the
naturalist was enrolled on the Lyceum's list of mem-
bers; to justify his election, two papers, representing
his first contribution to ornithology, were presented to
the Society, and appeared in its Annals of that year.14
Audubon visited the Lyceum with Dr. DeKay and ex-
hibited his drawings, but said that he felt awkward and
uncomfortable. On August 3 he called on John Van-
derlyn, the artist, examined his pictures, and "saw the
medal given him by Napoleon, but was not impressed
with the idea that he was a great painter." Upon
meeting Vanderlyn again a little later, he was asked to
sit for a portrait of Andrew Jackson; his journal entry
regarding the incident was as follows: 15

August 10. My spirits low, and I long for the woods again ;
but the prospect of becoming better known prompts me to
remain another day. Met the artist Vanderlyn, who asked me
to give him a sitting for a portrait of General Jackson, since
my figure considerably resembled that of the General, more than
any he had ever seen. I likewise sketched my landlady and
child, and filled my time.

The context shows that the sitting was given, and
as Mr. Stanley C. Arthur remarks, Vanderlyn's por-
trait, which now hangs in the City Hall in New York,
shows "Old Hickory" from the shoulders up, but from
the shoulders down it is John James Audubon.

On the 14th Audubon wrote cheerfully to Sully:

13 See Chapter XI.

14 See Bibliography, Nos. 15 and 16.

"See Lucy Audubon, ed., Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist
(Bibl. No. 73), p. 107.

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 339

Audubon to Thomas Sully

My reception in New York has surpassed my hopes. I
have been most kindly [received], and had I seen Col. Trumball,
I would have found him the gentleman you represented, but his
absence at Saratoga Springs has deprived me of that pleas-
ure.

New York is now an immense city. Strangers are received
here with less reserve generally than at Philadelphia. I found
the Academy well supplied with paintings, and sculptures of the
Greek masters. The steam boats of the Sweet Ohio, with all
their swiftness of motion and beautiful forms, do not interest
the eye like those that are here tossing over the foaming bil-
lows with the grace of the wild swan. Were I a painter — ah

could I, like , carry in my mind's eye all my mind feels

when looking at the Battery at the moon's tender reflections on
the farthest sails, forcing the vessel they move with the very
wind's heart, — express as he does the quick moving tar hauling
in a reef at the yard's end, — and make on the canvas a noble
commander speak, as you have done ; then, my dear friend, I
could show you New York's harbor and all its beauties. . . .

I cannot part with that Fair City [Philadelphia] this soon;
I cannot help thanking Fairman, Peale, Neagle, Le Sueur, and
many others besides Mc Murty for their attentions to me.
Should }'Ou see honest Quaker Haines, beg him to believe me
his friend ; should you see Mr. Ord, tell him I never was his
enemy. Think of me some time, and accept the truest best
wishes of

John J. Audubon.

I leave for Boston tomorrow. Should you please to write
to me, direct to Care of Messrs. Anshutz & Co, Pittsburgh,
where I shall be in about 40 days.

The very next day Audubon changed his plans and
sailed up the Hudson to Albany, where he hoped to meet
De Witt Clinton, then at the height of his fame, who in
the course of his great undertakings had found time to

340 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

write letters on the natural history and antiquities of his
State, and Dr. Beck, the botanist. Failing to find either
at home, Audubon was compelled by the depleted state
of his pocketbook to give up his plan of visiting Boston,
and being determined to see Niagara Falls, he took pas-
sage on a canal boat to Buffalo instead. The Falls
were reached on the 24th of August, and it was then, on
recording his name at an hotel, that Audubon wrote un-
derneath: "Who, like Wilson, will ramble, but never,
like that great man, die under the lash of a book-
seller." 16 Upon his first view of the Falls he was satis-
fied that Niagara never had been and never could be
painted. He wanted to cross the bridge at Goat Island
but was deterred by the necessity of economy. Visitors
it seems, had already learned to venture under a small
section of the American Falls, and Audubon said that
while looking through the falling sheet of water, "at
their feet thousands of eels were lying side by side, trying
vainly to ascend the torrent." After strolling through
the village to find some bread and milk, the naturalist
recorded that he ate a good dinner for twelve cents, and
that he went; to bed "thinking of Franklin eating his
roll in the streets of Philadelphia, of Goldsmith travel-
ing by the aid of his musical powers, and of other great
men who had worked their way through hardships and
difficulties to fame, and fell asleep, hoping, by perse-
vering industry, to make a name for himself among his
countrymen."

The schooner from Buffalo to Erie, Pennsylvania,
on which Audubon had taken deck passage, as he was
unable to afford a berth in the cabin, was caught in a
violent gale on the way and was obliged to anchor in
the harbor of Presque Isle. "It was on the 29th of Au-

16 See Vol. I, p. 219.

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 341

gust, 1824," his diary reads, "and never shall I forget
that morning." Captain Judd, of the United States
Navy, had sent a gig with six men to its relief, and
"my drawings," he continues, "were put into the boat
with the greatest care. We shifted into it, and seated
ourselves according to direction. Our brave fellows
pulled hard, and every moment brought us nearer the
American shore; I leaped upon it with elated heart.
My drawings were safely landed, and for anything else
I cared little at the moment."

At this point Audubon set out with a fellow traveler,
who was also an artist, for Meadville, Pennsylvania.
The earliest version of his journal17 which gives an
account of this experience reads as follows:

On the shore of upper Canada, my money was stolen. The
thief, perhaps, imagined it was of little importance to a natural-
ist. To repine at what could not be helped would have been
unmanly. I felt satisfied Providence had relief in store. Seven
dollars and a half were left to us, two persons, 1500 miles from
home, at the entrance of Presque — Isle Harbor.

Five dollars was paid to their driver, and when they
reached Meadville, and entered J. E. Smith's "Travel-
er's Rest," they had but one hundred and fifty cents be-
tween them. No time was to be lost, and Audubon at
once started out with his portfolio and his artist friend
to look for work :

I walked up the Main Street, looking for heads, till I saw
a Hollander gentleman in a store, who looked as if he might
want a sketch. I begged him to allow me to sit down. This
granted, I remained perfectly silent till he very soon asked:
"What is in that portfolio"? This sounded well; I opened it.

"Probably first published in a newspaper, and reprinted in pamphlet
form, dated "April 9, 1846"; see Bibliography, No. 42.

342 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

He complimented me on my drawings of birds and flowers.
Showing him a portrait of my Best Friend, I asked him if he
would like one of himself. He said "Yes, and I will exert my-
self to gain as many more customers as I can."

According to a story current at Meadville long after
the event Audubon made the acquaintance of Mr. Bene-
dict, a merchant, lately come from New Haven, whose
attractive daughter, named Jennett,18 was then one and
twenty ; his family lived at the village tavern, called the
"Torbett House," in which Mr. Augustus Colson had
a store. It was Mr. Colson, to whom Audubon probably
refers, who responded generously to his appeal for work,
and called in a number of his young friends as possible
patrons. Among them was Miss Jennett Benedict, and
the naturalist, attracted by her agreeable manners and
pleasing appearance, asked permission to make a por-
trait-sketch, saying that he would pay for the privilege
by presenting her with a copy. This was evidently good
business enterprise, for, according to the story, a grain
bin in the Colson store was soon converted into a studio,
and Audubon was rewarded by a number of sitters.
Here is his account from the record just quoted:

Next day I entered the artist's room, by crazy steps of the
store-garret ; four windows faced each other at right angles ; in
a corner was a cat nursing, among rags for a paper-mill ; hogs-

18 Miss Jennett Benedict in 1836 became Mrs. Butts; the crayon por-
trait which Audubon made at this time was carefully treasured by her
daughter, the late Mrs. Frederick A. Sterling, of Cleveland, Ohio, to whose
kindness I am indebted for the privilege of reproducing it. This original
drawing, which is presumably a fair specimen of Audubon's itinerant
portraiture, was made on a sheet of buff, water-marked paper, 14% by
10y2 inches in dimensions; it was outlined in pencil, and carefully finished
in crayon-point; its legend "J. J. Audubon-1824," was inserted in pencil,
in a very fine hand at the lower margin of the sketch. The Colson
store was at the corner of Water Street and south of Cherry Alley. For
an account of this incident I am indebted to Mrs. Sterling, and to an
article in the Tribune Republican, of Meadville, for February 7, 1907.

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DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 343

heads of oats, Dutch toys on the floor, a large drum, a bassoon,
fur caps along the walls, a hammock and rolls of leather.
Closing the extra windows with blankets, I procured a painter's
light.

A young man sat to try my skill ; his phiz was approved ;
then the merchant; the room became crowded. In the evening
I joined him in music on the flute and violin. My fellow travel-
ler also had made two sketches. We wrote a page or two in
our journals, and went to rest.

The next day was spent as yesterday. Our pockets re-
plenished, we walked to Pittsburgh in two days.

A month was spent at Pittsburgh, where Audubon
searched the country for birds and continued his draw-
ings. While there he made the acquaintance of the
Reverend John Henry Hopkins, a man of superb ap-
pearance and rare conversational and oratorical powers,
later known as the learned and versatile first Episcopal
Bishop of Vermont. Audubon attended some of the
ministrations of this remarkable man, through whose
influence, he said, "I was brought to think, more than
I usually did, of religious matters ; but I never think of
churches without feeling sick at heart at the sham and
show of some of their professors. To repay evil with
kindness is the religion that I was taught to practice,
and this will forever be my rule."

In the autumn of 1824 Audubon planned another
visit to the Great Lakes in search of new birds, and
tried to induce his friend, Mr. Edward Harris, to ac-
company him. While wandering in the forests along
those lakes he thought out the plan which was finally
followed in the publication of his Birds of A merica :

Chance, and chance alone, had divided my drawings into
three different classes, depending upon the magnitude of the
objects to be represented; and, although I did not at that time

344 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

possess all the specimens necessary, I arranged them as well as
I could into parcels of five plates — I improved the whole as
much as was in my power; and as I daily retired farther from
the haunts of man, determined to leave nothing undone, which
my labor, my time, or my purse could accomplish.19

Audubon's journal kept on the lakes has been lost,
but that journey was fresh in mind when he wrote the
following letter to Edward Harris.20

Audubon to Edward Harris

Beechwoods. Near Bayou Sara, La.
Jany. 31 1825.

Surely I have not dismerited your esteem; when on the
Lakes, both Ontario and Champlain, I wrote to you — again
from Pittsburgh, all without any answer, and I am sorry to
say that I have been either abandoned or forgotten by all those
other persons who had promised to keep up a correspondence
with me. . . .

The country I visited was new, in great measure, to me. I
have been delighted with the tour, but will forever regret that
your sister's indisposition could not allow you time to augment
my pleasure by your company.

[Audubon offers to send his friend shrubs and fruits from
the South, and concludes;] In fact, my dear Mr. Harris, I am
yet the same man you knew at the corner of 5th, and Minor
Streets [in Philadelphia], and will continue forever the same.

After his tour of the Lakes Audubon returned to
Pittsburgh, and on October 24, 1824, started down the
Ohio in a skiff, intending to descend to the Mississippi
and thence reach his family in Louisiana. Bad weather
and lack of funds interfered with this plan, and ere long
he was once more stranded in Cincinnati, where he was

19 Ornithological Biography, vol. i, p. xi.

20 The Jeanes MSS.; see Note, Vol. I, p. 180.

DEBUT AS A NATURALIST 345

beset by claimants for payment upon articles ordered
for the Western Museum five years before. Finding it
difficult at this time to replenish an empty purse, Audu-
bon felt that he must borrow fifteen dollars, but could
not make up his mind how to ask the favor until he had
several times walked past the house where he had once
been known. Nevertheless, he succeeded in obtaining
the necessary funds, took passage on a boat bound for
Louisville, and slept cheerfully that night on a pile of
shavings which he managed to scrape together on deck.
"The spirit of contentment which I now feel," he wrote,
"is strange; it borders on the sublime; and, enthusiastic
or lunatic, as some of my relatives will have me, I am
glad to possess such a spirit"; later he added: "I dis-
cover that my friends think only of my apparel, and
those upon whom I have conferred acts of kindness
prefer to remind me of my errors."

Louisville was reached on November 20, and a num-
ber of days were spent in visiting his eldest son,
Victor, who was then at Shippingport.21 He finally
arrived at Bayou Sara in late November, 1824. The
captain of his vessel, which was bound for New Or-
leans, put him ashore at midnight, and he was left to
grope his way to the village on the hill. St. Francis-
ville, to his dismay, was nearly deserted, a scourge of
yellow fever having driven most of its inhabitants to
the pine woods. The postmaster, however, was able to
assure him that his wife and son were well, and Mr.
Niibling, a friendly German, whom he described as "a

""Shipping Port," as the village below the rapids or falls of the
Ohio was then called, was joined to Louisville by the Louisville and Port-
land Canal, a channel two and one-half miles long, in 1830, two years
after the city received its charter. The "Louisville" or "Portland" cement,
a name now applied to the product of a considerable district, was first
manufactured at Shipping Port, in 1829, for the construction of this
canal.

346 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

man of cultivation and taste, and a lover of Natural
Science," gave him refreshment and a horse. In his
eagerness to cover the fifteen miles to the Percy house
as rapidly as possible, he tried to strike a straight course
through the dark forest, but missed his way, and dawn
found him on unfamiliar ground ; he then learned from
a negro that he was two miles beyond the place. When
he arrived at last "with rent and wasted clothes, and
uncut hair, and altogether looking like the wandering
Jew," his wife was busily engaged in teaching her pupils.
During his absence of nearly fourteen months she had
prospered greatly, and she was not only ready but eager
to place her earnings at her husband's disposal.

When he had finally decided to take his drawings to
Europe for publication, Audubon set to work to increase
his capital, and soon had pupils in French, music, and
drawing, while a dancing class of sixty was organized
in a neighboring town. His country lads and lassies
proved rather awkward material, and he broke his bow
and nearly ruined his violin in his impatience to evoke a
single graceful step or motion; when, however, he con-
sented to dance to his own music, he never failed to bring
down thunders of applause. These efforts were con-
tinued for over a year, until he had realized a consider-
able sum. With this money in hand, supplemented by
what his wife could spare, he determined to seek his for-
tunes in the Old World.

CHAPTER XXII

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS

Audubon sails from New Orleans — Life at Sea — Liverpool — The Rath-
bones — Exhibition of drawings an immediate success — Personal appear-
ance— Painting habits resumed — His pictures and methods — Manchester
visited — Plans for publication — The Birds of America — Welcome at
Edinburgh — Lizars engraves the Turkey Cock — In the role of society's
lion — His exhibition described by a French critic — Honors of science
and the arts — Contributions to journals excite criticism — Aristocratic
patrons — Visit to Scott — The Wild Pigeon and the rattlesnake — Letter
to his wife — Prospectus — Journey to London.

When Audubon had reached the age of forty-one,
his fortunes were destined to undergo still further kalei-
doscopic changes, but the patterns and hue were now
of a more agreeable character. He had failed repeated-
ly in business ventures of various kinds; he had failed
also to find either encouragement or support for his
ambitious schemes of publishing his drawings in the
United States. But there was still a chance for success
in the Old World, and thither he was determined to go
to try the hazard of fortune in either England or France.
Accordingly, he left his family at St. Francisville and
went to New Orleans, where he engaged passage on a
cotton schooner bound for Liverpool, named the Delos,
Captain Joseph E. Hatch. With his drawings, a few
books, and a purse, if not ample, at least sufficient for
his immediate needs, and fortified with numerous let-
ters, he finally set sail on the 17th of May, 1826.

This voyage, like every other which the naturalist
ever made, was turned to good account; the log book

347

348 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

or journal kept on this occasion abounds in interesting
observations upon the life of the sea, particularly on
the fishes and birds which were encountered in the Gulf.
The first page of this journal,1 reproduced with ortho-
graphic exactness, reads as follows:

26 April 1826—

I Left My Beloved Wife Lucy Audubon and My Son John
Woodhouse on Tuesday afternoon the 26th- April, bound to
England, remained at Doctr Pope at S* Francisville untill
Wednesday 4 o'clock P. M. : in the Steam Boat Red River
Cape Kimble — having for Compagnons Messrs D. Hall & John
Haliday— reached New Orleans Thursday 27th at 12— Visit-
ed Many Vessels for My Passage and concluded to go in the
Ship Delos of Kennebunk Cape Joseph Hatch bound to Liv-
erpool, Loaded with Cotton entirely —

The Red River Steam Boat left on her return on Sun-
day and I Wrote by her to Thee My Dearest Friend and for-
ward01 Thee 2 Small Boxes of Flowering Plants —

saw, spoke to & walked with Charles Briggs, much altered
young man —

Lived at New Orleans at G. L. Sapinot in Company with
Coste —

During My Stay at New Orleans, I saw my old and friend-
ly acquaintances the familly Pamar ; but the whole time spent

1 Audubon's 1826 manuscript journal, which I examined through the
courtesy of Miss Maria R. Audubon in 1914, was written, mostly in pencil,
in a ruled blank book, of similar size and quality to that used on the
Ohio River in 1820-21 (see Note, p. 307), and was illustrated with a
number of pencil sketches, chiefly of fishes. On page 3 was a rough out-
line sketch of first mate Sam L. Bragdon, of Wells, Maine, reading in
the booby hatch; to his kindness Audubon paid a written tribute; there
was also a drawing of a "Balacuda [Barracouta] Fish, June 17, 1826;"
of a "Shark, 7 ft. long; off Cuba, Jn. 18" (see reproduction); and of a
"Dolphin; Gulph of Florida, May 28;" other sketches were of a line
or "thread-winder," a Flying Fish, and outlines of the Cuban coast.

Audubon presented a sketch of the "Dolphin" to Captain Hatch, whose
vessel, the Delos, went down on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in
the summer of 1831, but not until her crew and valuables had been trans-
ferred to another boat that stood by. (For this note I am indebted to
Miss Maria R. Audubon.)

EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWING OF THE "fKOG-

EATER," COOPER'S HAWK; "RED BANKS, KY„

NOVEMBER 29, 1810. LONGEUR TOTAL

19 POUCES POIDS llb- 6"Z- QUEUE

12 PENNES."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y.
Jeanes.

^ j^^r'fll^^^

pencil sketch from audubon's journal of his voyage to england
in 1826: "shark 7 feet long, off cuba, june 18th, 1826."

Published by courtesy of Miss Maria R. Audubon.

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FIRST PAGE OF AUDUBON'S JOURNAL OF HIS VOYAGE FROM NEW ORLEANS TO

LIVERPOOL.

Reproduced by courtesy of the Misses Florence and Maria R. Audubon.

349

350 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

in that City was heavy & dull — a few Gentlemen Calld to see
My Drawings — I Generally Walked from Morning untill Dusk
My hands behind me, paying but very partial attention, to all
I saw — New Orleans to a Man who does not trade in Dollars
or any other Such Stuffs is a miserable Spot =

fatigued and discovering that the Ship could not be ready
for Sea for several days, I ascended the Mississipy again in
the Red River and once more found Myself with my Wife
and Child. I arrived at Mrs Percy at 3 o'clock in the morn-
ing, having had a Dark ride through the Magnolia Woods but
the Moments spent afterwards full repaid me — I remained 2
days and 3 Nights, was a Wedding — of Miss Virginia Chisholm
with Mr- D. Hall &c- I Left in Company With Lucy Mrs
Percy " house at Sun rise and went to Breakfast at My good
[friend's, Augustin Bourgeat].

The captain and mates of the Delos were friendly,
and whenever their vessel was becalmed, they would
let down a boat so that Audubon could procure the
stormy Petrel and numerous other birds which he was
anxious to examine in the flesh or depict for his "Orni-
thology."

During his long voyage of sixty-five days our adven-
turous traveler was alternately elated or depressed by
hopes or fears for the future, until land was at last
reached on Friday, July 21, 1826. The appearance of
Liverpool, said Audubon, "was agreeable, but no sooner
had I entered it than the smoke became so oppressive to
my lungs that I could hardly breathe." At the customs
he was charged two pence on each of his drawings, "as
they were water-colored," but on his American books
he had to pay "four pence per pound," a circumstance
in which he was possibly favored by the following letter
which he had brought with him from a friend in New
Orleans :

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 351

Edward H olden to George Rams den

New Orleans, May 26th., 1826.
George Ramsden, Esq.
Dear Sir.

The present will be handed to you by Mr. J. J. Audubon
of this city, whom most respectfully I beg to introduce to
you.

The principal object of Mr. Audubon's visit to England is
to make arrangements for the publication of an extensive and
very valuable collection of his drawings in Natural History,
chiefly if not wholly of American Birds, and he takes them
with him for that purpose. Can you be of any assistance to
him by letters to Manchester and London? If you can I have
no doubt that my introduction of him will insure your best at-
tention and services. — Mr. Audubon is afraid of having to pay
heavy duties upon his drawings. He will describe them to you,
and if in getting them entered Low at the Custom House, or
if in any other respect you can further his views, I shall consider
your aid as an obligation conferred upon myself. Pray intro-
duce him particularly to Mr. Booth, who I am sure will feel
great interest in being acquainted with him, were it only on ac-
count of the desire he has always expressed to be of service to
the new Manchester Institution, to which Mr. Audubon's draw-
ings would be an invaluable acquisition.

1 am Dr. Sir Yours truly,

Edward Holden.

Among the letters which Audubon carried on this
occasion, but which apparently he did not deliver, was
the following, addressed by a friend in New Orleans to
General Lafayette : 2

2 Addressed "General Lafayette,

Paris ou Lagrange."
Translated from the French original, kindly sent to me by Mr.
Ruthven Deane.

352 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Louis P. Caire to General Lafayette

New Orleans, 15 May, 1826.
My dear General,

Monsieur Audubon, after having spent twenty-two years in
the United States, is returning to Europe in order to publish a
work to which he has devoted his entire life. This distinguished
ornithologist, who bears letters from the most eminent citizens
of the Union, will find, I trust, the encouragement to which
his talents and his perseverance so fully entitle him, and how-
ever flattering may be the recommendations which his friends
are eager to give him, these are yet, my dear General, beneath
his merits. I have presumed to assure him of your patron-
age, and in introducing him to you I am convinced that it will
be agreeable to you both.

Adieu my General: give my kind regards to all your fam-
ily, and permit me to embrace you as I love you.

Louis P. Caire.

Before Audubon left New Orleans, an old acquain-
tance, Mr. Vincent Nolte 3 of that city, had also fur-
nished him with credentials, in which it was stated that
the naturalist was carrying with him four hundred orig-
inal drawings, and that his object was "to find a pur-
chaser or a publisher." "He has a crowd of letters,"
continued Nolte, "from Mr. Clay, De Witt Clinton, and
others for England, which will do much for him; but
your introduction to Mr. Roscoe and others will do
more." This judgment was sound, but the most valu-
able letter which Audubon carried proved to be that of
Nolte himself addressed to Richard Rathbone, Esq., of
Liverpool, for it brought him into immediate friendly
relations with an influential family of merchants which
also included William Rathbone, a brother, as well as
their father, William Rathbone, Senior, whose interest

3 For an account of Audubon's meeting with Nolte see Chapter XVIII.

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 353

in birds had made him in his younger days an amateur
collector and student. Seldom has the role of Maecenas
been played more effectively and with less ostentation
than by those intelligent men of affairs, to whom Audu-
bon, with his fine enthusiasm and bold literary plans,
seemed to embody all the romance of the New World.
They stood sponsor for his work and worth, and did
all in their power to make their new discovery known.
At the home of the senior Rathbone, called "Green-
bank," three miles out of Liverpool, the naturalist was
warmly welcomed, and his excellent hostess, Mrs. Wil-
liam Rathbone, the "Queen bee," as he called her, re-
ceived from him lessons in drawing and became his first
subscriber.

At this period Audubon often complained of shy-
ness felt in meeting strangers, but his "observatory
nerves," as he said, never gave way. He studied his
English friends as closely as he had the birds of Amer-
ica, and the results of his shrewd observations were
often turned to practical account. That he was as diffi-
dent as he declared himself to be may be doubted, for
he seems to have met nearly everyone of prominence
wherever he went, and a list of his acquaintance at the
end of his sojourn abroad would read much like a "Blue
Book" of the British Isles.

At Liverpool Audubon received much assistance
also from Edward Roscoe, botanist and writer, Dr.
Thomas S. Traill 4 and Adam Hodgson, who introduced

4 Dr. Thomas Stuart Traill, after whom one of our common flycatchers
was named, was a founder of the Royal Institution at Liverpool, and later
a professor of medical jurisprudence at Edinburgh. When the keepership
of the Department of Natural History in the British Museum became
vacant through the resignation of Dr. Leech in 1822, Dr. Traill supported
William Swainson for the position; when George J. Children received the
appointment, he was disinclined to accept defeat, and entered upon a
crusade against the Museum's trustees in a series of anonymous articles

3.54 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

him to Lord Stanley. When he came to write his Orni-
thological Biography, these early friends were all pub-
licly called by name, and we thus had (though, as it
afterwards appeared, in name only) the "Rathbone
Warbler,"5 "Stanley Hawk," "Children's Warbler,"
"Cuvier's Regulus," "Roscoe's Yellow-throat," "Selby's
Flycatcher," and still possess "Bewick's Wren,"
"Traill's Flycatcher," "Henslow's Bunting,"0 "Mae-
Gillivray's Finch," and "Harlan's Hawk," to cite a few
instances of this form of acknowledgment.

Within barely a week after landing at Liverpool a
total stranger, Audubon was invited to show his draw-
ings at the Royal Institution. The exhibition, which
lasted a month, was a surprising success; 413 persons,
as he recorded, were admitted on the second day, and it
netted him one hundred pounds although no charge for
admission was made during the first week.

Everyone, said the naturalist, was surprised at his
appearance, for he wore his hair long, dressed in un-
fashionable clothes, rose early, worked late, and was
abstemious in food and drink. Shortly after his arrival,

contributed to the Edinburgh and Westminster Reviews. Traill's exposure
of the neglect which the natural-history collections had suffered in the
custody of the British Museum paved the way to a separate Department
of Zoology, which in the able hands of John E. Gray, and later in those
of Sir Richard Owen, led to the present great Museum of Natural History
at South Kensington.

6 In dedicating the Sylvia rathbonia Audubon said: "Were I at liberty
here to express the gratitude which swells my heart, when the remembrance
of all the unmerited kindness and unlooked-for friendship which I have
received from the Rathbones of Liverpool comes to my mind, I might pro-
duce a volume of thanks. But I must content myself with informing you,
that the small tribute of gratitude which it is alone in my power to pay,
I now joyfully accord, by naming after them one of those birds, to the
study of which all my efforts have been directed. I trust that future
naturalists, regardful of the feelings which have guided me in naming
this species, will continue to it the name of the Rathbone Warbler."

"Named after John Stevens Henslow, Professor of Botany in the
University of Cambridge, whom Audubon had met in 1828, when Charles
Darwin was still his pupil.

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 355

his sister-in-law, Mrs. Alexander Gordon, urged him
to have his hair cut and to buy a fashionable coat, but
he could not then bear to sacrifice his ambrosial locks,
which continued to wave over his shoulders until the
following March. If we can accept Sir Walter Besant's
characterization of the period, the "long-haired Achaean"
was no stranger to the streets of London as late as 1837:
"brave is the exhibition of flowing locks; they flow over
the ears and over the coat-collars; you can smell the
bear's grease across the street; and if these amaranthine
locks were to be raised you would see the shiny coating
of bear's grease upon the velvet collar below."

Audubon had not been in England three weeks
before he resumed his drawing and painting habits, at
first in order to repay his friends for their kindness,
and later as a means of support; at times he would
devote every spare moment to this work, and he was
then able to paint fourteen hours at a stretch without
fatigue. On October 2 he recorded that he had made in
less than twenty minutes a diminutive sketch of the
Turkey Cock from his large twenty-three hour picture.
This was for Mrs. William Rathbone, Senior, who later
presented it to him in the form of a handsome gold-
mounted seal, inscribed with his favorite motto, "Amer-
ica, my countrv." 7 The facility which Audubon dis-

' v ml %/

played in producing his pictures of animal life — Amer-
ican wild turkeys, trapped otters, fighting cats, English
game pieces, and the like, in a style both novel and indi-
vidual, added much to his immediate popularity in Eng-

7 This seal, the design of which has since been adapted for a book-
plate, was long in use, and though at one time lost, is still in possession
of the family. A copy of the large original, which was to serve as his
first plate, was presented to the Royal Institution of Liverpool as an
acknowledgment of its hospitality, for it had refused remuneration in any
other form.

356 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

land, as it later did to his purse. His painting devices
are thus referred to in a journal entry for January,
1827:

No one, I think, paints in my method ; I, who have never
studied but by piece-meal, form my pictures according to my
ways of study. For instance, I am now working on a Fox ; I
take one neatly killed, put him up with wires and when satisfied
with the truth of the position, I take my palette and work as
rapidly as possible ; the same with my birds ; if practicable I
finish the bird at one sitting, — often, it is true, of fourteen
hours, — so that I think they are correct, both in detail and
composition.

When he was painting pheasants and needed a white
one as "a keystone of light" to his picture, a nobleman
sent word that he would be given "leave to see the pic-
tures" in his hall, but this Audubon characteristically
refused, being determined to pay no such visits without
invitation.

On the 10th of September, 1826, Audubon left Liv-
erpool, in a hopeful mood, for Manchester, with the in-
tention of visiting the chief cities of England and Scot-
land. He was fortified with a bundle of letters to a
long list of distinguished people, including Baron von
Humboldt, General Lafayette, Sir Walter Scott, Sir
Humphry Davy and Sir Thomas Lawrence. His first
step proved a disappointment, and when he finally left
the City of Spindles six weeks later, he found himself
poorer than when he had entered it. At Manchester,
however, he added to his list of interested friends and
possible patrons, and acting upon their suggestion,
opened a subscription book for the publication of his
long meditated work, to be called The Birds of America.
The Rathbones, as well as other friends whose advice

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 357

he esteemed, tried to dissuade him from the plan of
publishing his drawings in their full size, which was
that of life, on account of the great expense involved
and the enormous bulk such a work would assume; but
he could not bring himself to give up the idea, in which
he received the support of the London bookseller, Mr.
Bohn, who, after seeing Audubon's drawings reversed
his opinion, saying that they must be brought out in
their full size, and that they would certainly pay.

After coming to England Audubon often thought
of the shifting scenes and strange contrasts his life had
brought. One day he felt the pinch of poverty, but
on the next fared sumptuously at the tables of the rich ;
now a rambler in the wilds of America, glad to accept
the hospitality of the humblest prairie squatter, now the
guest of some metropolitan aristocrat. "The squatter,"
he said, when writing in England, "is rough, true, and
hospitable; my friends here polished, true, and gener-
ous. Both give freely, and he who during the tough
storms of life can be in such spots may well say that
he has tasted happiness."

While at Manchester Audubon was driven to the
town of Bakewell, "the spot," he wrote in deference to
his wife, "which has been honored with thy ancestor's
name." Shortly after, on October 23, he started by
stage for Edinburgh, and the distance of 212 miles was
covered in three days; the fare was £5 5s. 5d., which he
regarded as exorbitant, but he complained not so much
of the charge as of the beggarly manner of the drivers,
who never hesitated to open the door of their coach
and ask for a shilling at the slightest provocation.

At Edinburgh Audubon was welcomed so warmly
that he began to feel that ultimate success was at last
within his reach. Professor Robert Jameson of the

358 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

University did much to make his work known, and in-
vited him to cooperate in an enterprise upon which he
was then engaged ; 8 this was pronounced by Dr. Knox
of the Medical School to be a "job book," but whatever
its merits may have been, Audubon decided after due
reflection to stand on his own feet.

Not long after reaching the Scottish capital, Audu-
bon made the acquaintance of Mr. W. Home Lizars,
styled "a Mr. Lizard" by a snapshot biographer of a
later day, a well known, expert engraver and painter,
who engaged in various publishing enterprises. When
Audubon had held up a few of his drawings for his
inspection, Lizars rose, exclaiming: "My God! I never
saw anything like this before." The picture of the
Mockingbirds attacked by a rattlesnake particularly
struck his fancy, but when he came to the drawing of
the Great-footed Hawks, "with bloody rags at their
beaks' ends, and cruel delight in their daring eyes,"
Lizars declared that he would both engrave and publish
it. "Mr. Audubon," said he, "the people here don't
know who you are at all, but depend upon it, they shall
know." Lizars eventually agreed to engrave and bring
out the first specimen number of The Birds of America,
and about the 10th of November made a beginning with
the first plate. On November 28, 1826, he handed Au-
dubon a first proof of the Wild Turkey Cock, a subject
chosen to justify the great size of the work, which was
to be in double elephant folio, and which in point of
size is perhaps to this day the largest extended publica^
tion in existence. 9 This and the second plate, which
represented the Yellow-billed Cuckoo 10 in the act of

8 See Note, Vol. I, p. 375.

9 The plates as issued, untrimmed, measured 39y3 by 29y2 inches; see
Bibliography, No. 1.

ao See Note, Vol. II, p. 197. Incidentally it may be noticed that the "tiger

/

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TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 359

seizing a tiger swallowtail butterfly on a branch of the
paw-paw tree, were finished by December 10; the first
number of five plates was ready some weeks later. Li-
zars engraved at Edinburgh the first ten of Audubon's
plates, but most of these were subsequently retouched,
colored and reissued by his successor in London, as will
presently appear.

When Audubon's pictures were exhibited at the
Royal Institution of Edinburgh, their success was imme-
diate, and like the appearance of a new Waverley novel,
they became the talk of the town ; the American woods-
man had provided a new thrill for the leaders of fash-
ion, as well as for the literati and the scientific men.
The "noblest Roman of them all," Sir Walter Scott,
refused to attend, but after having met the naturalist
he wrote this in his journal: "I wish I had gone to see
his drawings ; but I had heard so much about them that
I resolved not to see them — 'a crazy way of mine, your
honor.' "

Philarete-Chasles, a well known French critic of the
period, has left the following record " of the effect
which this exhibition made on his impressionable mind:

We have admired in the rooms of the Royal Society of
Edinburgh the public exhibition of [Audubon's] original water-
color drawings. A magic power transported us into the for-
ests which for so many years this man of genius has trod.

swallowtail" in this plate was possibly added for effect, for few of our
birds, which habitually hunt moths, ever prey upon butterflies. I have
seen the cabbage butterfly and a few of the smaller kinds brought to
the nests of the Chebec and Wood Pewee but never a "monarch" or
"papilio"; yet some affirm that the Kingbird will attack the "monarch."

"Translated from Etudes sur la Litterature et les Moeurs des Anglo-
Americains au XIXe siecJe, "Audubon," pp. 66-106 (Paris, 1851).
Philarete-Chasles, who wrote chiefly on American, English and European
authors and books, has seventy volumes credited to him in the National
Library at Paris.

360 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Learned and ignorant alike were astonished at the spectacle,
which we will not attempt to reproduce.

Imagine a landscape wholly American, trees, flowers, grass,
even the tints of the sky and the waters, quickened with a life
that is real, peculiar, trans-Atlantic. On twigs, branches, bits
of shore, copied by the brush with the strictest fidelity, sport
the feathered races of the New World, in the size of life, each
in its particular attitude, its individuality and peculiarities.
Their plumages sparkle with nature's own tints ; you see them
in motion or at rest, in their plays and their combats, in their
anger fits and their caresses, singing, running, asleep, just
awakened, beating the air, skimming the waves, or rending one
another in their battles. It is a real and palpable vision of the
New World, with its atmosphere, its imposing vegetation, and
its tribes which know not the yoke of man. The sun shines
athwart the clearing in the woods ; the swan floats suspended
between a cloudless sky and a glittering wave ; strange and
majestic figures keep pace with the sun, which gleams from the
mica sown broadcast on the shores of the Atlantic ; and this
realization of an entire hemisphere, this picture of a nature so
lusty and strong, is due to the brush of a single man ; such an
unheard of triumph of patience and genius ! — the resultant
rather of a thousand triumphs won in the face of innumerable
obstacles !"

Another French writer 12 remarked that Audubon
produced the same sensation among the savants of Eng-
land that Franklin had made at the close of the eight-
eenth century among the politicians of the Old World;
his works, he added, should be translated into his native
tongue, and produced in a form which would enable
them to reach the library of every naturalist in France.
One after another the scientific, literary, and arts so-

^' ' ■ — -' '■■— — ■ • " .. — ..

13 P. A. Cap, in L' Illustration for 1851. Cap's hint was taken by
Eugene Bazin, who translated copious selections from the Ornithological
Biography, which were published in two volumes in Paris in 1857 (see
Bibliography, No. 38).

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 361

cieties of the modem Athens elected Audubon to honor-
ary membership ; Combe, the phrenologist and author of
The Constitution of Man, examined the naturalist's head
and modeled it in plaster, for of course it proved to be a
perfect exemplification of his system ; Syme, the artist,
did his portrait for Lizars to engrave. Meanwhile the
press was giving such flattering accounts of the man
and his work that Audubon confessed that he was quite
ashamed to walk the street. At the annual banquet of
the Royal Institution, held at the Waterloo Hotel and
presided over by Lord Elgin, Audubon was toasted,
and it required all his resolution to rise and, for the
first time in his life, address a large assembly ; this, how-
ever, he managed to do in the following words: "Gen-
tlemen ; my command of words in which to reply to your
kindness is almost as limited as that of the birds hanging
on the walls of your Institution. I am truly obliged for
your favors. Permit me to say; may God bless you
all, and may this society prosper." On the 10th of De-
cember he wrote: "My situation in Edinburgh borders
on the miraculous," and he felt that his reception in that
city was a good augury for the future. But the life
that he was compelled to lead was extremely fatiguing,
and he often longed to return to his family and to his
favorite magnolia woods in Louisiana. "I go to dine,"
he wrote, "at six, seven, or even eight o'clock in the eve-
ning, and it is often one or two when the party breaks
up; then painting all day, with my correspondence,
which increases daily, makes my head feel like an im-
mense hornet's nest, and my body wearied beyond all
calculation; yet it has to be done; those who have my
best interests at heart tell me I must not refuse a single
invitation." But notwithstanding the tax which society
always levies upon the lion's strength, he wrote almost

362 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

daily in his journal or diary,13 and its pages, from which
we have been quoting, became a mirror of all that he
saw, heard, or did. Audubon was generous with his
time, as with everything else, and would never hesitate
to lay aside his own work for the sake of a friend who
was eager to acquire his method of drawing. But when
his entertainment commenced with an invitation to
breakfast, he began to be alarmed at the large share of
his working hours which had to be surrendered to his
friends. "I seem, in a measure," he said, "to have gone
back to my early days of society and fine dressing, silk
stockings and pumps, and all the finery with which I
made a popinjay of myself in my youth ... It is Mr.
Audubon here, and Mr. Audubon there, and I can only
hope they will not make a conceited fool of Mr. Audu-
bon at last."

In response to urgent appeals he began at this time
to contribute to the scientific journals of the Scottish
capital, a step which only served to remind him that
the rose was more prolific in thorns than flowers. Dr.
Brewster, however, in his Journal of Science, and John
Wilson in Blackwoods, sang pagans in his praise, and
there is no doubt that "Christopher North," so like and
yet so unlike the American woodsman, did much to
smooth his path in his own country as well as in Europe.
Though keenly feeling the need of literary advice in
those early contributions, Audubon was quite shocked
at the alterations which Dr. Brewster had made in one
of these articles, for though the editor had "greatly im-
proved the style," he had quite "destroyed the matter."
On December 21, 1826, Audubon wrote to Thomas
Sully that he would send him a copy of the first number
of his Birds, with the request that he forward it in his

13 See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86).

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 363

name "to that Institution which thought me unworthy
to be a member . . . There is no malice in my heart,"
he continued, "and I wish no return or acknowledgment
from them. I am now determined never to be a mem-
ber of that Philadelphia Society." Let it be noted,
however, that Audubon was elected to membership in
the American Philosophical Society, when their recog-
nition could no longer be withheld and when mutual
animosities had died down. Three days later he re-
corded that all of his drawings had been taken from
the walls of the Royal Institution, where they had been
on exhibition a month, and that he was intending to
present to the Society his large canvas of the Wild Tur-
keys, for which Galley, the picture dealer, had offered
him a hundred guineas on the previous day.14

Among Audubon's early patrons were Lord and
Lady Morton, and more than once he was invited to
visit them in their beautiful country seat of "Dalma-
hoy," where a large, square, half-Gothic building,
crowned with turrets and adorned with all the signs
of heraldry, overlooked a beautiful landscape to Edin-
burgh, marked by its famous castle, seen in miniature
on the horizon, eight miles away. Being somewhat ap-
prehensive of meeting the former Chamberlain to the
late Queen Charlotte, Audubon had imagined the Earl

14 Audubon's copy of this oil painting remained in the possession of
his family until a few years ago, when it was sold for a much greater
amount. It now adorns the beautiful ornithological museum of Mr. John
E. Thayer, at South Lancaster, Massachusetts; it represents a cock and hen
turkey in life size, adapted from the subjects of his two most famous
plates, and is in an admirable state of preservation. Mr. Thayer's collec-
tion also embraces Audubon's large canvas of the Black Cocks, from the
Edward Harris estate, a charming study of the Hen Turkey, with land-
scape setting, and, also in oils, several smaller panels of Flickers and
Passenger Pigeons, which, if not the work of the naturalist, are copies after
his originals, and possibly made by Joseph B. Kidd. (See Vol. I, p. 446; and
for a notice of Mr. Thayer's other Audubonian drawings, Vol. II, p. 227, and
Appendix II.)

364 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

to be "a man of great physical strength and size"; in-
stead, however, he saw

a small, slender man, tottering on his feet, weaker than a
newly hatched partridge ; he welcomed me with tears in his
eyes, held one of my hands, and attempted speaking, which was
difficult to him, the Countess meanwhile rubbing his other hand.
I saw at a glance the situation, and begged he would be seated
. . . and I took a seat on a sofa that I thought would swallow
me up, so much down swelled around me. It was a vast room,
at least sixty feet long, and wide in proportion, let me say
thirty feet, all hung with immense paintings on a rich purple
ground ; all was purple about me. The large tables were cov-
ered with books, instruments, drawing apparatus, a telescope,
with hundreds of ornaments.

After luncheon Audubon's "Book of Nature" was pro-
duced, and his drawings spread out and admired. Next
day the Countess, who was "a woman of superior intel-
lect and conversation," was given "a most unnecessary
lesson" in drawing, for, said the naturalist, "she drew
much better than I did; but I taught her to rub with
cork, and prepare for water-color." Before he left the
Countess wrote her name in his subscription book, and
arranged that he should return and resume his instruc-
tion.

One of Audubon's early friends at Edinburgh was
Captain Basil Hall,15 traveler and writer, who was then
about to start on a journey through the United States;
he told the naturalist that he was a midshipman on board
the Leander "when Pierce was killed off New York,"
at the time of Audubon's return with Rozier to America
in 1806, when Captain Sammis, upon seeing the British

15 Basil Hall (1788-1844), noted for his travels in China, Korea, and
on the coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico, visited the United States in 1827-
28; his Travels in North America appeared in 1829.

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 365

frigate, "wore around Long Island Sound, and reached
New York by Hell Gate." It was at Captain Hall's
home that Audubon met Francis Jeffrey. The indom-
itable critic and reviewer was described as "a small (not
to say tiny) man," who entered the room "with a woman
under one arm, and a hat under the other." "His looks
were shrewd," said the naturalist, his eyes "almost cun-
ning" and though he talked much, he appeared unsym-
pathetic. Their meeting was productive of no friendly
feelings on either side.

Three months after reaching Edinburgh, the long
awaited opportunity of meeting the greatest literary
figure of the day came to Audubon unexpectedly, for
he did not wish to be introduced in a crowd. Under
date of January 22, 1827, he wrote that Captain Hall
came to his rooms and said: "Put on your coat, and
come with me to Sir Walter Scott: he wishes to see you
now." "In a moment," said Audubon, "I was ready.
. . . My heart trembled ; I longed for the meeting, yet
wished it over." When they were ushered into Sir
Walter's study, the great Scot came forward, and
warmly pressing the hand of his visitor, said he was
glad to have the honor of meeting him. Audubon's
record of the meeting continues:

His long, loose, silvery locks struck me; he looked like
Franklin at his best. He also reminded me of Benjamin West;
he had the great benevolence of William Roscoe about him, and
a kindness most prepossessing. I could not forbear looking at
him ; my eyes feasted on his countenance. I watched his move-
ments as I would those of a celestial being; his long, heavy,
white eyebrows struck me forcibly- His little room was tidy,
"chough it partook a good deal of the character of a laboratory.
He was wrapped in a quilted morning-gown of light purple
silk ; he had been at work writing on the "Life of Napoleon."

366 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

He writes close lines, rather curved as they go from left to
right, and puts an immense deal on very little paper. ... I
talked little, but, believe me, I listened and observed.

Two days later Audubon paid Scott a second visit, this
time with his portfolio, but little was recorded of this
interview other than that it was more agreeable than
the first, and that he greatly admired the accomplished
Miss Scott, to whom he later sent as a gift the first
number of his plates. Audubon's drawings were ex-
hibited at a meeting of the Royal Society over which
Sir Walter presided, and Scott was also in attendance
at the Royal Institution when Audubon's large paint-
ing of the Black Cocks was shown. "We talked much"
on this occasion, said the naturalist, "and I would have
gladly joined him in a glass of wine, but my foolish
habits prevented me." This restriction on wine was
soon removed, as was that on whisky, whether of the
Scotch or Kentucky brand, and during his later life in
America Audubon was never a teetotaler by any means.
While at the Exhibition Sir Walter pointed to Land-
seer's picture of the dying stag, saying, "many such
scenes, Mr. Audubon, have I witnessed in my younger
days." Audubon was doubtless too polite to express an
opinion of that popular artist, though of that very pic-
ture he had written in his journal three days before that
there was no nature in it, and that he considered it a
farce; "the stag," he said, "had his tongue out, and his
mouth shut! The principal dog, a greyhound, held the
deer by one ear, just as if a loving friend; the young
hunter had laced the deer by one horn very prettily,
and in the attitude of a ballet-dancer was about to cast
the noose over the head of the animal."

Scott and Audubon were kindred spirits in their love

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 367

of sport, of wild and untameable nature, as well as of
man in his Homeric relation to it. Shortly after their
first interview the great Scotsman wrote this handsome
tribute in his journal:

January 22 [1827]. — A visit from Basil Hall with Mr.
Audubon, the ornithologist, who has followed that pursuit by
many a long wandering in the American forests. He is an
American by naturalization, a Frenchman by birth ; but less of
a Frenchman than I have ever seen — no dash, or glimmer, or
shine about him, but great simplicity of manners and behaviour;
slight in person, and plainly dressed ; wears long hair, which
time has not yet tinged ; his countenance acute, handsome and
interesting, but still simplicity is the predominant character-
istic.

Of the later visit of which we just spoke we find this
account :

January 24. — Visit from Mr. Audubon, who brings some
of his birds. The drawings are of the first order — the atti-
tudes of the birds of the most animated character, and the
situations appropriate ; one of a snake attacking a bird's nest,
while the birds (the parents) peck at the reptile's eyes — they
usually, in the long-run, destroy him, says the naturalist. The
feathers of these gay little sylphs, most of them from the
Southern States, are most brilliant, and are represented with
what, were it [not] connected with so much spirit in the atti-
tude, I would call a laborious degree of execution. This ex-
treme correctness is of the utmost consequence to the natural-
ist, [but] as I think (having no knowledge of vertu), rather
gives a stiffness to the drawings. This sojourner in the desert
has been in the woods for months together. He preferred as-
sociating with the Indians to the company of the Back Settlers ;
very justly, I daresay, for a civilized man of the lower order —
that is, the dregs of civilization — when thrust back on the sav-
age state becomes worse than a savage. . . .

368 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The Indians, he says, are dying fast ; they seem to pine and
die whenever the white population approaches them. The
Shawanese, who amounted, Mr. Audubon says, to some thou-
sands within his memory, are almost extinct, and so are vari-
ous other tribes. Mr. Audubon could never hear any tradition
about the mammoth, though he made anxious inquiries. He
gives no countenance to the idea that the red Indians were ever
a more civilized people than at this day, or that a more civilized
people had preceded them in North America. He refers the
bricks, etc., occasionally found, and appealed to in support of
this opinion, to the earlier settlers, — or, where kettles and other
utensils may have been found, to the early trade between the
Indians and the Spaniards.

Audubon was anxious to receive a written recom-
mendation from the great "Wizard of the North" touch-
ing the merits of his work, the publication of which had
just begun, but Sir Walter Scott sensibly demurred, on
the ground that his knowledge of natural history was
insufficient to qualify him to pass expert judgment.
"But," he added, "I can easily and truly say, that what
I have had the pleasure of seeing, touching your talents
and manners, corresponds with all I have heard in your
favor ; and I am a sincere believer in the extent of your
scientific attainments."

While Audubon was playing the role of society's
pet lion at Edinburgh in the winter of 1827, he was
painting to meet the expense of engraving his first
plates, and writing at odd times of the day or night.
On February 20 he recorded that his paper on the
"Habits of the Wild Pigeon of America" was begun on
the previous Wednesday, and finished at half past three
in the morning; so completely, said he, was he trans-
ported to the woods of America and to the pigeons,
that his ears "were as if really filled with the noise of

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 369

their wings'1 ; yet he added that were it not for the facts
it contained, he would not give a cent for it, "nor any-
body else, I dare say." Four days later, at the Wer-
nerian Society, he read his paper on the rattlesnake,
but the torrent of abuse which soon rewarded his efforts
in this direction finally led him to reserve all literary
efforts for a future and more propitious time.16

A large painting begun in January of this year,
called "Pheasants attacked by a Fox," was probably a
variant of the "Pheasants attacked by a Dog" (illus-
trated at page 394 ) , the original of which is now in the
American Museum of Natural History, New York
City. This canvas, which was exhibited by the Scottish
Society of Artists in February, 1827, measured nine by
six feet, and was the largest piece he had ever attempted.
"Sometimes I like the picture," he said, and "then a
heat rises in my face and I think it a miserable daub."
"As to the birds," he added, "so far as they are con-
cerned I am quite satisfied, but the ground, the foliage,
the sky, the distance, are dreadful." 17

In the spring of 1827 Audubon enjoyed the novel
sensation of going to church in a sedan chair, and of
hearing Sidney Smith preach. "He pleased me at
times," he said, "by painting my foibles with care, and
again I felt the color come to my cheeks as he por-
trayed my sins." Later there was an opportunity to
meet the famous preacher with his fair daughter, and
to show them his drawings of American birds.

The following letter 18 was sent at this time to his
wife in America:

16 See Chapter XXVIII.

"Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 204.

18 Which I owe to the kindness of his granddaughter, Miss Maria R.
Audubon; it is superscribed "Mrs. Audubon, St. Francisville, Bayou Sarah,
Louisville, p Wm Penn;" it reached New Orleans on June 13, and is
endorsed as answered on June 23.

370 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon to his Wife

Edinburgh March Wh 1027.

My Dearest Friend

$

I am now proud that I can announce thee the result of the
last meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. I was
unanimously elected a Foreign Member of that Institution on
the 5*1? Instant and am at last an F. R. S. . — Wilt thou not
think it wonderful; to me it is like a dream, and quite as much
so when I see the particular attentions paid me by all ranks of
the best Society. On the 6^ I received the official Letter from
the Secretary with the seal of the Society and the arms of
Scotland — this along with my other diplomas and Letters, I
assure thee enable me to be respected and well received in any
portion of the Civilized World. Sir Walter Scott has also
been so kind as to give me a Letter that I may exhibit wherever
I may go=I have Two Letters from him very kind=all this I
think will afford thee great Pleasure.

I am now preparing to leave Edinburgh and will do so in
a few days, I am now anxious to visit London as soon as I
possibly can, and yet want to spend a few days at New Castle,
York, Liverpool, Dublin, then back again to England, go by
Cambridge and Oxford. — If I meet the success that I expect
in that Tour it is very probable that soon after my reaching
London, I will write for thee to Come, and when I do so, my
Lucy may come without the least Hesitation for I will then be
ready to receive her !

Since my last of the 22d of February, I have received thine
of the 81* of December, 3d of January and 8^ of D? this last
mostly John's, I am particularly glad that thou hast left the
Beech Woods, yet thou might as well have given me at once
thy good reasons for doing so. I hope that at this Instant
that I am writing, thou art snug and comfortably settled afresh.

The Trees and Segments have not yet arrived, but I hope
to hear soon that they have — I have not a word about the
Seeds reaching yet. do my Love always say by what vessel any
thing comes, as John as concluded to take Lessons of Music

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 371

I have no wish to sell my Gun but wish to give it him as his
ow[n] in Fee Simple, as soon as he deserves it from thy own
Hands. May God bless him ! — if all continues well with me
Victor and him may rise to eminence and therefore try Johny's
Spunk, do beg or make him draw all kinds of Limbs of Trees
or Flowers for me and Avhenever he kills a bird of any kind tell
him to measure the Guts particularly and make a regular list
of the names of the Birds, length and thickness of those Gute
and their contents=19

I wrote a long letter to each Victor and N. Berthoud on
the 27 February, but not a word from either of them as yet
reached me. I was quite shocked to see thy last letter of the
8th of January without the print of thy new Seals, I am quite
frightened at thy watch not having reachd thee, yet I hope every
new Letter will bring me better tidings. I now collecting Let-
ters from all my Friends here and will have God knows enough
of them. I only hope I may soon be in a regular way of making
a comfortable living for ourselves all:

All the papers and books I send thee mention my name. My
work is lookd upon as unrivalled in any Country, I will soon
know how it will pay. — I can only add that I will write to thee
from all the places I visit=Let Victor have a copy of this=
Collect all kinds of Curiosities whatever=try to send or bring
with thee but send first if Possible Live Birds of hardy kinds
such as Blue Jays by themselves. Red Birds D°. red wingd
Starling D°, Partridges &c &? — present my humble respects to
M^ & M^? Johnsons an remembrances to good Friend bourgeat
— try to send me an account of the growing of Cotton from
A to Z, written by an able Planter — I wish thee to make regu-
lar memorandums thyself respecting all about Habits & Lo-
calities &c &£=thou wilst scarce believe that this day there
[are] in many places 16 feet of snow, the weather has been
tremendous — yet with all this no Invitation is ever laid aside

19 John Woodhouse Audubon at this time was in his fifteenth year, and
this injunction regarding the internal anatomy of birds, to which ornitholo-
gists had hitherto paid but little attention, was given three years before
his father made the acquaintance of MacGillivray. (See Chapter XXX.)

372 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and the other evening I went to Diner in a Hackny Coach
drawn by 4 Horses, and to church on Sunday last in a Sedan
chair to hear the famous Sidney Smith, curious diferences of
manners here I assure thee.

I have seen and know personally all the great men of Scot-
land and many of England.

What a curious interesting book a Biographer — well acquainted
with my Life could write, it is still more wonderfull and ex-
traordinary than that of my Father !

Fear not my connecting myself in any way with Charles M.
he is a mere worm on the hearth, and since he has abandoned
his Grand Flora is out of my books — it has perhaps been an
error in our Lives that thou didst not come with me. So much
indeed do I now think so that I have advised Cap2 Hall to
take his Lady and child with him. be sure to pave the way for
them to Judge Mathews and N. Berthoud to whom I have given
him letters to. — I send thee his Travels, read his interview with
Napoleon ; I write my Journal every day, it seems that that
portion of it forwardd thee long ago as never reach0* thee as
thou dost not mention it. I am sorry for all these little mis-
fortunes and can hardly a/c for them. I have not heard from
H. Clay but will refresh his memory, I hope at the same time to
receive a Letter from the President=I hope this day the last
beautiful broach I sent thee as a new Years gift is shining on
thy bosom, as I have witnessed the brightness of thy own sweet
Eyes, oh my Lucy what would I give now in my possession for

a kiss on thy Lips and God for ever bless thee thine

Husband and Friend for ever — John J. Audubon

F. R. S. E. Fellow Royal Society Edinburgh—

F. A. S — D? D° T>9. antiquarians—

M. W. S. N. H. — Member Wernerian Society of Natural His-
tory
M. S. A.— D° Society of Arts of Scotland—

M. P. L. S. — D° Philosophical & Literary Society

Liverpool
M. L. N. Y. — T>9 Lyceum of New York.

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 373

My Dear John —

I am very thankfull to you for your Letters con-
tinue to write from time to time, draw, and study music
closely, there is time for all things — I give you my Gun
with all my Heart best wishes, but earn it at your Dear
Mamma's will — God bless You —

Your Father and Friend —

John J. Audubon

At Edinburgh Audubon met a young landscape
painter, Joseph B. Kidd, and the two worked together
for some time, Kidd receiving instruction in animal
painting and Audubon hints on the treatment of his
landscapes, which had always been a source of trouble
to him. Kidd was Audubon's Edinburgh agent for a
time, and later entered upon the ambitious project of
reproducing all of his birds in oils, as will be noticed
later.20

On March 17, 1827, when the second number of his
Birds was in preparation, Audubon boldly issued his
"Prospectus," contrary to the advice of some of his
friends, who could see only egregious folly in such an
undertaking and regarded it as foredoomed to failure.
As everybody knows, it is easier to say things than to
do them, but all these friendly critics sang a different
tune later on, when they had seen more of the indom-
itable will and self-reliance of the man, who was to
carry steadily forward to a successful issue a work
which was in press nearly twelve years and which cost
over $100,000 to produce. In Audubon's original
prospectus of The Birds of America the specifications
as to the form, size, and cost of the work, which had
been determined for some months, underwent little

"See Chapter XXV.

374 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

change in subsequent editions of this printed state-
ment.21

Audubon left Edinburgh for London on April 5,
1827, with locks shorn but energy unabated. He fol-
lowed a roundabout course, visiting Belford, "Mitford
Castle," Newcastle-upon-Tyne, York, Leeds, Liver-
pool, and Shrewsbury, at every point extending his ac-
quaintance, showing his drawings to many, and adding
appreciably to his growing list of subscribers. Several
days were spent in hunting and drawing birds with the
Selbys, at their beautiful country place called "Twizel
House," at Belford, in Northumberland, where he was
soon made to feel as much at home as with his older
Liverpool friends, the Rathbones, at "Green Bank."
P. J. Selby, after whom Audubon named a Flycatcher
which appeared in his second number, was an amateur
artist and ornithologist, and at that time was engaged
upon an extensive publication to which Audubon was

21 The work, as originally announced, was to appear in parts of 5
plates each, at 2 guineas a part, and in order to distribute the expense
to purchasers it was expected to issue but 5 parts a year. The plates,
to be engraved on copper, were of double elephant folio size, and printed
on paper of the finest quality, all the birds and flowers to be life-size, and
to be carefully colored by hand, after the originals; any subscriber
was at liberty to take a part or the whole. It was stated in the
prospectus of 1829, when 10 parts had been published: "There are 400
Drawings, and it is proposed that they shall comprise Three Volumes,
each containing 133 Plates, to which an Index will be given at the
end of each, to be bound up with the volume. ... It would be advisable
for the subscriber to procure a Portfolio, to keep the Numbers till
a volume is completed." To avoid the expense entailed by copyright
regulations in England, indices and all other letterpress were eventually
omitted; the number of parts was extended to 87, or 435 plates, and the
number of volumes to 4, a necessity imposed by the discovery of many
new birds, even after the omission of the figures of the eggs, which
Audubon had reserved for the close, and the undue crowding of many
of his final plates. The "Prospectus" issued with the first volume of
the text in 1831 contained a list of the first 100 plates, together with
extracts of reviews by Cuvier and Swainson, and a list of subscribers
to the number of 180. For further details, see Bibliography, No. 1, and
Appendix III, No. 2.

TO EUROPE AND SUCCESS 375

invited to contribute, a single volume of plates and text
having then been published.22

At Newcastle, where Audubon spent a week, he
saw much of its grand old man, Thomas Bewick, "the
first wood cutter in the world," and conceived a deep
regard for him, which he afterwards expressed in one
of his "Episodes." As they parted, this great son of
nature held him closely by the hand, and for the third
time repeated, "God preserve you!" "I looked at him
in such a manner," said Audubon, "that I am sure he
understood I could not speak."

22 Illustrations of British Ornithology, by Prideaux John Selby. The
British Museum copy of this work is in two large folio volumes (measur-
ing about 25 y2 by 20y2 inches), and was issued originally in numbers
which appeared at irregular intervals. Vol. I, plates i-iv (of bills, heads,
and feet), i-c (of land birds); most of the plates are by Selby, and many
were etched by him and autographed, 1819-1821 ; plates xiv, xvi, and xx are
by Captain R. Mitford, whose home, "Mitford Castle," near Morpeth,
Northumberland, was visited by Audubon in April, 1827; published at
Edinburgh by Archibald Constable & Co., and by Hurst, Robinson &
Co., London, 1825 (?)-1827. Volume II, plates i-ciii; printed for the
Proprietor & published by W. H. Lizars, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown,
Green & Longman, London; and W. Curry, Junr. & Co., Dublin,
MDCCCXXXIV. Quaritch, in offering a copy in 1887, at £55, stated
that there were 383 figures, in 221 colored plates, and that the pub-
lished price was £105. Newton (Dictionary of Birds, p. 27) says that
the first series of these "Illustrations" was published in cooperation with
Sir William Jardine, in 3 volumes of 150 plates, in 1827-1835, after which
a second series was started by them, and completed in a single volume
of 53 plates, issued in 1843. This was the "job book" mentioned earlier
in this chapter (see p. 358), but neither Jardine's nor Jameson's name is
mentioned in the volumes which I have examined.

In a letter to Audubon, dated "Sept. I3h 1830 Twizel [1?] House," and
postmarked "Belford," Selby said: "I expect to bring my own work to a
conclusion during the course of this winter having only the plates of another
Number to finish. I am happy to add that the Work is doing well & is
more than paying itself. The second Vol: of letter press will appear with
the last No."

Two volumes of text were published in 1825 and 1833 respectively;
the first, after readjustment to fit the "quinarian doctrine," to which
Selby was a temporary convert (see Vol. II, p. 94), was issued in a second
edition at London, in 1841; the second volume bore the imprint of Lizars,
who soon after began to work for Audubon.

Selby's plates were for the most part rather crudely drawn, etched
and colored, and could be commended only as the work of amateurs
who strove for accuracy.

376 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

As he proceeded southward, his subscription list
augmented apace, Manchester alone giving him eighteen
new names, and he began to feel more sanguine of suc-
cess, if, he added, "I continue to be honest, industrious,
and consistent."

CHAPTER XXIII

AUDUBON IN LONDON

Impressions of the metropolis — A trunk full of letters — Friendship of
Children — Sir Thomas Lawrence — Lizars stops work — A family of
artists — Robert Havell, Junior — The Birds of America fly to London —
The Zoological Gallery — Crisis in the naturalist's affairs — Royal
patronage — Interview with Gallatin — Interesting the Queen — Desertion
of patrons — Painting to independence — Personal habits and tastes —
Enters the Linnsean Society — The White-headed Eagle — Visit to the
great universities — Declines to write for magazines — Audubon-Swain-
son correspondence — "Highfield Hall" near Tyttenhanger — In Paris
with Swainson — Glimpses of Cuvier — His report on The Birds of
America — Patronage of the French Government and the Duke of
Orleans — Bonaparte the naturalist.

Audubon reached London on May 21, 1827, and
put up at the "Bull and Mouth" tavern, but soon moved
into more permanent lodgings at number 55 Great
Russell Street, near the British Museum. Though for
a long time eager to see the capital, no sooner had he
reached it than he was anxious to be away and more
homesick than ever for his family and his beloved
America. London then seemed to him "like the mouth
of an immense monster, guarded by millions of sharp-
edged teeth," from which he could escape only by
miracle.

He had brought with him a formidable array of
letters addressed to the elite of the capital,1 and he bore

1 Among the sixty or more persons to whom Audubon carried written
credentials at this time were the following: the Duke of Northumberland,
Robert Peel, Sir Humphry Davy, Sir J. D. Aukland, Albert Gallatin,
the American Minister, Sir Thomas Lawrence, David Wilkie, Dr. Buck-
land, Dr. Holland, Dr. Roget, Dr. Wollaston, William Swainson, Sir
William Herschel, and his son, afterwards Sir John Herschel, John George
Children, R. W. Hay, N. A. Vigors, Captain Cook, John Murray and
Robert Bakewell (see Vol. II, p. 134).

377

378 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

besides nearly a trunkful for the Continent, as well as
general letters from Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and
others in America for our consular and diplomatic rep-
resentatives in Europe. His epistolary basis for the
acquisition of useful acquaintances could hardly have
been better, and further testimonials were gathered at
every stage of his progress to the city of his hopes, but
Audubon's best letter of credit, which could be read by
all the world, was an open, winning countenance. After
he had wandered over London for the greater part of
three days without finding a single individual at home,
he was tempted to consign his valuable documents to
the post, an error which he did not repeat, as it deprived
him of the acquaintance of fully one-half of the people
to whom they were addressed. One of these London
letters which follows, written by Captain Basil Hall to
John Murray, the noted publisher and founder of the
Quarterly Review, is particularly interesting in show-
ing that Audubon was far from pleased with the prog-
ress of his work in Edinburgh, and that he was then
contemplating a change which was later effected.

Basil Hall to John Murray

Edinb 23rd Feby. 1827
My Dear Sir

This will be delivered to you by my friend Mr John Audu-
bon, an American Gentleman who has been residing here this
winter, & I beg in the most particular manner to introduce him
to your acquaintance and to ask for him the advantage of your
good offices.

Mr Audubon has spent [a] great part of his life in making
a collection of drawings of the Birds of North America, & in
studying their Habits, with the intention of publishing a Com-
plete Ornithology of America. For such a work his materials,
both in the shape of drawings and of written notes, are immense

AUDUBON IN LONDON 379

and he is now going to London in order to set this gigantic work
in motion.

Mr Audubon, however, is not very well versed in the details
of such matters, & therefore I beg of you to have the goodness
to aid him with your advice on the occasion — to introduce en-
gravers printers & so forth to him, and generally speaking to
put him in the way of bringing out his work in an advantageous
manner to himself.

1 trust all this will give you no more trouble than you will
be willing to take at my earnest solicitation.

I remain Ever, My Dear Sir,
Most Sincerely Yrs

Basil Hall.
John Murray Esqr

Audubon carried also a long letter from "Mr.
Hay," 2 dated at "16 Athol Crescent, Edinburgh, 15
March, 1827," and addressed to the care of his brother,
Robert William Hay, of Downing Street, West, in
which this curious statement occurs: "Mr. A. is son of
the late French Admiral Audubon, but has himself lived
from the cradle in the United States, having been born
in one of the French colonies."

The document which was to prove of greatest service
to him, however, was addressed to John George Chil-
dren,3 then in charge of the Department of Zoology in

2 Probably the same that is referred to in his journals as "Mr. Hays,
the antiquarian."

3 J. G. Children (1777-1852) was early interested in chemistry, and
at Tunbridge built a good laboratory, in which Humphry Davy con-
ducted many of his early experiments, and while there was seriously in-
jured in October, 1812. In 1824 Children discovered a method of extract-
ing silver without the use of mercury. When Mr. Children, Senior, be-
came insolvent through the failure of his bank, his son obtained a position
at the British Museum; in 1816 he was librarian in the Department of
Antiquities, but in 1823 he was transferred to a post in zoology which
was eagerly sought by William Swainson; he was secretary of the Royal
Society in 1826-27, and again in 1835-37. He resigned his position at the
Museum in 1840, when Swainson was again an unsuccessful candidate, and

380 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the British Museum and secretary of the Royal Society.
Children assumed the management of Audubon's work
when he returned to America in 1829 and again in
1831; to him and Lord Stanley, in 1830, the naturalist
probably owed his nomination to membership in the
Royal Society.

Soon after reaching London Audubon paid his re-
spects to Sir Thomas Lawrence, for whom he had two
letters, and made an appointment for showing his work
to this famous artist. He was also gratified to receive
the subscription of Lord Stanley and of Charles Lucien
Bonaparte, who was then in London.

Audubon had not been in London a month before
word was received from Lizars that all his colorers had
struck work and that everything was at a stand. Ac-
cordingly, he began to search London for skilled work-
men, and on June 18 wrote: "I went five times to see
Mr. Ha veil, the colorer, but he was out of town. I am
full of anxiety and greatly depressed. Oh! how sick
I am of London!" Three days later another discour-
aging letter came from Lizars, who shortly after threw
up his contract and left his patron in a sad predica-
ment— with an enormously expensive work, still-born,
on his hands, without adequate funds, and, in short,
with all his cherished plans suspended in mid-air. Audu-
bon no doubt realized that if his grand undertaking
were to succeed at all, it must experience a new birth
in London, where an expert engraver of the requisite
enterprise and zeal must be found without delay. He
closed his journal on the second day of July with the

was succeeded by J. E. Gray (see Vol. I, p. 353). Children was not a pro-
ductive zoologist, but has been described as a lovable soul, who was never
soured by illness or other misfortunes, and who was as zealous in his friend-
ships as in science. See "A. A." (Anna Atkins), Memoir of J. G. Children,
Esq. (Bibl No. 175).

JOHH JAMIS AUDUBOT,

Fettow eft/be Bey at Societies ofZondon & Bdin6urg-/j and of tie
Zi?tneean^Sc Zccfrcricai Societies efBcndc//
Jfcmforcfthe Nalum/ Zfiston Society of Ben's. cfl//c Ij ream of'jVeu -York,
"the BfoUosopJbecal Society and* tie. Academy of Natural Sciences ofBbiladetfikia.
of t6c Natural Jfistory Society of Boston cf Charleston.
&c &c &c

CXtfifefo *•£/
Ribhshed hy the Author.

Vol. II.

1831. 34.

TITLE PAGE OF THE ORIGINAL EDITION OF "THE BIRDS OF AMERICA," VOLUME

iij 1831-1834.

381

382 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

remark that he was too dull and mournful to write a
line, and it was not opened again for nearly three months.
This gap in Audubon's record can now be filled in
reference to some important particulars, for in the in-
terval he made his greatest discovery in England, in
Robert Havell, Junior, then a young and unknown
artist of thirty-four, who through eleven years of the
closest association with his new patron was to become
one of the greatest engravers in aquatint the world has
ever seen. Until recently the intimate story of Audu-
bon's relation to the Havells has been much obscured.4
The reference in the journal record of June 19, just
given, was undoubtedly to Robert Havell, Senior, who
for many years was associated with his father, Daniel
Havell, the first of five generations of artists of that
name, in the engraving and publishing business, but
who at this time was established independently at 79
Newman Street, London; he also conducted a shop
called the "Zoological Gallery," at which were sold en-
gravings, books, artists' materials, naturalists' supplies,
and specimens of natural history of every sort. His
three sons, Robert, George, and Henry Augustus, all
became artists, but the eldest, who bore his father's
name, was educated for a learned profession. Contrary
to his father's injunctions and advice, Robert, who was
bent on becoming an artist, abruptly left his home in
1825, determined to shift for himself. He began with
an extensive sketching tour on the River Wye, in Mon-
mouthshire, and produced numerous paintings which,

4 In the account which follows, as well as in numerous instances in
Chapter XXXII, I am most indebted to George Alfred Williams, who
in "Robert Havell, Junior, Engraver of Audubon's The Birds of America,"
(Bibl. No. 232) (Print-Collectors Quarterly, vol. vi, no. 3, pp. 225-259,
Boston, 1916), has given the only satisfactory account of the Havell family
and the best analysis of the work of the great engraver.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 383

as his biographer remarks, display all the charm found
in the work of his distinguished cousin, William Havell.
These won immediate recognition in London, where he
received commissions from various publishers, includ-
ing the house of Messrs. Colnaghi & Company.

Robert Havell, Senior, then in his fifty-eighth year,
though deeply interested in Audubon's adventurous
plans, felt himself too old to embark on so extended a
work, which it was then believed would require from
fourteen to sixteen years for completion; he volun-
teered, however, to do his best to find a substitute.
With this in view, he applied to Mr. Colnaghi, the pub-
lisher, and was immediately shown the unsigned proof
of a beautiful landscape, exquisitely drawn and en-
graved by one of the youthful retainers of his estab-
lishment. The elder Havell, after scrutinizing it care-
fully, exclaimed, "That's just the man for me!"
"Then," replied the publisher, "send for your own son!"
Through this singular coincidence, father and son be-
came reconciled and a partnership between them was
soon announced.

As a test of young Havell's skill, to follow the
story of his biographer, Audubon gave him his drawing
of the Prothonotary Warbler, which had already been
engraved and issued by Lizars as Plate iii of The Birds
of America earlier in that year. Havell finished the
engraving in two weeks, when a proof was struck and
the naturalist summoned. Audubon examined the
. print with the utmost keenness and deliberation ; then
he seized the sheet, and holding it up, danced about
the room, calling out in his French accent: "Ze jig is
up, ze jig is up!" The Havells, who at first thought
this might signify disapproval, were quickly disabused
when Audubon approached young Robert and, throw-

384 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ing his arms about his neck, assured him that his long-
sought engraver had been found at last. Having given
this story, I wish it were possible to confirm it, but a
close examination of this plate proves either that the
story is a fiction, or that some other drawing was used
as a test of Havell's skill.5

The part which this interesting family played in
Audubon's success will be unfolded later.0 Suffice it
now to say that Messrs. Robert Havell & Son, in Lon-
don, undertook afresh the production of The Birds of
America in the summer of 1827. The partnership was
divided or dissolved in 1828, when Robert, junior, who
from the first did all of the engraving, took entire
charge of that part of the business, and moved his en-
graving establishment around the corner to 77 Oxford
Street ; there it remained until broken up in 1838. Rob-
ert Havell, Senior, continued in charge of the printing
and coloring until 1830, when he seems to have per-
manently retired, two years before his death in 1832,
events which, as will be seen, are indirectly registered
in the legends of some of Audubon's plates.7

5 Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed, who recently sent me two of the original
plates of the Prothonotary Warbler, one bearing the legend "Engraved by
W. H. Lizars Edinr," and the other, "Engraved, Printed & Coloured, by
R. Havell Junr," called attention to the identity of the two engravings.
That these two impressions are absolutely identical in aquatint and line is
proved by applying a magnifying glass to any part of their surfaces, and
by counting and comparing the lines or dots within any selected area what-
soever; in short, they differ only in their legends, and in the coloring which
was applied by different hands. That such methods should have been
adopted for excluding Lizars' name is certainly surprising. In the first or
Edinburgh impression of Lizars' original plate, the artist's legend reads: .
"Drawn by J. J. Audubon M. W. S.," and names of bird and plant appear
at the bottom of the plate in three lines: "PROTHONOTARY WARBLER.
Dacnis prntonotarius. Plant Vulgo Cane Vine." In the London edition the
corresponding designations are: "Drawn from nature by J. J. Audubon
F, R, S. F, L, S.," and PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. Sylvia Protono-
tarius. Lath, Male. 1. Female, 2. Cane Vine.," in four lines.

6 See Chapter XXXII.

7 See ibid.

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AUDUBON IN LONDON 385

Under the younger Havell's guiding hand, Audu-
bon found that his illustrations could be produced in
better style, more expeditiously, and at far less cost
than in Edinburgh. When Lizars was later shown the
third number which the Havells had produced, he called
his assistants and observed how completely the London
workmen had beaten them; he even offered to resume
work on the engraving and at Havell's price, but Audu-
bon was averse to further experimenting. "If he can
fall," said he, "twenty-seven pounds in the engraving
of each number, and do them in a superior style to his
previous work, how enormous must his profits have
been ; a good lesson to me in the time to come, though I
must remember Havell is more reasonable owing to
what has passed between us in our business arrange-
ments, and the fact that he owes so much to me."

This characteristic note was sent from Liverpool,
December 6, 1827, to his agent, Daniel Lizars, father
to W. H. Lizars, at Edinburgh:

I will not ask if you have any new name for me, as I might
be disappointed were I to expect an affirmative answer.

If you see Sir Wm. Jardine tell him that Charles Bonaparte
lias left the U. S. for ever, and has gone to reside in Florence,
Italy.

I have wrote to Mr. Havell to send you a No. 5, which I
wish you to send to Professor Wilson, or indeed a whole set, to
enable him to write the notice he has promised for me the 1st.
of next month.

Audubon sent another letter to this agent, from
Lonclon, January 21, 1828, when he was still waiting
for an answer to his last: "When I write to any one I
expect an answer, but when I write to a man I esteem,
and to whom I entrust a portion of my business, I feel

ENGRAVINGS.

In submitting this List of Publications, R. HaVELL begs to slate, he has on Sale
a very extensive and well selected Assortment of Encravincs and Works of
Art, arranged in Portfolios, with the Prices affixed, comprising subjects after
"Wilkie, Turner, Martin, Lawrance, Newtou, Burnett, and others. Lithographs,
Studies of Animals, Figures and Heads, &c. &c.

Birds of America, by J. J. Audubon, vol.
1 and 2.

Ornithological Biography, by J. J. Audu-
bon, vol. 1 and 2.

Antiquities of Mexico, by Lord Visconnt
Kingsborougb.

Hexandrian Plants, bv Mrs. E. Bury.

African Animals and Scenery, by Daniels.

Birds of Paradise, by F. Le Vaillaint.

Floral Illustrations of the Seasons, by Mrs.
E. Roscoe.

Views in the Ionian Islands, by J.

Cartwright. .
Court of Persia.
Albanian and Greek Costumes.
Aeronautical View of London.
Ditto ditto of Paris.

Panoramic View of King George's

Sound.
Panoramic View.of Corfu.
Foreign Costumes.
All Works on Natural History.

R. H. begs to observe that all Works entrusted to his care for Publication are
Engraved, Printed and Coloured , onder bis entire inspection, on his Establishment ,
by which means they are not made public on til ready for delivery.

Superfine SSJatcv Colour*,

In Cakes or Boxes.

R. Havell begs to recommend his Superfine Water Colours, as being
prepared with the greatest care, and solicits a Trial.

£. s. d.

In Mahogany Boxes, 18 cakes, lock, palettes, marble slab, drawer, &e. 1 JO 0

Ditto ditto, 12 cakes 110

Ditto ditto, 12 cakes, without drawer 0 18 0

Ditto ditto, 12 cakes, lock and drawer 0 15 0

Ditto ditto, 12 cakes, without ditto 0 13 0

Dittc ditto, 18 cakes, sliding lop 0 15 0

Ditto ditto, 12 cakes, ditto 0 10 6

Ditto ditto, 6 cakes, ditto ....» , 0 C 0

Cumberland Black Lead Drawing Pencils.

CAMEL HAIR AND SABLE BRUSHES.

Whatman's Superfine smooth rolled Drawing Paper, sold in sheets, quires or

reams.

BRISTOL BOARDS OF ALL COLOURS AND THICKNESS.

Pennine 3!nDfan 31nk-

English and French Crayon Paper of all Colours. Ditto ditto Chalks.

REVERSE OF PANELS OF ROBERT HAVELL's ADVERTISING FOLDER REPRODUCED ON

FACING INSERT

386

Black Lead ft mils. H |t ni the Highest Feefect

• 3S<Tvi,v

Bnstol&Londori. Board*

'fr k^MWl, 77'' - *Sen*

5P

.^3row_JbCo40(

Li>:

;

^ eveiw, s//:jc?sYt//r/M \

SlEIIEilLS.

Book BiruHng.

m^

T'lft* e/ Lt«trfpri

K()BT HAV£LL 77 OXFOBLD STRiET

Importer ot" and Dealer in

BRITISH i FOKHI&X, BIBDS.D.SEC TS*c
^An. Extensive afsvrtmad of Bints
Ova] i Square ShaAes

OUTSIDE ENGRAVED PANELS OF AN ADVERTISING FOLDER ISSUED BY ROBERT IIAVELL,

ABOUT 1834; THE PRINTING ON THE REVERSE IS REPRODUCED

ON THE FACING PAGE.

From the only copy known to exist, in possession of Mr. Ruthven Deane.

is a strip of heavy paper, 18 by 3% inches in size, printed on both

sides, and folded twice, tlie folded size being 4*/2 by 3%

inches. One side bears the four panels, engraved

by Robert Havell, reproduced on this and

the following page; and the reverse,

the printed matter reproduced

on pages 386 and 387.

It

1XSTDE ENGRAVED PAXEI.S OF THE ADVERTISING FOLDER ISSUED BY ROBERT HAVEI.I.,

ABOUT 1834.

The lower panel shows the interior of the "Zoological Gallery," 77 Oxford

Street. Audubon's plate of the Cock Turkey is being

examined at one of the tables.

R. Havell begs to inform Zoological Collectors that, having an extensive
correspondence, he is enabled to supply Natural Productions from all parts of
the Globe.

Birds and Beasts Stuffed and Preserved

In the highest perfection, at his Establishment, and tli« greatest care taken to
place the specimens in their natural attitudes and pursnits.

A GOOD ASSORTMENT OF INSECTS, BOTH BRITISH AND FOREICN.
A great variety of Coloured and Black Eyes.

TAXIDURMIE, ortbe Art of Collecting & PreparingObjects of Natural Historj.

Maple, Gold and Black Cases,

FITTED-UP 3N A SUPERIOR STYLE, WITH COLOURED SKY.
GLASS SHADES, OVAL, ROUND AND SQUARE, OF ALL SIZJES.

The present Collection consists of the most rare Land and Water Bird* from

North America, &c.

PICTURES AND PRINTS

Framed and Glazed, in Gold, Maple, and all kinds of Ornamental and Fancy
Woods, Straining, Varnishing, &c.

DRAWINGS AND PRINTS LENT OUT TO COPY

ON THE FOLLOWING TERMS:

£. S. d.

Yearly Subscription 3 3 0

Half-yearly ditto 1 11 6

Quarterly ditto 0 16 0

Weeklyditto , 0 2 6

A GREAT VARIETY OF RICE DRAWINGS, AND RICE PAPER OF ALL SIZES.

Plain and Ornamental Albums.

Ditto ditto Scrap Books.

Ditto ditto Blotting Cases.

Ditto ditto ditto, with lock and key.

MINIATURE FRAMES AND GLASSES.

Sketch Books of all sizes.

ORDERS FOR Exportation executed with promptitude, and on the lowest
terms, at 77, Oxford Street.

REVERSE OF PANELS OF ROBERT HAVELl/s ADVERTISING FOLDER REPRODUCED ON

FACING INSERT

387

388 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

miserable until I hear from him. ... I am extremely
anxious to close my business for 1827, and cannot do so
without receiving your a/c, and the money due by my
subscribers."

The summer of 1827 was probably Audubon's most
critical period in England. His work was then in the
air and ruin of all his hopes seemed inevitable, but with
palette and brush he again extricated himself from
financial difficulties. At this time, he said, "I painted
all day, and sold my work during the dusky hours of
the evening as I walked through the Strand and other
streets where the Jews reigned; popping in and out of
Jew-shops or any others, and never refusing the offer
made me for the pictures I carried fresh from the
easel." He sold seven copies of the "Entrapped Otter"
in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, and from seven
to ten copies of some of his other favorite subjects; once
when he inadvertently called at a shop where he had
just disposed of a picture, the dealer promptly bought
the duplicate and at the same price that he had paid
for the first.

In the autumn of this year, when it was found that
his agents were neglecting their business, Audubon
determined to make a sortie to collect his dues and
further augment his subscription list. He left London
on September 16, and visited in succession Manchester,
Leeds, York, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Alnwick Castle and
Belford, to see the Selbys, finally reaching Edinburgh
on the 22nd of October.

Audubon had set his mark at obtaining 200 sub-
scribers by May, 1828, but he fell far short of realizing
it. On August 9 he wrote: "This day seventy sets
have been distributed ; yet the number of my subscribers
has not increased; on the contrary, I have lost some."

AUDUBON IN LONDON 389

At York he found that a number of his Birds, which had
been forwarded from Edinburgh before he had taken
his departure, "was miserably poor, scarcely colored
at all"; and a copy of his first number which was later
examined at the Radcliffe Library in Oxford was so
unsatisfactory that he rolled it up and took it away, with
the reflection that Lizars, whom he had paid "so amply
and so punctually," could have made him a better re-
turn. The colorists gave no end of trouble, but he
never hesitated to reject their work when it did not
meet his requirements, and the defective plates were
invariably sent back to Havell's shop to be washed, hot-
pressed, and done over again. To such watchful care
must be ascribed, in large measure, the high degree of
perfection which his big work eventually attained.
When it is remembered that upwards of one hundred
thousand of his large plates had to be colored labori-
ously by hand, and that at one time fifty persons were
engaged at the Havell establishment, we can understand
the difficulties involved in maintaining a uniform stand-
ard of excellence in a work that was issued piecemeal and
spread over a long period of time.

In August, 1827, Audubon wrote to Mrs. Thomas
Sully of Philadelphia to announce the removal of his
business to London. By this change he expected to
save "upwards of an hundred pounds per annum, a
large sum," as he remarked, "for a man like me." His
third number had then been issued, and he expressed
the hope that all would go smoothly after "this first year
of hard trials and times," and that he would be able to
send for his wife and one of his sons in the coming
autumn or winter. He was then painting "a flock of
Wild Turkeys for the king, who had honored him with
his particular patronage and protection." When writ-

390 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ing to his young son, John W. Audubon, on the 10th
of the same month, he charged him to devote two hours
daily to the preparation of bird skins, and to send him
not only the skins but live birds and mussel shells, for
which he would be duly paid. Said the father:

I would give you 500 dollars per annum, were you able
to make for me such drawings as I will want. I wish you would
draw one bird only, on a twig, and send it [to me] to look at,
as soon as you can after receiving this letter. ... I should
like to have a large box filled with branches of the trees, cov-
ered with mosses &c, such as Mama knows I want; now recol-
lect, all sorts of Birds, males and females, ugly or handsome.

Audubon had come to London with the idea of hav-
ing his work published under the patronage of King
George IV; in order to gain a personal interview with
the Sovereign he had brought a letter to Robert Peel,
who was then the Home Secretary, but a change in
the Cabinet had upset his plans and the letter was re-
turned. He then applied to the American Ambassador,
Mr. Albert Gallatin, who upon their first meeting ad-
dressed him in French and showed "the ease and charm
of manner of a perfect gentleman" ; but when the ques-
tion of an audience with the King was broached, Gal-
latin laughed at the idea as preposterous. "The king,"
he declared, "sees nobody; he has the gout, is peevish,
and spends his time playing whist at a shilling a rubber.
I had to wait six weeks before I was presented to him
in my position of ambassador, and then I merely saw
him six or seven minutes." When Audubon then sug-
gested that the Duke of Northumberland might interest
himself in his behalf, Gallatin, who disliked the English
heartily, replied: "I have called hundreds of times on
like men in England, and have been assured that his

UNDER THE SPECIAL PATRONAGE

OP

Hftr iHait ffrrtltcnt iHitjrtty,

THE

BIRDS OF AMERICA,

KNURLED FBOM

DRAWINGS

MADE IN

THE UNITED STATES AND THEIR TERRITORIES.

BY JOHN JAMES AUDUBON,

P. R. Sri. L & K.
JEllOW Of TH8 LIHEEAH AHO 0MIMIU1 MTIETIM «T I.OSDO»| MEMBER OP T»8

LtcEcm op mbv vobk, me nati hai Hiftfimv *<»■ ibtt or faais, the wer««

BIAH MATI-AAl BMTOOY AOriBTV or IWI«I-M«| IIOHOQABr »1«>1« Of THE
KOTTItM ACADEMt OF EAISTIEO, 111 irtr«t AMD ABTIIITf CTtRE, ftf.

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR ,

AND TO BE SEEN AT

im K HAVELL'S JUN. THE ENGRAVER,

77- OXFORD STREET, LONDON.

MDCCCXXXf.

TITLE PAGE OF AUDUBON'S PROSPECTUS OF "THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" FOR 1831.

391

392 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

grace, or lordship, or [her] ladyship was not at home,
until I have grown wiser, and stay at home myself, and
merely attend to my political business, and God knows
when I will have done with that."

As the American Ambassador had predicted, King
George evinced no ardent desire to meet the American
woodsman, though he consented to take the work under
his patronage and to become a subscriber on the usual
terms; this plan, however, fell through, for the King,
who was reported to have taken his copy, failed to pay
for it. With Queen Adelaide, on the other hand, the
naturalist was more successful, and in his "Prospectus"
of 1831 she was announced as his special patron, with
her name heading his list. Negotiations to interest the
Queen were going on when the following note was sent
to Audubon by Sir J. W. Waller, who occupied some
position in the king's household and was spoken of as
"oculist to his majesty":

Sir J. W. Waller to Audubon

Saturday 9 o clock [1830].

I have scarce an Instant as I am going to Town to break-
fast with the Dk. of Gloucester, but yr. Letter is urgent &
therefore I can only desire Mr. A. to send his Number imme-
diately to the Stable Yard, directed to her Majesty, & the first
moment I can see her, I will speak on the subject, but at this
Moment I will not promise to mention it to the King for reasons
I cannot put on paper.

Yrs. ever,

J. W. Waller

At Edinburgh Audubon was alarmed to find that
subscribers were rapidly deserting him, six having can-
celled their names without the formality of giving rea-

AUDUBON IN LONDON 393

sons. He hoped to supply their places at Glasgow, then
a rich city of one hundred and fifty thousand people,
but after a visit there of four days in November, 1827,
he was obliged to return to Edinburgh with but one
new name on his list.

On October 22 he expressed the resolve for the com-
ing year "to positively keep a cash account" with him-
self and others, "a thing" he had "never yet done." The
wisdom of that decision was apparent upon settling his
accounts for 1827 with both Lizars and Havell, as ap-
pears from this note, written in his journal on January
17, 1828: "It is difficult work for a man like me to see
that he is neither cheating nor cheated. All is paid for
1827, and I am well ahead in funds. Had I made such
regular settlements all my life I should never have been
as poor a man as I have been ; but on the other hand I
should never have published the "Birds of America."
Again, for February 7 we find this record: "Havell
brought me the sets he owed me for 1827, and I paid
him in full. Either through him or Mr. Lizars I have
met with a loss of nearly £100, for I am charged with
fifty numbers more than can be accounted for by my
agents or myself. This seems strange always to me,
that people cannot be honest, but I must bring myself
to believe many are not, from my own experiences."

Shortly after reaching London, as we have seen,
Audubon had made the acquaintance of Sir Thomas
Lawrence, then at the head of the Royal Academy and
favorite painter of the Court and fashionable society.
The friendship of this influential artist at a critical mo-
ment proved most fortunate, for Sir Thomas called
repeatedly at his lodgings, and at each visit brought
patrons who went away with some of his pictures but
not without leaving a handsome toll of sovereigns in

394 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

his lap; the "Entrapped Otter" again did duty by
bringing him twenty-five pounds, while others returned
from seven to thirty-five pounds. At a later time the
artist visited the "Zoological Gallery," as the Havell
establishment in Newman Street was then known, and
saw Audubon's large paintings called "The Eagle and
the Lamb," and "English Pheasants Surprised by a
Spanish Dog" or "Sauve qui pent/' Audubon, who
on this occasion missed seeing his distinguished visitor,
had written in his journal three days before (December
23, 1828) that the paintings were what he called "fin-
ished," but that, as usual, he could not bear to look at
either. Sir Thomas praised the "Eagle," admired an
"Otter," which was later exhibited in London, but gave
no opinion on the "Pheasants." Afterwards, however,
when Audubon proposed to present this canvas to King
George, the artist assured him that this picture was
worth 300 guineas and that it was too good to be given
away; if offered to the King, no doubt, said he, "it
would be accepted and placed in his collections, but you
would receive no benefit from the gift." According to
a later record, this canvas was sold to Mr. John Hep-
penstall of Sheffield; whether it was ever delivered, or
not, I do not know, but either the original or a copy,
here reproduced, now forms the central figure in the
large Audubon collection in the American Museum of
Natural History in New York, and is an excellent illus-
tration of the elaborate and ambitious character of
Audubon's larger compositions. These fortunate wind-
falls came none too soon, for to follow the journal:

Mr. Havell had already called to say that on Saturday I
must pay him sixty pounds. I was then not only not worth a
penny, but had actually borrowed five pounds a few days be-
fore to purchase materials for my pictures. But these pic-

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AUDUBON IN LONDON 395

tures which Sir Thomas sold for me enabled me to pay my
borrowed money, and to appear full-handed when Mr. Havell
called. Thus I passed the Rubicon.

This was before the reform of the penal laws in Eng-
land, when it seems to have been hard for a man to
escape hanging, not to speak of being sent to prison
for debt, the chief terror of life in certain circles.
There were 223 capital offenses, and in 1829 in the
city of London alone 7,114 persons were sent to the
debtors' prison.8

Without the sale of his pictures in the summer of
1827, Audubon felt that he must certainly have become
a bankrupt, yet he was periodically displeased with the
results of his efforts in oil colors, and resolved to "spoil
no more canvas" but to draw "in my usual old untaught
way, which is what God meant me to do" ; "I can draw,"
he continues, "but I shall never paint well." In the
fall of 1828, however, he was again working in oils,
and produced four large pieces, one of which was called
"The Eagle and the Lamb," and two others which were
doubtless variations of his "Pheasant" and "Otter" pic-
tures. "It is charity," said the artist, "to speak the
truth to a man who knows the poverty of his talents,
and wishes to improve; it is villainous to mislead him,
by praising him to his face, and laughing at his work
as they go down the stairs of his house." Sir Thomas
Lawrence had praised some of these pictures and had
promised to select one for exhibition at Somerset House.
As regards "The Eagle and the Lamb," which Audu-
bon hoped would go to Windsor Castle, William
Swainson would give no opinion; the same canvas, of

8 See Sir Walter Besant, London in the Nineteenth Century (London,
1909).

396 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

else a replica, was in possession of the Audubon family
in 1898.9

On December 14, 1827, Audubon wrote that, acting
upon the advice of Mr. Maury, the American consul
at London, he had presented a copy of his Birds to
John Quincy Adams, the President of the United
States, and another, through Henry Clay, to the Ameri-
can Congress; in order that the latter should be as
perfect as possible, Havell was asked to do the color-
ing himself, but these proposed gifts do not appear to
have been executed.10

New Year's, 1828, found the naturalist in Man-
chester, where but a few days before he had received
the fifth and last number of his plates for 1827 and
expressed himself well pleased with it. While return-
ing to London by coach, he consented to take a hand
at cards to accommodate his fellow passengers, but
declined to play for money; "I never play," he con-
fessed, "unless obliged to by circumstances; I feel no
pleasure in the game, and long for other occupation."
"I missed my snuff," he added, and whenever his hands
went into his pockets in search of the box, he "discov-
ered the strength of habit thus acting without thought";
but he remembered a resolution he had formed to give
up the habit and stuck to it for a time at least ; doubt-
less, like his later friend, John Bachman, he reformed
more than once, for in a letter to Victor Audubon, of
November 5, 1846, Bachman added this postscript:
"To Audubon : The snuff— the snuff, it is here ! I have
just taken a pinch, and the ladies have blown you up-
sky-high, for teaching me such a bad practice; I say,

•See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86),
vol. i, p. 342, where the "Eagle and the Lamb" is reproduced.
10 See Vol. I, p. 436.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 397

however, that you beat me all to pieces in that art."
The first winter in London dragged heavily for the
naturalist, who exclaimed in January, 1828: "How
long am I to be confined in this immense jail"; when
Daniel Lizars reported from Edinburgh the loss of four
of his subscribers, he writes, "I am dull as a beetle.
Why do I dislike London? Is it because the constant
evidence of the contrast between the rich and the poor
is a constant torment to me, or is it because of its size
and crowd? I know not, but I long for sights and
sounds of a different nature," such, we might add, as
the flocks of wild duck which were occasionally seen
from Regent's Park as they passed over the city and
made him more homesick than ever. Audubon
hated the city quite as cordially as Charles Lamb ever
affected to detest the country, and when leaving it?
afoot or by stage, it seemed as if he could never be
rid of it. "What a place is London," he would say, but
naively add: "many persons live there solely because
they like it."

On February 4, 1828, Audubon was elected to mem-
bership in the Linnaean Society, and in November he
presented it with a copy of his work, which was then
well under way. This was noticed in a letter to Swain-
son, written on November 7, when no acknowledgment
of the gift had then been received; and he mentioned
also the sale of his picture of "Blue Jays" for ten
guineas. At a meeting of the Linnaean Society not
long after his election, copies of Selby's Illustrations of
British Ornithology and of his own work were placed
side by side for inspection, and "very unfair compari-
sons were drawn between the two"; had Selby, Audu-
bon reflected, been given "the same opportunities that
my curious life has granted me, his work would have

398 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

been far superior to mine"; "I supported him," he
added, "to the best of my power."

Revision of his older drawings demanded much of
Audubon's attention during these years. On February
10, 1828, he began the Whiteheaded Eagle (No. 7,
Plate xxxi) , the original of which had been procured on
the Mississippi, where the bird was represented as din-
ing on a wild goose; now, he said, "I shall make it
breakfast on a catfish, the drawing of which is also with
me, with the marks of the talons of another eagle, which
I disturbed on the banks of the same river, driving him
from his prey." On the 16th of that month he was
engaged with this drawing from seven in the morning
until half after four, stopping only to take the glass of
milk which his landlady would bring to him. This plate
was engraved in the following April, and on May 1,
1828, a first proof was sent to the Marquis of Lands-
downe, president of the Zoological Society, as a mark
of appreciation by its author, who had become a member
of that body in the preceding winter.

A striking characteristic of Audubon's work was its
diversity, produced not only by attractive embellish-
ments of many kinds, but by the moving force and
action with which he ever sought to vitalize his sub-
jects. It is therefore not surprising that he was nettled
by an incident like this :

February 28. To-day I called by appointment on the Earl
of Kinnoul, a small man, with a face like the caricature of an
owl; he said he had sent for me to tell me all my birds mere
alike, and he considered my work a swindle. He may really
think this; his knowledge is probably small; but it is not the
custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's house. I
heard his words, bowed, and without speaking, left the rudest
man I have met in this land.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 399

Audubon had not yet visited the great university
towns of England, the support of which he knew would
be a valuable asset, and on March 3, 1828, he set out
by stage for Cambridge. His driver, he remarked,
"held confidances with every grog-shop between Lon-
don and Cambridge, and his purple face gave powerful
evidences that malt liquor [was] more enticing to him
than water." His reception at Cambridge was hearty;
he was entertained by Professors Sedgwick, Whewell,
and Henslow, dined repeatedly "in Hall" with the dons,
and received the subscription of the librarian of the
University. It is interesting to recall that young
Charles Darwin, "the man who walks with Henslow,"
as some of the dons called him, was then an undergrad-
uate at King's College, and that thirty-one years were
to pass before modern biology was born in 1859, the
year of the appearance of the epoch-making Origin of
Species.

By the 15th of March Audubon was again in Lon-
don, and on the 24th he started for Oxford. Dr.
Williams, as he noted in his journal, subscribed for his
Birds in favor of the Radcliffe Library, as did also Dr.
Kidd for the Anatomical School; but, though hospita-
bly treated by all, not one of the twenty-four colleges
of that great University emulated their example, and
the naturalist went away disappointed.

Upon his return to London in early April, Audubon
received a call from John C. Loudon, editor of the
Magazine of Natural History, and was invited to con-
tribute to that journal. "I declined," he said, "for I
will never write anything to call down upon me a second
volley of abuse. I can only write facts, and when I
write these, the Philadelphians call me a liar." He was
then chafing under the criticism which his rattlesnake

400 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

stories had produced.11 On April 6 the persistent Mr.
Loudon called again and offered Audubon eight
guineas for an article, only to be again refused. Still
unwilling to admit defeat, the editor proposed to en-
gage William Swainson to prepare an extended review
of the naturalist's work, and in this he succeeded so well
that Audubon immediately relented and sent him a
paper.12 Swainson offered to write the review for a
copy of the work at its cost price, and Audubon replied
in the following letter: 13

Audubon to William Swainson

London, April 9th 1828.
My dear Sir,

Mr. Loudon called on me yesterday and showed me a letter
from you to him, in which many very flattering expressions re-
specting myself and my works you are so kind as to offer to

"See Chapter XXVIII.

12 The seventh which he had contributed to the scientific press of
Europe, entitled "Notes on the Bird of Washington (Falco Washing-
toniana), or Great Sea Eagle," now believed to have been mistaken by
him for an immature stage of the true "bird of freedom," the White-
headed Eagle. It was dated "London, April, 1828," and was published
in Loudon's Magazine for July of that year. See Bibliography, No. 23.

13 From the originals in possession of the Linnaean Society of London.
Swainson's scientific correspondence was taken with him to New Zealand,
where it remained fifty years, until returned by his daughter, who sent
it to Sir Joseph Hooker; it was finally purchased by a number of Fellows
of the Society, and presented to its historical collections. It consists of
934 letters written by 236 correspondents, from 1806 to 1840. Of the
24 letters written by Audubon, and dated 9 April, 1829, to 11 January,
1838, none has been previously published. Dr. Albert Gunther, who has
given a summary of their contents (Proceedings of the Linncean Society,
112th Session, 1900; Bibliography, No. 204) found them rather disappoint-
ing, since they dealt mainly with personal and domestic matters, and
were written in a style characterized as "fantastic and unnatural."
Through the kindness of my esteemed friend, George E. Bullen, Esq.,
of the Hertfordshire County Museum, St. Albans, and through the
courtesy of the Council of the Linnaean Society and its secretary, Dr.
Daydon Jackson, I am able to reproduce transcripts of the most inter-
esting of these letters, which readers in America will, I believe, find
interesting because of their personal details. I am indebted also for
their good offices to John Hopkinson, F.L.S., and to William Rowan, Esq.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 401

review the latter so as to have your opinion in writting in time
for the first no. of the magazine that will appear next month. —
you also desire that I should send you a sett of the works as far
as publishing which you wish to keep provided I will let you
have it at the price it costs me. I assure you my Dear Sir, that
was I to take you at your word it would be a sore bargain for
you as the a/m would be very nearly double that for which it
is sold to my subscribers. — therefore you will permit me to
alter your offer and to say that if it suits you to pay 35
shillings per number I will be contented ; I would be still more
so was I rich enough to present it to you. —

It is the only set on hand at present except one which I
must have to exhibit. —

The answer respecting the Shrieke [Shrike] has I hope met
with your wishes. —

Ever since I became acquainted with our mutual friend Dr.
Fraill [Traill] I have had a great desire to see and speak to
you & I regret that I never have had an opportunity. My time
is so completely taken up that it is with difficulty that I can
enjoy a day's rest- — Should you come to town pray call on me
when I may have the pleasure of shaking your hand and to as-
sure you verbally that I am truly and sincerely

yours obe st

John J. Audubon
95 Great Russell St.

Bedford Sq.

Thus began an intimate friendship between William
Swainson and John James Audubon which lasted until
1830, and their intercourse did not wholly cease before

From the context of the nine letters which are here reproduced with-
out change, it is evident that Audubon paid little attention to grammar,
syntax, or orthography, but if the reader will compare the letters written
before and after 1830, or before and after his first serious discipline in
English composition (see Chapters XXIII and XXIX), he will find marked
improvement in all these respects.

402 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

&£ejL*f

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LETTER OF WILLIAM SWAINSON TO AUDUBON, MAY, 1828.

From the Deane MSS.

1838. In his use of English at this time Audubon
was not far behind Swainson, whose mother tongue it
was. Swainson, according to Dr. Giinther, was "ex-
tremely careless in orthography and loose in his style
of writing: he persistently misspelt not only technical
terms, but also the names of foreign authors, and even
of some of his familiar friends and correspondents; he

AUDUBON IN LONDON 403

knew no other language but his own, and the applica-
tion of Latin and Greek for the purpose of systematic
nomenclature was a constant source of error."

At this time Swainson was living in semi-retirement
at a farmstead of considerable size, called "Highfield
Hall," 14 near Tyttenhanger Green, a small settlement,
off the highroad, two miles southeast of the historic
town of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire ; though his letters
were always dated from "The Green" at Tyttenhanger,
his associations were with the more considerable village
of London Colney, but a mile to the south, on the road
to Barnet. Audubon had brought a letter of intro-
duction from Dr. Traill, a valiant champion of Swain-
son at Edinburgh, but was unable to go to the country
to deliver it. Swainson, however, attended promptly
to the review, and on April 11, 1828, sent it to Mr.
Loudon, who published it in the May number of his
Magazine.15

Swainson's review was extremely laudatory, and
Audubon reproduced extracts from it in later editions
of his "Prospectus." To quote a characteristic para-
graph, he said that the naturalist's ornithological papers

14 Swainson's house has been kindly identified by my friend, Mr. George
E. Bullen, to whom I am indebted also for an interesting photograph,
taken from an old print. Mrs. Swainson, who died February 12, 1835,
was buried in the parish church, with which she was closely identified,
at London Colney, and a tablet to her memory is still to be seen there.
Swainson probabiy preferred the historic associations of Tyttenhanger, a
name originally applied to the manor and manor house of the Abbot of
St. Albans, a famous abbey property acquired before the Conquest, with
a history extending over six hundred years, but he did not live there.
The oldest resident now on the spot, a man over ninety, told Mr. Bullen
that as a boy he often collected butterflies, moths and other specimens
of natural history which he took to "Highfield Hall," and was always
paid by one of the Swainson children. Since Swainson's time the original
house, which was approached by a long walk, has become almost un-
recognizable, having received an addition to one side; the grass land which
then surrounded it has been converted into beautiful lawns.

15 See Bibliography, No. 95.

404 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

printed in one of the Scotch journals, are as valuable to the
scientific world, as they are delightful to the general reader.
They give us a rich foretaste of what we may hope and expect
from such a man. There is a freshness and an originality
about these essays, which can only be compared to the animated
biographies of Wilson. . . . To represent the passions and the
feelings of birds, might, until now, have been well deemed chi-
merical. Rarely, indeed, do we see their outward forms repre-
sented with any thing like nature. In my estimation, not more
than three painters ever lived who could draw a bird. Of these
the lamented Barrabaud [Barraband], of whom France may
be justly proud, was the chief. He has long passed away; but
his mantle has at length been recovered in the forests of
America.

Audubon spent four days with Swainson and his
family at Tyttenhanger, from May 28 to June 1, 1828,
when they talked birds and made drawings; Audubon
also showed Swainson "how to put up birds in his style,
which delighted him." The friendship between these
men, though very intimate while it lasted, received a
sudden check two years later, when Audubon was about
to publish the letterpress to his plates, as will be related
farther on.1G

Though his hands were already more than full at
this time, Audubon seems to have played with the idea
of publishing a work on the birds of Great Britain, but
on May 1 he wrote to Swainson that the plan did not
meet with favor, and later he relinquished all claims in
such a project to his assistant, William MacGillivray.17

In the spring of 1828 Audubon began to think of
returning to the United States, to renew or revise his
drawings and extend his researches. "I am sure," he

16 See Chapter XXIX.
"See Vol. II, p. 130.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 405

said, "that now I could make better compositions, and
select better plants than when I drew mainly for amuse-
ment." In order to raise the necessary funds, he re-
sorted again to picture painting, his never failing re-
source, and worked in oil colors daily from morning light
until dusk, unless called to Havell's to decide some ques-
tion of necessary detail. The following letters to
Swainson shed further light on this work and on the
progress of The Birds of America, the eighth number of
which was published early in July:

Audubon to William Swainson

London, July 1st 1828.
My dear Sir. —

I have been expecting to have the pleasure of seeing you for
upwards of a week, having mentioned in your last note that
you intended spending a couple of days in London before the
end of June. — When are you coming? — the beautifull lamb
came quite safe and is now on the canvas (in efigy) for ages to
come — I bought a superb Golden Eagle from Mr. Cross that

also has helped to fill it [Here apparently some words

have been deleted, and it is impossible to read them.] I long
to shew them to you. — I have finished the picture of the Tur-
keys, and painted a white headed eagle — in fact I have worked
from 4 every morning untill dark — but the best news I have
to tell is ; that I have received 4 letters from my wife, one dated
2nd of May, all well— but not quite settled about coming before
the end of summer. I have changed quarters and am now at
79 Newman Street Oxford Street, in Mr. Havell's house where
I have taken 3 rooms and feel more comfortable although I
have not the little piece of ground to walk on. — I imagine the
country to be now quite beautifull and had I time to spare
would walk out to see you Mrs S & the dear little folks at
Tittenhanger Green.— I received a visit on Saturday last of
the whole of Lord Milton's family who after complimenting the
author of the "Birds of America" very kindly subscribed for

406 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

two copies of the work. — I have mended my pen — I should have
sent the Blackwood magazine to you, but I so much expected
to see you here that it is yet on my table, and will keep it untill
you come. — All my exertions to procure live grouses have been
abortive here — I have written to Scotland to a friend and per-
haps will have some soon. — The 8th number is now printing and
colouring and will be out this month — the 9th is began. — If you
are hungry or thirsty when you come to town please make for
my [here a word is omitted], and I will try to manage matters
in this way. — May I ask what you are doing? — I saw Dr
Fraill's [Traill's] son a few days ago — he inquired after your
son and family. — I expect a copy of Loudon's magazine this
evening. I feel anxious to see what sort of a cut the Doves
make, as well as the birds of Washington. —

With sincerest regards & esteem to yourself and Lady —
I am yours most truly

John J. Audubon.
79 Newman Street,

Oxford Street.

Audubon to William Swamson

Londost Thursday July 1828.
My dear Mr Swainson,

Although your last note said that you knew not when I
should have the pleasure of seeing you in town, I have hoped
every morning to see you that day. — When will you come? —
There is a talk of my picture of the Eagle and the Lamb going
to her Majesty, Sir Walter Waller has been written to on the
subject and every thing is in train to lead poor I like a lamb to
Windsor Castle ! — I am told the picture is a grand one but you,
my dear Sir, have not said so ! When you come I will show you
13 grouses pretty fairly grouped on one canvas, with seven
pheasants with a Fox on another, etc. etc. I have worked hard
this month from 4 p.m. untill 7 a.m. [sic~\ every day — I re-
gretted that your brother did not come to see me — I have a
great desire to see you but I cannot at present leave town. —

AUDUBON IN LONDON 407

My 8th No. is just out. — The 9th & 10th are engraving. — I
have sent word to my son to land [?] & bring some skins for
you & perhaps you may have a rare assortment bye and bye. —
I hope your Lady and dear Children are all quite well Pray re-
member me kindly to them. 1 wish to name a bird after

you in the 1st No. of 1829 & wish you to choose a name.
Believe yours ever and truly obliged

J. J. Audubon
79 Newman Street,
Oxford Street.

By the 9th of August eight pictures had been be-
gun, but none was finished, and the number of his sub-
scribers had fallen to seventy. At about this time Cap-
tain Basil Hallls returned from his journey through
the United States, and brought direct news from Victor
Audubon, who was then at Louisville, from Dr. Richard
Harlan and Thomas Sully, to all of whom the natural-
ist's letters had been delivered the previous year.
Towards the end of the month Audubon received the
following note from the secretary of the Zoological So-
ciety, N. A. Vigors, who was also anxious to obtain
from him an article for his Journal:

N. A. Vigors to Audubon

Bruter Ct

Aug. 23, 1828.

My dear Sir : —

I hope you do not forget your promise of giving us a
paper for the Zoological Journal. We should be much grati-
fied by having your name with us : and, if possible, should wish
to have whatever you may favour us with within the next ten
days. I have been but a few hours in town, and shall leave
town again tomorrow for a few days, or I should have called

laSee Note, Vol. I, p. 364.

408 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

upon you to speak personally upon the subject. I believe I
have already mentioned, that we are in the habit of remu-
nerating those of our correspondents who wish for payment for
their labours, at a rate not exceeding £10.10.0 per sheet.

A letter from you in answer will reach me, if sent to Bruter
Ct : before Wednesday on which day a parcel will be forwarded
to me from thence.

Believe me my dear Sir,

Yours faithfully,

N: A: Vigors.

[Addressed]
J. J. Audubon Esq.,
69 Great Russell St. ;
Bloomsbury.

[Readdressed]
Newman Street,

Oxford Street

Audubon refused this request, saying that "no
money can pay for abuse," and this time he did not
retract.

Without immediate prospect of seeing his family,
for neither Mrs. Audubon nor her sons were enthusiastic
over the proposal that they should go to England, the
naturalist was momentarily depressed; he turned to
Swainson for advice, at the same time suggesting that
they visit Paris together. Audubon wrote in his journal
for August 16, 1828, that he had invited Swainson to
accompany him to France, whither his friend had ex-
pressed a desire to go when the subject had been
broached at Tyttenhanger ; on the 25th of that month
he added: "I do not expect much benefit by this trip,
but I shall be glad to see what may be done." The
letter just referred to follows:

AUDUBON IN LONDON 409

Audubon to William Swainson

London, Wednesday Augt. 13, 1828.

My dear Me. Swainson,

I reached my lodging in great comfort by the side of your
amiable Doc1* Davie two hours and a half after we shook hands
— I wish I might say as much of my Journey through Life. — I
have had sad news from my dear wife this morning, she has posi-
tively abandoned her coming to England for some indefinite
time, indeed she says that she looks anxiously for the day when
tired myself of this country I will return to mine and live al-
though a humbler (Public) Life, a much happier one — her
letter has not raised my already despondent spirits in some-
things and at the very instant I am writing to you it may per-
haps be well that no instrument is at hand with which a woeful
sin might be committed — I have laid aside brushes, thoughts of
painting and all except the ties of friendship— I am miserable
just now and you must excuse so unpleasant a letter — Would
you go to Paris with me? I could go with you any day that
you would be please to mention, I will remain there as long and
no longer than may suit your callings — I will go with you to
Rome or anywhere, where something may be done for either of
our advantage and to drive off my very great uncomfortable-
ness of thoughts — My two sons are also very much against com-
ing to England, a land they say where neither freedom or sim-
plicity of habits exist and altogether uncongenial to their mode
of life. — What am I to do? As a man of the World and a man
possessed of strong unprejudiced understanding I wish that you
would advise me. — But now on your account I will change the
subject — I called on Newman two days ago & to the following
enquiries he gave me yesterday the following answers
What the price of
1/2 doz best Pure Lake dowards[?] answer 12/ —

l/2 " " Carmin " " 20/—

l/2 " " UltraMarine " " 84/—

l/2 " " Vermillion " " 6/—

l/2 " " Terra di Verona " " 4/—

410 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

As I thought the above prices enormous I have declined advising
chalks for you & will await your advent. —

Should you not feel inclined to go to France at present
which by the bye is the very best season on account of seeing
the vintage etc. etc. — please write to me so or come to town
which would be still more agreeable & talk the matter over as
I think I would persuade you to absent yourself for a month
or so — I hope your kind lady continues quite well & your Dear
Little ones —

Believe me yours most sincerely

John J. Audubon.
Please write by return of Post —
79 Newman Street
Oxford Street.

On this journey to Paris Audubon was accompanied
by Mr. and Mrs. Swainson and an American artist,
named Parker, who had been at work on a portrait of
the naturalist in oils. For Audubon it was mainly a
canvassing tour ; Parker hoped to obtain orders for por-
traits, and Swainson, new ornithological material at the
great museum in the Jardin des Plantes, for a work
upon which he was then engaged.19

The party set out on the 1st of September, travel-
ing by way of Dover and Boulogne, and reached Paris
on Thursday, September 4. They alighted at the Mes-
sagerie Royale, Rue des Victoires, and, after looking
up lodgings, went at once to the Jardin des Plantes to
pay their respects to Cuvier. The Museum of Natural
History was closed, but they knocked and asked for the
Baron. "He was in," said Audubon, in the journal of
his Paris experience,

19 Fauna Boreali- Americana; or the Zoology of the northern parts of
British America; Part Second, "The Birds;" by William Swainson and
John Richardson (London, 1831).

AUDUBON IN LONDON 411

but, we were told, too busy to be seen. Being determined to
look at the great man, we waited, knocked again, and with a
certain degree of firmness sent in our names. The messenger
returned, bowed, and led the way up stairs, where in a minute
Monsieur the Baron, like an excellent good man, came to us;
he had heard of my friend Swainson and greeted him as he
deserves to be greeted ; he was polite and kind to me, though
my name had never made its way to his ears. I looked at him,
and here follows the result: age about sixty-five; size corpulent,
five feet five, English measure; head large; face wrinkled and
brownish; eyes gray, brilliant and sparkling; nose aquiline,
large and red ; mouth large, with good lips ; teeth few, blunted
by age, excepting one on the lower jaw, measuring nearly
three-quarters of an inch square.20

They were immediately invited to dine on the follow-
ing Saturday at six o'clock, and later saw Cuvier at his
home, at his Museum, and at the Academy of Sciences,
over which he presided.

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire pleased Audubon greatly
and proved to him by his conversation that he under-
stood perfectly the difference between the French and
the English. The Duke of Orleans, who then occupied
the Palais Royal, seemed to him the finest physical type
of man he had ever met. "He had my book brought
up," said the naturalist, "and helped me untie the strings
and arrange the table, and began by saying that he felt
great pleasure in subscribing to the work of an Ameri-
can, for he had been most kindly received in the United
States and should never forget it." When the plate of
the Baltimore Orioles was held up to view, the Duke
exclaimed: "This surpasses all I have seen, and I am
not astonished now at the eulogiums of M. Redoute."
He conversed in both English and French, had much

20 Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 306.

412 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

to say of American cities and rivers, and added: 'You
are a great nation, a wonderful nation." The Duke
wrote his name in Audubon's subscription book, prom-
ised to try to enlist a number of the crowned heads of
Europe in his behalf, and gave him besides a number
of orders for pictures of animals.

Audubon had already made friends with the veteran
painter of flowers, Pierre Joseph Redoute, and when
it was proposed that they should exchange works, the
"Raphael of Flowers" consented, gave Audubon at once
nine numbers of his Belles Fleurs, and promised to send
"Les Roses."

During this visit of eight weeks Parker painted por-
traits of both Cuvier and Redoute; Swainson worked
steadily at the Museum, where Isidore Geoffroy Saint-
Hilaire gave him the use of his private study; while
Audubon, for the most part, was driving from post to
pillar in his not altogether successful efforts to extend
his subscription list. As already intimated, his greatest
success in Paris was in winning the friendship and en-
dorsement of Cuvier, who reported upon his work at a
meeting of the Royal Academy of Sciences held on
September 22. 21 Audubon has related how on this occa-
sion he had an appointment to meet the Baron in the
library of the Institute at precisely half past one
o'clock; he waited; the hall filled, and the clock ticked
on, but the great savant did not appear. Finally, said
Audubon, after an hour had passed, "all at once I heard
his voice, and saw him advancing, very warm and ap-
parently fatigued. He met me with many apologies,
and said, 'Come with me' ; and as we walked along, he
explaining all the time why he had been late, while his
hand drove a pencil with great rapidity, and he told me

21 See Vol. I, p. 3.

AUDUBON

.AFTER A PORTRAIT 1ST OILS, HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED, PAINTED ABOUT 1826
W. H. HOLMES FOR WALTER HORTON EEXTLEY, OF MANCHESTER, AND IN
1913 IX POSSESSION OF HIS GRANDSON, JOHN CONWAY BENTLEY, FOR-
MERLY OF GLASGOW. IN THE ORIGINAL AUDUBON IS REPRESENTED
IN A GREEN COAT, A CRI.MSON CLOAK WITH DEEP FUR EDGING
THROWN OVER ONE SHOULDER, AND WITH PORTFOLIO IN*
HAND. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN POSSESSION OF
MR. RUTHVEN DEANE.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 413

that he was actually now writing the report on my
work!1" 22 Cuvier's published report, which was ex-
tremely laudatory, showed little signs of haste. After
speaking of Audubon's talents and accomplishments he
said:

The execution of these plates, so remarkable for their size,
seems to us equally successful in the drawing, the engraving,
and coloring, and though it may be difficult to represent relief
in a colored print with as much effect as in painting proper,
this is no disadvantage in works on natural history ; natural-
ists prefer the true color of objects to those accidental shades
which result from the diverse inflections of light ; necessary
though these be for completing the truth of a picture, they are
foreign as well as prejudicial to scientific accuracy.23

By November Audubon was once more in London,
busy at painting to fill his orders and his purse. On
the 11th of the month, we find Swainson, whose own
exchequer was empty, writing to Audubon for a loan;
this letter, and one soon to follow, illustrate some of the
characteristics to which we have referred:

William Swainson to Audubon

Tuesday 11 Nov. 1828.

I had written the enclosed, my dear Mr. Audubon, before
"your letter of Monday reached me. It has come this instant,
Dreams, you know, must always be interpreted contrawise, we
might have lifted up our arms, as you saw in your dream but,
if you had not awoke, it was no doubt to have shaken hands !
But that my regard for you may be evinced, I will bring myself
to lay under an obligation, which I would only ask for one of
my own family. I was that moment thinking to which I should

1 Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 323.
1 See Bibliography, No. 93a.

414 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

write, to ask the loan of 80 £ for a few months, and now I
will ask it of you. If you was aware of the peculiar feelings
which we Englishmen have on such occasions, perhaps you
would smile, but so it is that we never ask any one, from whom
we have the least idea of a refusal. Now, did I not believe
you to be a sincere friend, do you imagine I should have told
you I was in want of Money much less have asked you to lend
me some. The fact is, I have suffered a severe loss during my
being in Paris, what little I had on hand has been spent there
and in making preparations for the publication of my Zool.
Illustrations. Two or three months however, hard work will
bring me round again & repay you.

Let me see your letter to the President of the Zool. Soc.
before it goes, and you shall see mine.

I shall be most thankful for the Grouse. I send 2 draw-
ings to Havell to be engraved spur him on for I want to have
every thing ready before the new year.

Yours most sincerely,

W. SWAINSON.

John J. Audubon, Esq.
79 Newman St.

In December the Swainsons invited Audubon to
dine with them at Christmas; in his letter Swainson
said:

Why are you so sad? I would lay ten shillings that old
Havell has been disappointing you as he has done me. He is
in matters of business a complete dandle — an old woman, and
I have done with him. His son I think better of he has a good
idea of punctuality in business. ... In one of your walks I
hope you have thought about the French Wine that we talked
so much about and have ascertained the particulars from your
friend, so that we may order a cask. I hope you have not mis-
taken the price, — for if not, nothing that can be drank in this
country is one half as cheap.

AUDUBON IN LONDON 415

In the following letter Swainson refers to the second
series of his Zoological Illustrations, 2i the sale of which
was irritating him, and to N. A. Vigors, with whom he
had entered upon a notorious controversy in 1828:

William Swainson to Audubon

18 January, 1829.

My Dear Mr. Audubon,

I write this in utter uncertainty whether it will find you in
London. My first number has now been out three weeks — it
has been seen and universally admired, and how many copies
do you think the Publisher has sold? now pray guess as the
Americans say. 100 — no. twentyfive, no. fifteen, no. ten? yes.
positively ten copies and no more, has been sold. I blush almost
to confess this mortification to even, you, but so it is. Now,
my dear Sir, what am I to think of. the "generally diffused
taste," as the phrase is, for Natural History.

This allthough vexing to me, may be a consolation to you,
who are able to exhibit on what I call your Red Book the names
of a good portion of 150 subscribers to a 200 guinea Book.
Think yourself my friend exceedingly well off.

The amount of sale must be kept silent, it would be a nice
nut to crack for V [igors]. & his friends.

I shall be able to do without the water birds, if you have
not found any.

I have had a most extraordinary letter from Waterton,
which will highly amuse you. The man is mad — stark, staring

mad.

Yours very faith'ly

W. Swainson.
Can you tell me any safe expeditions made of sending and
receiving letters and Parcels from Philadelphia.

J. J. Audubon Esq.

79 Newman St.

Oxford St.

24 The three volumes of this series hear date of 1832-33, but the
preface is inscribed "Tittenhanger Green St. Albans, 24 th July, 1829."

416 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Early in 1829 Bonaparte wrote from Rome, where
he had then settled, and the following letter shows that
he had then heard of Audubon's visit to France, and
was keenly interested in his success:

Charles L. Bonaparte to Audubon

Rome January 10 th 1829.
Dear Sir

I received in due time your favours of November 3d. & De-
cember 21 st. & now come to thank you for them, wishing you
or rather expressing to you at the occasion of the renewal of
the year, the warm wishes I constantly have for your health,
happiness & especially for the success of your work. From the
contents of your letter I clearly perceive that one at least of
my letters to you must have miscarried. Nothing could be
more interesting to me than the narrative of your journey to
France, though I had heard from other quarters the good &
well deserved reception you met with. Your letter of August
W th. never came at hand, & it must have been the same with
at least one of mine to you. What you mention about Tem-
minck quite astonishes me! ... I thought he would have un-
dertaken even a journey to see you & your drawings ! ! ! Please
let me know when you write whether the Ornithological Illus-
trations of Jardine, Vigors & Co are stopped or still going
on. — The animals I spoke to you of were reported as deliv-
ered to you by Mr Gray of the British Museum who had re-
ceived them for me from the U. States. Is it not so? . . .
Corvus Cornix with us is very fond of the sea shore & feeds
occasionally on fish, but I never observed it had the singular
habits of C. ossifragus at least as described by Wilson.

I am surprized at Messrs J B's conduct; I have always
found them extremely kind and well disposed towards me; &•
although we have settled our accounts I had no reason to be-
lieve they would refuse our box. However we can do without
their interference quite as well, & I hope you have already for-
warded the box to Leghorn recommending it to the care of my

AUDUBON IN LONDON

417

*

S

PART OF LETTER OF CHARLES LUCIEST BONAPARTE TO AUDUBONf TANUARY 10, 1829.

From the Howland MSS.

agent in that port. Messrs F. & A. Filuchs.( ?) I shall keep a
good lookout for it being extremely anxious to see your new
number. I should never have done if I was [to] repeat [to]
you all the praise given to your work b}' our Italian artists &
men of science ! . . . I shall merely state that on my part I
prefer the plate of Goldfinches to any other, birds and plants,
being life itself; & that I am most anxious to see Astur Stan-
leyi which I strongly suspect to be my Falco Cooperii. . . .
By this time, however you may have been able to ascertain the
fact . . . please let me know how the thing stands. It is only

418 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

by your letter that I hear of my work (2d) being in London:
I have not yet seen a copy myself nor did I know positively that
it had been published. You must surely have received one
from myself at all events, for I directed Messrs Gay & Lea to
let you have one of the very first out. Let me know whether
you have it & your opinion about it. — I think you are right in
going to Russia, especially as in giving them the American
Birds you will probably give us the Russians, some of which
are hardly known. Try to get for me Pyrrhula longicauda, P.
rosea & Scalopax — thalina, the latter especially. I shall not
loose sight of the portrait, but it will be still more difficult to get
the signature. I will however endeavor from some of my rela-
tions. You were right in supposing me "dans les bras de la
paix & le bonheur d'un heureux pere de famille" but greatly mis-
taken to think I was taking "le plaisir des sciences". Settling
and other cursed worldly affairs have so much taken up my
time, that I have not looked a specimen or a book since I am
in Rome . . . my small library itself & my Cabinet have not
even been arranged & I tremble to find all my birds destroyed
when the happy day will come to look into them. In the mean
time an addition has been made six weeks ago to my small fam-
ily. I have another son who has received the names of Lucien
Louis Joseph Napoleon & better than that who is the porthrait
of health itself. I am sure you will divide my happiness &
excuse my delay in answering you principally on that account.
I am in debt with half the scientific world & this has been the
first letter I scratched since I am in Rome ! . . . I hope to be
more regular & less in a hurry in future . . . though God
knows ! . . . I will not however close this letter without men-
tionaing the pleasure I had the other day in getting you a
new subscriber & that among the English themselves. ! The
Earl of Shrewsbury & his good Lady highly admired your work
the other day at my house & were so pleased with it that they
said they would write immediately to add their name to the list.
The Earl of Shrewsbury is as you know the first Earl of Great
Britain a catholic & what is more to you a man of great taste.
His not having heard of your work shows that you have not

AUDUBON IN LONDON 419

made enough noise about it: & I am sure his name will be
followed by a great many others to which Mr. Chapittar (Lord
Shrewsb. friend) has promised me to show the work & deliver
the prospectuses. Did you hear of the death of poor Mr
Barnes killed by a stag ( ?). It is a great loss for the Queen.
I remain, Dear Sir, begging you the London news

your most obliged friend

Charles L. Bonaparte.
[Addressed] Mr. J. J. Audubon

79 Newman Street
Oxford St.

London

Inghilterra.
[Endorsed] Answered Feby. 8 th. 1829.

J. J. A.

Audubon continued to work on his paintings dur-
ing the winter of 1828-9, hoping to put his affairs in
such order that he might be able to start for America
in the following year.

CHAPTER XXIV

FIRST VISIT TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF NEW BIRDS

Audubon settles for a time in Camden — Paints in a fisherman's cottage
by the sea — With the lumbermen in the Great Pine Woods — Work
done — Visits his sons — Joins his wife at St. Francisville — Record of
journey south — Life at "Beechgrove" — Mrs. Audubon retires from
teaching — Their plans to return to England — Meeting with President
Jackson and Edward Everett.

Audubon laid his plans to visit America in 1829
with unusual care, and was fortunate in being able to
entrust his publication to the competent hands of John
George Children, of the British Museum. This was
to be actually his third voyage to the United States,
but it was the first which he made from English soil,
and after he had become known as an ornithologist and
animal painter. He wished to renew at least fifty of his
earlier drawings and to obtain new materials of every
description. Although he was naturally anxious to see
his wife, from whom he had been absent for nearly three
years, and his boys, the elder of whom had been left
at Shippingport five years before, he felt constrained
to devote to his work every moment that could be spared.

When writing to his wife of his difficulties and pros-
pects at this period, he assured her that he would act
cautiously, with all due diligence and sobriety, and con-
tinued :

Thou art quite comfortable in Louisiana, I know; there-
fore wait there with a little patience. I hope the end of this
year will see me under headway sufficient to have thee with

420

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 421

me in comfort here, and I need not tell thee I long for thee
every hour I am absent from thee. If I fail, America will still
be my country, and thou, I will still feel, my friend. I will
return to both and forget forever the troubles and expenses
I have had ; when walking together, arm in arm, we can see
our sons before us, and listen to the mellow sounding thrush,
so plentiful in our woods of magnolia.1

A little later in 1829 he also wrote: "I have finished
the two first years of publication, the two most difficult
to be encountered." At that time he fully expected
that fourteen years would be required for the comple-
tion of his task, owing to the many difficulties experi-
enced, especially in securing competent workmen, as
well as the necessity of distributing the expense for the
benefit of his subscribers.

When Havell had been provided with all the draw-
ings needed for the remainder of the year 1829 and the
first issue of 1830, Audubon sailed from Portsmouth on
the 1st of April, 1829, in the packet ship Columbia,
which reached New York on the opening day of May.
"I chose the ship," he said, "on account of her name, and
paid thirty pounds for my passage."

He paused in New York to exhibit his drawings
at the Lyceum of Natural History, of which he had
become a member in 1824, but soon hurried to Phila-
delphia, and finally settled down for work at Camden,
in New Jersey, later known to fame as the home of
"the good gray poet." There, at a boarding house kept
by a Mr. Armstrong, he remained three weeks, from
about May 23 to June 13, hunting and painting every
day. From Camden he went to Great Egg Harbor,
then a famous resort of both land and water birds in
great variety, and for three weeks more he lived and

!Mary F. Bradford, Audubon (Bibl. No. 85).

422 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

worked in a fisherman's cabin by the sea. It is interest-
ing to recall that Alexander Wilson, in company with
George Ord, had spent a month at this point in the
spring of 1813.

The following letter 2 from Swainson was probably
the one to which Audubon replied from New Jersey on
September 14:

William Swainson to Audubon

My dear Mr. Audubon

I welcomed the news of your arrival in America yesterday,
and as I am making up a packet for Liverpool today, I seize the
opportunity of wishing you joy and happiness in the new world.
I am surprised and disappointed as not receiving one line
from Ward it is at the best negligent, and somewhat ungrate-
ful. Hope you have begun your studies among the birds on
a better plan than formerly, that is, in preserving the skins
of every one on which there is the least doubt whether the
bird is young or old, particularly the former. If you are to
give scientific descriptions and definitions of the species
this precaution is absolutely necessary. What your Amer-
icans do with their money I know not, Mr. Lea tells me
he cannot procure one purchaser for my new Illustrations :
here it is now going on very well.

You asked me what you can do for me in America. I will
tell you. Send me a cart load of shells from the Ohio, or from
any of the Rivers near New Orleans. The very smallest, as well
as the very largest — all sizes. I have been long expecting those
which your son promised you for me near twelve months ago !
but I have heard nothing of them! you may spend a few dol-
lars for me and send people to fish the shells at the dry sea-
son, when the waters are low, that is the best time.

Things go on here much as usual, but I have not been in
London since Xmas. The first volume, containing the Quad-
published originally by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 218), The Auk,
vol. xxii, 1905.

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 423

rupeds, of Dr. Richardson's work, is out. I am now busy in
preparing the second, which contains the Birds. Let me par-
ticularly direct your attention to the manners of the Cedar
Bird, Ampelis Americana. I suspect it feeds much on Insects
in default of fruit, but what is desirable, is to know the way
in which it captures Insects, whether as a flycatcher ie. by
seizing them on the wing, or like the Gold crest — by picking
them up among the branches or leaves. I am now in close
correspondance with Charles Bonaparte, & a most valuble cor-
respondant he is.

Mrs. Swainson is just recovering from her confinement af-
ter giving me another little son I am happy today they are
both going on well.

Wilson I believe mentions two birds very like the Red eyed
Flycatcher, this is a point deserving your attention, but the
manners of these birds are much more important. I feel con-
vinced there are several species of my Genus Amrnodramus
shore finch, in the So. States, they all have narrow pointed tails,
like the seasidefinch of Wilson. I further suspect there is more
than one species confounded with the Towee Buntling.

I hope soon again to hear more fully from you, and of your
ornithological acquisitions. The dear little ones are quite
well.

Yours very sincerely,

Wm. Swainson

The Green 26 June 1829.
Mr. John J. Audubon
care of

Mess. Thomas E. Walker & Co.
Merchants.

New York [Philadelphia]

On the 4th of July Audubon returned to Phila-
delphia and prepared for a longer sojourn in the Great
Pine Forest, or Great Pine Swamp, as it was sometimes
called, in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. In

424 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

this letter to his son we shall find an account of his
plans and accomplishments:

Audubon to his son, Victor

Philadelphia, July 5 th., 1829.
My dear Victor: —

I have been in America two months this day, and not a
word from you have I had in answer to my several letters, dated
New York, and at this place. I am also without answer from
your Mama, but do not feel so surprised as I know that about
2 months is the time necessary to have a return from Louisi-
ana.

I have come to take your Mama over to England, if her
wish inclines her to do so, and have wrote fully to her, giving
her all the particulars respecting my situation that I thought
could possibly be trusted to a letter.

I have also come to America to redraw some of my earliest
productions, and am now closely engaged at this. I remained
near this city for 3 weeks, and since have spent 3 more at
Great Egg Harbour, from which place I returned yesterday.
I have already 13 drawings by me. I have letters from Lon-
don, up to 30 th. April, when all my business was going ^n
well with an increase of 4 subscribers. I have no news to
transmit; on the contrary, I was in hopes that ere this I
should have had at least one long letter from you. I beg you
will write me when you last heard from your Mama. Direct
your letter to the care of Messrs Thos. E. Walker, & Co, mer-
chants here, who know all my movements, and will see anything
forwarded to wherever I may choose to go to.

I hope your uncle Berthoud & family are all well; present
them my best regards, and to all others who may feel inter-
ested in my welfare, and believe me

your affectionate father,

John J. Audubon.

I have bought a good gold time-keeper, intended for you,
and a copy bound, of my work, and wish to know how it can
be forwarded. God bless you.

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 425

After outfitting himself in Philadelphia, Audubon
proceeded to Mauch Chunk; his provisions for this jour-
ney to the forest consisted of a "wooden box containing
a small stock of linin, drawing-paper, my journal, colors
and pencils, together with twenty pounds of shot, sev-
eral flints, a due quantum of cash, my gun 'Tear
Jacket,' and a heart as true to nature as ever." From
Mauch Chunk he traveled fifteen miles into the heart
of the wooded hills, and was received into the family
of Jedediah Irish, lumberman and philosopher, whose
praise was celebrated in a later "Episode." 3 "What
pleasure," said the naturalist, "I had in listening to
him, as he read his favourite poems of Burns, while my
pencil was occupied in smoothing and softening the
drawing of the bird before me. Was this not enough
to recall to my mind the early impressions that had been
made upon it by the description of the golden age, which
I here found realized?"

During his stay in the forest Audubon paid par-
ticular attention to the smaller land birds, such as
finches, warblers and flycatchers, and many of the orig-
inal drawings which were made in the summer of 1829
still bear his penciled designations of time and place.4

3 See "The Great Pine Swamp," and "Great Egg Harbour," Ornithologi-
cal Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 52, and vol. iii, p. 606.

4 Though the year is not usually indicated on the originals, the follow-
ing drawings probably belong to this period:

Black Poll Warbler, New Jersey, May.

Wood Pewee Flycatcher, New Jersey, May.

Small Green-crested Flycatcher, New Jersey, May.

Golden-crowned Thrush, New Jersey, May.

Warbling Flycatcher, Vireo gilvus, New Jersey, May 23.

Yellow-breasted Chat, New Jersey, June 7.

Sea Side Finch, Great Egg Harbour, June 14.

Marsh Wren, New Jersey, June 22.

Bay-winged Bunting, Great Egg Harbour, June 26.

Canada Flycatcher, Great Pine Swamp, August 1.

Pine Swamp Warbler, Great Pine Swamp, August 11.

Black and Yellow Warblei, Great Pine Swamp, August 12.

426 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

About ten weeks 5 were spent in the woods, from late
July until the 10th of October, when the naturalist re-
turned to Philadelphia and settled again for a time in
Camden. At this period he was enjoying the best of
health and spirits, and he worked during the entire sea-
son under the highest pressure of which he was capable.
At Camden, October 11. 1829, he wrote:

I am at work, and have done much, but I wish I had eight
pairs of hands, and another body to shoot the specimens, still
I am delighted at what I have accumulated in drawings this
season. Forty-two drawings in four months, eleven large,
eleven middle size, and twenty-two small, comprising ninety-
five birds, from Eagles downwards, with plants, nests, flowers,
and sixty kinds of eggs.6 I live alone, see scarcely any one,
besides those belonging to the house where I lodge. I rise long
before day, and work till night-fall, when I take a walk, and
to bed.

At about the middle of October Audubon set out
to join his family in the South. Crossing the mountains
by mail-coach to Pittsburgh, where he met his former
partner in business, Thomas Pears (see p. 254), he de-
scended once more his favorite river, the Ohio. It was
no longer necessary to rough it on a flatboat or to sleep
on a steamer's deck; it was to be "poor Audubon" no
longer. To be sure, he was not rich, but he had made
his way and his mark, and the attention which he now

Hemlock Warbler, Great Pine Swamp, August 12.

Autumnal Warbler, Great Pine Swamp, August 20.

Connecticut Warbler, New Jersey, September 22.

Mottled Owl, New Jersey, October.
5 Though Audubon said that he spent only six weeks in the forest,
the indications upon his drawings imply a longer period.

•At this time Audubon intended to figure, in full size and natural
colors, the eggs of the "Birds of America," for which the concluding
numbers of his plates had been reserved, but when the time came, these
numbers had to be given over to new acquisitions, so the eggs were
eventuallv crowded out.

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 427

began to receive when traveling in his adopted land
must have gratified his heart. He paused at Louisville
to visit his two boys, the elder of whom, Victor, was
then a clerk in the office of his uncle, William G. Bake-
well, while John was with another uncle, Nicholas A.
Berthoud. Hastening on he reached Bayou Sara on
November 17, where he finally joined his wife, who was
living at the home of William Garrett Johnson, in West
Feliciana Parish, near Wakefield. Some account of
this journey is given in the following letter,7 written
on the eighteenth to Dr. Richard Harlan; in the post-
script Audubon gives the first reference to a new hawk
which he proposed to name after his friend, and which
has given no little trouble to ornithologists ever since : 8

Audubon to Dr. Richard Harlan

[Superscribed] Richd Harlan Esqr. M. D. &c &c &c

Philadelphia Pensa

ST Francisville Louisiana Novembr 18^

1829—

My Dear Friend. —

You will see by the data of this the rapidity with which I
have crossed two thirds of the United States. I had the happi-
ness of pressing my beloved wife to my breast Yesterday morn-
ing; saw my two sons at Louisville and all is well. — from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh I found the Roads, the Coaches,
horses Drivers and Inns all much improved and yet needing a
great deal to make the traveller quite comfortable — The slow-
nesse of the stages is yet a great bore to a man in a hurry — I
remained part of a day at Pittsburgh where of course I paid
my respects to the Museum! I was glad to sec the germ of

7 At one time in possession of Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, who received it
from Mrs. Audubon; given verbatim by Elliott Coues (Bibl. No. 43),
Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club, vol. v, 1880.

8 Harlan's Hawk, or the Black Warrior, is now regarded as a southern
variety of the Red-tailed Hawk, and is designated under the trinomen,
Bueto borealis harlani.

428 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

one — it is conducted by a very young man named Lambdin— I
made an arrangement with him [place of seal — paper gone]
&c &c- &c- at Cincinnati I also visited the Museum [paper
gone] it scarsely improves since my last view of it, except
indeed by wax figures and such other shows as are best suitable
to make money and the least so to improve the mind. — I could
not see D [illegible] my time was very limited. — The Ohio was
in good order for Navigation and I reached Louisville distant
from you about 1,000 Miles in one week. = as you spoke of
travelling westwardly I give you here an a/c of the Fare. — to
Pittsburgh all included 21$.— to Louisville 12$.— and 25$
more to Bayou Sarah where I Landed. 30 $ is the price from
Louisville to N. Orleans. =our Steam Boats are commodious
and go well — but my Dear Friend the most extraordinary
change has taken place in appearance as I have proceeded. —
The foliage had nearly left the Trees in Pensylvania, the Swal-
lows had long since disapeared severe frost indeed had rendered
Nature gloomy and uninteresting — Judge of the contrast:
I am now surrounded by Green Trees and Swallows gambole
around the house as in Pensylvania during June & July=The
mock bird is heard to sing and during a Walk with my Wife
yesterday I collected some 20 or 30 lnsects=that is not all,
a friend of mine here says that he has discovered 2 or 3 New
Birds ! ! ! — new Birds are new birds our days, and I shall en-
deavour to shew you the Facts Simile when again I shall have
the pleasure of shaking your hand —

although so lately arrived, I have established the fact that
Mrs A. and myself will be on our way towards "Old England"
by the 15th of JanJ- we will ascend the Mississipi and after
resting ourselves at Louisville with our sons and other rela-
tives about one month and then proceed with the Rapidity of
the Wild Pigeon should God grant our wishes! —

have you seen or heard any thing of Ward?— have you
the little sketch of Dear?=we had a passenger on Board the
Huntress named Potts from your City who knows you well a
lively young Gentleman; has a Brother (a Clergyman) estab-
lished and married at Natchez. —

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 429

I will begin Drawing next week having much scratching
with the Pen to perform this one, and I am also desirous to
make [paper gone] Large Shipment of aborigines both animal
and vegetal as soon as possible. — Turkeys, Aligators, Oppos-
sums, Paroekett, and plants, as Bignonias &c &c &c- will be
removed to the Zoological Gardens of London, from the Natural
ones of this Magnificent Louisiana ! — meantimes I will not for-
get my Friends in Phila- no I would rather forgive all, to all
my Ennemies there. — assure Dr Hammersley that Ivory Billed
and Peleated Woodpeckers will be skinned, and who knows but
I may find something more for him. — I will give free leave to
Dr. Pickering to chuse amongst the Insects and who knows but
I may find something new for him. remember me most kindly
to both, nay not in the common manner of saying "Mr Audubon
begs to be remembered" no not [at] all. This way Mr A re-
members you and you and I will remember you and you and /
always ! ! —

May I also beg to be remembered in humble words to a
fine pair of Eyes; divided, not by the Allegany Mountains;
but by a nose evidently imported from far East, to a placid

forehead, to a mouth speaking happiness to — [dash

nearly across page.]

Should you see Friend Sully remember me to him also — and
should you see George Ord Esq1"- Fellow of all the Societies

Imaginable present him my most humble [dash line

more than across the page.]

Should you see that good woman where I boarded at
Camd'den tell her that I am well and thankful to her for her
attentions to me. —

I cannot hope the pleasure of an answer from you here
but you may do so, and I say pray do so, directed to the care
of N. Berthoud Esqr Louisville Kentucky.— by the bye my
sons are taller than me, the eldest one so much altered that I
did not know him at first sight, and yet I have Eyes —
God bless You, Your Friend

John J. Audubon.

430 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

[The following is written across the first page:]

I reopened my letter to say that I have Just now killed a
Large New Falcon yes positively a new Species of Hawk almost
black about 25 Inches Long and 4 feet broad tail square Eye

yellowish White, Legs and Feet bare short & strong. 1 will

skin it Ill-
remember me to Lehman

What I have said about the Hawk to You must be Lawful
to Academicians and you will please announce Falco Harlanii

by

John J. Audubon

F. L. S. L.

The following extracts are from a letter 9 written by
Swainson, January 30, 1830, and sent to Havell in
London to be readdressed :

William Swainson to Audubon

I know not in what part of the Wilds of America you may
now be wandering, but I hope you are fully intent upon your
great object, and that you are not only making drawings, and
taking notes, but preserving Skins, of all your little favorites.
Don't forget the Shrikes, of which I have strong suspicions
there are 2 or 3 species mixed up with the name of Logger-
head. Should you be in the land of the Scarlet Ibis, do pray
procure a dozen or two of the best skins, they are the most
magnificent birds of No. America, and are said to be common
towards New Orleans.

You will learn frm the Newspapers how uncommonly severe
is our winter the snow has now been upon the ground five weeks
and it is still falling. I manage, however, to walk out every
day, and thus have acquired better health than I have enjoyed
for many years.

Previous to your embarking to England, which I hope you
will do very early in the spring you must do me one favor.

9 Published by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 217), The Auk, vol. xxii,
1905.

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 431

Bring me two Grey Squirrels alive, and a cage full of little
birds, either the painted or non-Pareil finch the Blue finch, or
the Virginian Nightingale, as they are called, 3 or 4 of each
to guard against casualties by death on the voyage. I do not
care one farthing whether they sing or not, so that I presume
they may be got for a mere trifle. The Squirrels would delight
the little people beyond measure, and would prove a never-
failing source of amusement to them. I believe you have other
kinds than the grey, so that any will do. If you cannot get
them pray supply their place by two Parrots of America.

We continue pretty well at the Green. Seldom go to town,
but I find people begin to discover the true character of V
[igors]. and many that were formerly his friends now speak
very differently of him. His father having died the property
has come to him. He has now taken a fine house in the Re-
gents park, and holds conversaziones (in humble imitation of
those of the President of the Royal Society) every Sunday
evening during the season!! all this is very grand, and he ap-
pears to have abandoned writing any more papers on or-
nithology, since I have begun to point out his errors.

Ward wrote to me since my last, he is a poor weak fellow,
with a good natural disposition, but so little to be depended
upon, that he is turned round by every feather, after insert-
ing that he could not go on "in my service" as he called it,
under ten dollars a week, he now says he should be most happy
to receive four. He says not a word of his marriage, which
proves his wish to decive one. I have done with him. ... I
hope you have got me lots of River shells.

About the beginning of the year 1827 Mrs. Audu-
bon gave up her "Beechwoods" school, and thereafter
took a position as governess in the home of Mr. William
Garrett Johnson, whose plantation, called "Beech-
grove," was situated in the same parish. An anony-
mous writer thus referred to this house in 1851: 10

10 Thomas B. Thorpe (Bibl. No. 64), Godey's Lady's Book, vol. xlii,
1851.

432 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

In the hospitable mansion of W. G. J , in the parish of

West Feliciana, if one will look into the parlor, they will see
over the piano a cabinet sized portrait, remarkable for a bright
eye and intellectual look. The style of it is free, and there is
an individuality about the whole that gives assurance of a
strong likeness. Opposite hangs a proof impression of the
bird of Washington, a tribute of a grateful heart to an old
friend. The first is a portrait of Audubon painted by himself ;
the other is one of the first [of his] engravings that ever
reached the United States.

There Audubon spent nearly two months at the close
of 1829, and followed his usual occupations of hunting
and drawing, while his wife prepared for their contem-
plated journey to Europe. He is said to have drawn
at this time the "Black Vulture attacking a herd of
Deer," several large hawks, squirrels, and heads of deer
which were never finished.

Although Audubon's business affairs in England
had been left in charge of his trustworthy friend, John
G. Children, his engraver, Havell, had become alarmed
at the loss of subscribers and the failure of certain of
their agents, and particularly M. Pitois of Paris,11 to
render due returns. Havell, as it proved, was unduly
disturbed, but his gloomy accounts tended to hasten
the naturalist's departure, a circumstance that was later
deplored. These matters are clearly reflected in the
following letter written from the Johnson home in Lou-
isiana when the Audubons were preparing to leave it;
particularly interesting are the included statements

"While in Paris in 1828, Audubon wrote on October 26 that he had
received a call from "a M. Pitois, who came to look at my book, with a
view to becoming my agent here; Baron Cuvier recommended him strongly,
and I have concluded a bargain with him. He thinks he can procure a
good number of subscribers. His manners are plain, and I hope he will
prove an honest man." See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals
(Bibl. No. 86), vol. i, p. 339.

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 433

through which it was hoped that a competent successor
might be secured for the duties of the position which
Mrs. Audubon had so ably rilled:

Audubon to Robert HaveU

Beech Grove, Louisiana
Deer 16th 1829

My Dear Mr Havele. —

I received yesterday from New York your letter of the
29th. Sept. which must have reached Philadelphia 3 days after
my departure for home=

I am sorry that Bartley should have made you suffer a
moment by sending you the intelligence of the failure of the
several subscribers you mention in your favor — it cannot be
helped — there is none of your fault and / must repair these
matters when I reach England again =

I am considerably more sorry and much vexed that Sowler
should have failed in his written promise to accept your Dfts. —
even in a case of the diminution of subscribers he could cer-
tainly have sent you a progressional amount — I am now almost
sure that Pitois has failed or acted the Rogue=

We are making all preparations in our power to leave
Louisiana on the 5 or 10th. of Jan.y and we will proceed as
fast as Steam Boats, Coaches and the weather will admit of
and we will sail for England from New York with all possible
dispatch. I have made a shipment of Forest trees to England
that I hope will turn to good account as they are to be presents
to Public Institutions &c and that I think it necessary to
be remembered myself. —

We are both well — our sons are at Louisville, Kentucky
where we will see them about the 20th. of next month. — I sent
you in my letter a proposal for your sister and should you
not have received it I send it you again here in Mrs A.'s. hand
writing. — I would advise your sister to come if the money is
an object. — I think that besides she will be comfortable with
the familly Johnson — if she thinks fit to wait untill we see
her, we can tell her all about it.=

434 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

I have received only one letter from friend Children dur-
ing all this absence against my very many —
I hope the insects I sent him by the Annibal have reached safely.
— have no news to give you — Keep up a good heart — we will
be in London as soon as possible. — I have not had a letter
from Miss Hudson for a long time — I hope her mother & her
are well — Remember me kindly to your Dear Wife and Little
ones — Mrs Audubon joins me in all good wishes — If you see
Parker my remembrances to him=I will carry with me some
Drawings that I know will make the graver and the Acid Grin
again. —

Believe me your friend —

John J. Audubon.

When you present my sincere regards to friend Swanson
[Swainson] tell him that I have had only one letter from him
and that I am now quite unable to say where Mr Ward is=I
had a letter from Henry Havell12 the other day merely ac-
knowledging the money I have paid him — he was in New York,
I hope quite well —

[Enclosure]
A friend of ours here named Wm. Garrett Johnson (a
cotton planter) a gentleman who resides in a perfectly healthy
and agreeable part of the country, desires that I should write
to England to procure for him a Governess, one who can teach
music, drawing and the usual branches of education to young
Ladies. Mr. Johnson will pay the sum of one thousand dol-
lars per annum, board, lodging &c, also and considered in all
respects as a member of the family, to any lady who will un-
dertake occupation (the sum is about 230 £ ) the governess will
have to instruct ten or twelve young persons of various ages,
and may make the arrangement for five years if desirous of it.
I have thought this would suit your sister precisely, and for
my part knowing the family Johnson as I do I should think it
an excellent thing for her. if not I will look for some one when

12 Henry Augustus Havell, a younger brother of Robert Havell,
Junior; see Vol. II, p. 191.

TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 435

I am in England, Sailing from England direct for New Orleans,
steam Boats reach the place of Mr Johnson in two days.
Duplicate.

I, Wm. Garrett Johnson do authorize my friend J. J. Audu-
bon to make the above proposition and do by these present obli-
gate myself to comply with them punctually and particularly.

Wm. Garrett Johnson.
[Addressed]

Mr Robt Havell Jur
Engraver
79 Newman Street
Oxford Street
London
England

"On January 1, 1830," said the naturalist, "we
started for New Orleans, taking with us the only three
servants yet belonging to us, namely, Cecilia, and her
two sons, Reuben and Lewis. We stayed a few days at
our friend Mr. Brand's, with whom we left our servants,
and on the seventh of January took passage on the
splendid steamer Philadelphia for Louisville, paying
sixty dollars fare." 13 After a long visit with their
sons, on the seventh of March they ascended the Ohio
to Cincinnati, and at Wheeling took the mail-coach to
Washington. At the national capital Audubon met
the President, Andrew Jackson, and was befriended by
Edward Everett, at that time a leader in the House of
Representatives. "Congress," said the naturalist, "was
then in session, and I exhibited my drawings to the
House of Representatives, and received their subscrip-
tion as a body." He also recorded that he obtained
three subscribers in Baltimore, and left for Philadel-

is See Lucy B. Audubon, ed., Life of John James Audubon, the Natural-
ist (Bibl. No. 73), p. 203.

436 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

phia, where they remained a week. The following note,
which Edward Everett gave Audubon for New York,
is particularly interesting, since it expressly states that
at that time the ornithologist had not received a single
subscriber in the United States:

Edward Everett to Dr. Wainwright

Washington 18 March 1830
My dear Sir,

Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance, the bearer
of this letter, Mr. Audubon of Louisiana. His drawings of
American Birds, of which he will show you some, will I am
sure command your approbation, as they have the applause
of Europe. — I am sorry to say, that he has not yet procured
a single subscriber, in the United States of America. Will not
one of your Institutions in New York — or your wealthy and
liberal individuals^take a copy? I pray you endeavor to
procure him at least one subscriber, in New York. —

Yours with great regard

E. Everett.
Rev Dr Wainwright

Audubon had evidently reconsidered his expressed
intention of presenting a copy 14 to Congress, and to
Edward Everett belongs the credit of subscribing to
The Birds of America in behalf of the Congressional
Library. At about this time also he obtained another
subscriber at Washington, in the person of Baron
Krudener, the Russian envoy, but later experienced dif-
ficulty in collecting his dues.15

14 See Vol. I, p. 396.

15 See Vol. II, p. 38.

CHAPTER XXV

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS AND ITS RIVALS

Settlement in London — Starts on canvassing tour with his wife — Change of
plans — In Edinburgh — Discovery of MacGillivray — His hand in the
Ornithological Biography — Rival editions of Wilson and Bonaparte —
Brown's extraordinary atlas — Reception of the Biography — Joseph
Bartholomew Kidd and the Ornithological Gallery — In London again.

On the 1st of April, 1830, Audubon and his wife
sailed from New York in the packet ship Pacific, bound
for Liverpool, where they landed after a voyage of
twenty-five days. Upon returning to London the nat-
uralist found that upon the 18th of the preceding March
he had been elected to membership in the Royal Society,
an honor for which he felt indebted to Lord Stanley
and his friend Children, of the British Museum; after
paying the entrance fee of £50, he took his seat in that
body on the 6th of May. The painting of pictures was
at once resumed to meet his heavy expenses, but towards
the end of July he started with Mrs. Audubon on a
canvassing tour, in the course of which his plans sud-
denly were changed so that London did not see him
again for nearly a year.1 On this journey they touched
at Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, York, Hull, Scar-
borough, Whitby, New Castle, and Belford, to visit the
Selbys, and on the 13th of October reached Edinburgh,
where they were soon comfortably settled in the natural-
ist's old lodging place, the house of Mrs. Dickey, Num-
ber 26, George Street.

1 His correspondence with William Swainson from this point, and the
history of his letterpress so far as that naturalist was concerned, will be
unfolded later (see Chapter XXIX).

437

438 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon was now ready to begin the text of his
Birds of America, to be called Ornithological Biogra-
phy, which is often referred to as his "Biography of
Birds." This work, which was eventually extended to
five large volumes of over three thousand pages, was
published at Edinburgh from 1831 to 1839. He had
made crude beginnings with this in view as early as
1821, and on October 16, 1830, he wrote: "I know
that I am not a scholar . . ." but, "with the assistance
of my old journals and memorandum-books, which were
written on the spot, I can at least put down plain truths,
which may be useful, and perhaps interesting, so I shall
set to at once. I cannot, however, give scientific de-
scriptions, and here must have assistance." To supply
this need, as we have seen already, he had earlier applied
to William Swainson, but the negotiations with that
naturalist were soon broken off, and led to a sharp and
acrid discussion upon the authorship of the work

itself.2

By a rare stroke of genius or good fortune, Audubon
chose for his assistant a young Scotch naturalist, Wil-
liam MacGillivray, who had been introduced to him by
another naturalist, James Wilson, soon after he reached
the Scottish capital. MacGillivray agreed "to revise
and correct" his manuscript at the rate of two guineas
per sheet of sixteen pages, and in the latter part of
October, 1830, they set to work. We shall soon have
occasion to speak more fully of his debt to this esti-
mable Scotchman,3 and will only add here that a better
trained or more competent helper than MacGillivray
could hardly have been found in Great Britain or else-
where.

a See Chapter XXVIII, p. 87.
3 See Chapter XXX.

mrs. dickie's "boarding residence," 2ti george street,

EDINBURGH, WHERE AUDUBON OCCUPIED APART-
MENTS AND PAINTED AND WROTE IN 18-26-27
AND 1830-31. A LARGE PUBLIC BUILDING
NOW OCCUPIES THE SITE.

After a photograph in possession of Mr. Ruthven

Deane.

THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA.

After an old print; reproduced from Cassinia for 1910.

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 439

No sooner had Audubon begun to write than it was
learned that "no less than three editions of 'Wilson's
Ornithology' were about to be published, one by
Jameson, one by Sir W. Jardine, and another by a Mr.
Brown." The outlook could not be considered encour-
aging, but this intelligence only nerved him to greater
effort, and he was determined to push his own publica-
tion with such unremitting vigor as to anticipate them
all. "Since I have been in England," he wrote in his
journal, "I have studied the character of Englishmen
as carefully as I have studied the birds in America,
and I know full well that in England novelty is always
in demand, and that if a thing is well known it will not
receive much support." Audubon worked continuously
at his Biography , rising before the dawn and writing all
day, while the able worker at his side carried his efforts
far into the night, and in three months the first volume
was ready for the printer; Mrs. Audubon meanwhile
copied their entire manuscript to be sent to the United
States in order to secure the American copyright.
When this work was offered to the publishers at Edin-
burgh, however, not one of them, said the naturalist,
would offer a shilling for it, but this did not deter him
from publishing it at once and at his own expense.4 On
March 13, 1831, he wrote: "The printing will be com-
pleted in a few days, and I have sent copies of the sheets
to Dr. Harlan, and Mr. McMurtie, at Philadelphia, and
also one hundred pounds sterling to Messrs. T. Walker
& Sons, to be paid to Dr. Harlan to secure the copy-
right, and have the book published there."

4 The first volume of the Ornithological Biography in the European
edition bears the imprint of "Adam Black, 55 North Bridge, Edinburgh;"
in the four subsequent volumes this was changed to "Adam and Charles
Black," while the entire work was printed by "Neill & Co., Printers, Old
Fish Market, Edinburgh." See Bibliography, No. 2.

440 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The following friendly letter from one of Wilson's
editors belongs to this period:

Sir William Jar dine to Audubon

Jardine Hall 3 d Deer. 1830 —
My dear Sir,

I only learnt a few days since that you were to winter in
Edinburgh, and perhaps since you are not Hurried for time in
Trovelly [?] will come out to spend a day or two with me — If
you can come out before the 10 th. when I shall have the pleas-
ure of shewing you some Blackgame Shooting — The season
expires on the Tenth of the Month partridges have bred so
ill that there is scarsely any in the whole country, and pheas-
ants have been so lately introduced that they are yet rather
scarce — In a wet day you may have your easel & brushes I
should wish much to hear your account of Wilson during the
times you hunted with him — and also some account of the
New Species you figure in the american Ornithology —

I am happy to learn you intend figuring the learned Men
of America as accompanyment to your work particularly the
ornithologists, do you know the painter of the portrait of
Wilson — I have three portraits of him in the House, and also
a profile taken by the machine I should like to have your opin-
ion of them one of the portraits was painted from an original
that went to America —

I shall expect to hear you are coming soon — Mr Lizars will
tell you about coaches — &c

With best regards believe me

Sincerely yours

Wm Jardine
[Addressed] J. Audubon Esqr

Care of W. H. Lizars Esqr
3 James Square
Edinburgh.

Audubon was not outstripped by his Edinburgh
rivals, who to all appearances had planned to cover the

ORNITHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY,

Oil AN ACCOUNT OF THF. HABITS OF TIIK

BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA;

ACCOMPANIED BY DESCRIPTIONS OF THK OBJECTS REPBESENTKI)
IN THE WORK ENTITLED

THE BIRDS OF AMERICA,

AND INTERSPERSED WITH DELINEATIONS OF AMERICAN
SCENERY AND MANNERS.

BY JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, F.tt. SS. L. & E.

I'ELLow op the i.ixxeax axi» xooumsical jm i e Tim or Eoxnox ; member or the Lrccrx

AXD LIXXEAX IUXILTV 01" XEW YORK, Of THE XATl'HAI. IIIKTORV WCIETV Of PARIS, TOE

werxerian xattral iimtory hoviety or iuixbi nun i iioxorary member or THE

SOCIETY Of XATI'BAL HISTORY Of MAXCHE»TKB, AXD Of THE SCOTT ISM ACADEMT OP
PAIMTINU, ARCHITECTURE, AXD *CV LPTCBE, A.C.

EDINBURGH:

ADAM BLACK, 55. NORTH BRIDGE, EDINBURGH:

8, HAVELL JUN, ENGRAVER, 77- OXFORD STBEET, AND LONGMAN, BEES,
BROWN, * GREEN, LONDON » GEOKGE SMITH, TITHEBARR STREET,
LIVERPOOL; T. SOWLER, MANCHESTER* MUS ROBINSON, LEEDS j
E. CHABNLEY, NEWCASTLE « POOL & BOOTH, CHESTER; AND BE1LBY,
KNOTT, a. BEILBY, BIRMINGHAM.

MDCCCXXXI.

TITLE PAGE OF VOLUME I OF THE "ORNITHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY."

From a copy presented by Audubon to William MacGillivray and bearing

the latter's signature.

441

442 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

field of American ornithology so thoroughly as to render
his work a drug on the market, if not to make it super-
fluous. Whether this were really true or not, there is
no doubt that Audubon's activity furnished the stimulus
to the sudden appreciation of the work of his predeces-
sor that was manifested in Edinburgh at this very mo-
ment of time. It will be interesting to see just what
these rival enterprises were. Professor Jameson, who
had been of great service to Audubon at the beginning
of his undertaking, prepared a pocket edition of Wil-
son's and Bonaparte's Ornithology, with miniature
plates which were issued separately, and the two works,
which were intended to go together, were published in
1831.5 Sir William Jardine brought out an edition of
Wilson's and Bonaparte's work, in three large volumes,
with plates engraved by W. H. Lizars after the orig-
inals and carefully colored by hand.6 This was thor-

B American Ornithology, or the Natural History of the Birds of the
United States. By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucien Bonaparte.
Edited by Robert' Jameson . . . Regius Professor of Natural History
in the University of Edinburgh. Appearing as vols, lxviii-lxxi of Con-
stable's Miscellany, 4 vols., 18mo., Edinburgh and London, 1831. This was
the fourth (?) edition of Wilson's work, and the first (?) to appear in
Europe ; with portrait of Wilson and vignettes on titles engraved by Lizars,
memoir of Wilson by W. M. Hetherington, and extracts from Audubon,
Richardson, and Swainson.

The plates of this edition were issued in numbers, under title of
Illustrations of American Ornithology; reduced from the work of Wilson;
18mo., Edinburgh and London (1831). In a notice of the first number
which appeared in the Caledonian Mercury (Edinburgh) for Oct. 29, 1831,
it was stated that the plates were issued in small size to be bound up
with Jameson's edition of the text, and that they were intended "for a
different class of purchasers from those likely to take the folio edition,
then being brought out by the publishers of Constable's Miscellany. The
plates were engraved in line and executed in a very superior style, both
plain and colored."

6 American Ornithology; or Natural History of the Birds of the
United States, by Alexander Wilson, with a Continuation by Charles Lucien
Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano. The Illustrative Notes and Life of
Wilson by Sir William Jardine, 3 vols., 8vo., London and Edinburgh,

1832.

The second (?) European edition of Wilson and Bonaparte, with 97
hand-colored plates engraved by Lizars. The Caledonian Mercury in

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 443

oughly legitimate enterprise, but the climax was reached
when Captain Thomas Brown began to publish an
"Audubonized edition" of Wilson's and Bonaparte's
plates, or an attempt to present their plates of American
birds in the Audubonian manner, to the extent at least
of showing the characteristic flowers, trees, and insects
of the American continent, a plan to which some of
Audubon's earlier critics in Philadelphia had offered
strenuous objection. Brown's large atlas of plates7 was

noticing the work, October 29, 1831, said: "It must be highly gratifying to
the friends and connections of poor Sandy Wilson to see such honor, at
last, paid to his memory in his native land."

7 Illustrations of the American Ornithology of Alexander Wilson and
Charles Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano. With the addition of
numerous Recently Discovered Species, and Representations of the Whole
Sylva of North America. By Captain Thomas Brown [etc., etc.]. Folio,
with engraved title, engraved dedication, index, and 124 engraved and
hand-colored plates. Edinburgh, Frazer & Co., 54 North Bridge, William
Curry, Jun'r & Co., Dublin & Smith, Elder & Co., 65 Cornhill, London,
MDCCCXXXV.

It is stated by the editor of this extraordinary work that he had
added 161 birds, and that 87 have been considerably enlarged. There
are 167 representations of American trees and shrubs, said to have been
copied for the most part from Michaux' Silva. The striking Hibiscus
grandiflorus (plate xli) was taken without acknowledgment from Audu-
bon's drawing of the Blue-winged Warbler (The Birds of America, plate
xx ). For the most part the figures of birds are redrawn from Wilson
and Bonaparte and given new positions and backgrounds. A few of the
plates, as that of the California Vulture (no. 1), bear the legend, "Drawn
by Captn. Tho. Brown;" all are uneven, and many extremely poor in
execution, the fourteen by W. H. Lizars being the best. J. B. Kidd, for
a time associated with Audubon (see Vol. I, p. 446) is credited with four
plates; other engravers employed on the work were James Turvey, who exe-
cuted the elaborate title, Samuel Milne, James Mayson, R. Scott, J. & J.
Johnstone, E. Mitchell, William Davie, S. A. Miller, John Miller, Audw.
Kilgour, Wm. Warwick, and W. McGregor. Plate xiv, the Snowy Owl,
Strix nyctea, engraved by the editor, has the interest of a caricature.
Some plates show as many as fourteen birds in a medley of brilliant
foliage, flowers and fruits. The violence of the coloring is often such
as to destroy the effect of the best plates, and gaudy butterflies flit
through the pages as if they were the common food of every species,
not excluding the American grouse (see Note, Vol. I, p. 359).

Captain Brown's Illustrations were said by a writer in the Edinburgh
Literary Journal for April 9, 1831, "to form a companion to the letterpress
in Constable's Miscellany (see Note, Vol. I, p. 442) ; price, colored, 15 shil-
lings; plain, 10s. 6d. A few in elephant folio (same size as Selby's British
Ornithology); colored, 1 guinea. To be completed in 10 parts, each con-

444 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

issued in parts, from 1831 to 1835, and was intended as
a further companion to Jameson's text for all who could
afford that expensive form of illustration. By a curious
coincidence Audubon's Ornithological Biography (vol.
i), Jameson's edition of Wilson and Bonaparte (vol. i),
and Brown's Illustrations (pt. i), were all noticed on
the same page of the London Literary Gazette for
April 9, 1831. "This day is published," so reads the

taining 5 colored plates; 22 inches long by 17 inches broad, being con-
sidered more than double the size of the original work." The first number
of this work was reviewed in the London Literary Gazette for October 8,
1831, when it was said that in it were represented 25 birds, 13 forest trees,
and 12 insects; the completed work would comprehend "all the forest
trees of America, with their fruits, together with the principal insects
of the country," as well as all the birds that had been discovered up to
the time of issue.

Brown's piratical work must have had a very limited circulation,
since it is now so rare that not even the British Museum possesses a
copy, and, so far as known, it is not found in any public library of the
United States. I was told at Wheldon's, the London shop devoted to
works on natural history, that but two copies had ever been handled, and
that they commanded a high price. The work was originally sold at
£26. The only copy known to me is in the library of the Zoological Society
in London, from which the present citation is made ; on one of its fly-leaves
is written this note: "I have seen the wrapper of No. 1 of this work.
It is dated 1831. There is no information as to its contents. C. Davis
Sanborn. 22.5.05." This copy was referred to by Dr. Theodore Gill; see
The Osprey, vol. v, pp. 31 and 109 (Washington, 1900 and 1901). Dr. Walter
Faxon has traced two other copies, one formerly in possession of Professor
Alfred Newton, and another, but very imperfect set, in a private library
at Tarrytown, New York. According to Faxon, a single brown paper wrap-
per preserved in the Tarrytown copy bears a full printed title, which differs,
however, from that which was subsequently engraved for the completed
work; for fuller citation, see "A Rare Work on American Ornithology,"
The Auk, vol. xx (1903), pp. 236-241.

Mr. Ruthven Deane has written me that several years ago he secured in
New York a fragment of this work, consisting of the paper wrappers of
four Parts, Nos. 1-4, the last three of which contained five plates each;
there were in addition 10 scattered plates, making 25 plates in all; the
price of "21 Shillings" is printed on each of the wrappers, which also bear
the date "1831," but no titles.

Another pirated work, Illustrations of the Genera of Birds, by the
same author, was begun in 1845, but met with even less success, and was
never completed; this was taken from A List of the Genera of Birds, pub-
lished in 1840 by George Robert Gray, and according to Alfred Newton
(A Dictionary of Birds, London, 1896, p. 30, note) was "discreditable to all
concerned with it."

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 445

advertisement of Audubon's work, "price 25s. in royal
octavo, cloth, Ornithological Biography. . . ." If the
desire of these various editors were to cripple the work
of the American naturalist, their efforts were certainly
vain, for he was able to make his way against all com-
petitors. Brown's work was a failure, so few copies
having been distributed that it is doubtful if more than
one ever came to this country, and only one is known
to be in possession of any large library in England.

Audubon's initial volume of the Biography was well
received and drew forth immediate and unstinted praise
from many sources. He was anxious that MacGillivray
should contribute some account of it to the London
Quarterly Review, then under the editorial manage-
ment of John Gibson Lockhart, but his suggestion was
coldly received and drew forth the following declara-
tion of independence from his able, if as yet undistin-
guished, coadjutor:8

With respect to the review, I can only say that if Mr.
Lockhart is so doubtful as to my powers, he may doubt as
long as he lists. I shall not submit any essay of mine to his
judgment. If you had informed me that he or the conductor
of my other review would print a notice of your works, I should
have agreed to write one with pleasure, but under existing cir-
cumstances I shall not, it being repugnant to my feelings and
contrary to my practice and principles to sue for favor with
any man. I have already written three reviews of your books
which have been printed, and when I am applied to for a
fourth I shall write it too, with "an elegance of style, a power
of expression, and knowledge of the subject" equal to those
usually displayed by the editor of the Quarterly.

8 See Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 209), The Auk, vol. xviii (1901).
The extract is from a letter dated "Edinburgh, 22 Warriston Crescent 7th
May, 1831."

446 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Some of the criticism, whether friendly or hostile, which
this work eventually evoked will be considered in a later
chapter.

Shortly after his arrival in London, Audubon re-
ceived a call from Joseph Bartholomew Kidd, a young
artist whom he had met at Edinburgh the previous
March, and was attracted so much by his "youth, sim-
plicity and cleverness" that he again invited him to
paint in his rooms. On the 31st of March, 1831, an
agreement was made with Kidd 9 to copy some of his
drawings in oils and put in appropriate backgrounds.
"It was our intention," said Audubon, "to send them
to the exhibition for sale, and to divide the amount
between us. He painted eight, and then I proposed, if
he would paint the one hundred engravings which com-
prise my first volume of the Birds of America, I would
pay him one hundred pounds." In 1832 Captain
Thomas Brown gave this notice of the undertaking in
the Caledonian Mercury:

About a year ago Audubon conceived the grand idea of a
Natural History Gallery of Paintings, and entered into an
agreement with Mr. Kidd to copy all his drawings of the same
size, and in oil, leaving to the taste of that excellent artist to
add such backgrounds as might give them a more pictorial
effect. In the execution of such of these as Mr. Kidd has fin-
ished, he has not only preserved all the vivacious character of
the originals, but he has greatly heightened their beauty, by
the general tone and appropriate feeling which he has pre-
served and carried throughout his pictures.

Kidd worked intermittently on some such scheme
for about three years, and produced numerous pictures

9 Kidd, who was twenty-three at the time he began to work for Audubon,
died in 1889, when he had attained his eighty-first year.

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 447

on canvas or mill-board. He was thus engaged in 1833
when he wrote to ask for an advance of from twelve to
fourteen pounds on account of an accident that had
befallen him on the 16th of May of that year. Kidd
said in his letter that while he was attending a sale of
Lord Eldin's pictures, the floor of the building sud-
denly gave way with a crash and precipitated the whole
company, together with the furniture, into a room be-
low; that he had sustained many bruises himself, not
to speak of a dislocated arm, but what with blisters,
cupping, nurses and remedies of all sorts, he was then
slowly mending. Another of their projects was to
publish Kidd's copies of Audubon's drawings as indi-
vidual pieces, and a notice of this appeared in Black-
wood's Magazine for 1831. John Wilson, in reviewing
Audubon's work in the magazine for that year said:
"it is expected that there will be completed by Audu-
bon, Kidd, and others, — Four Hundred Subjects.
Audubon purposes opening, on his return [from
America], an Ornithological Gallery, of which may the
proceeds prove a moderate fortune!" All such plans,
however, seem to have been delayed or frustrated, and a
misunderstanding with Kidd brought them suddenly to
a close in 1833. Audubon's explicit directions under
this head were given in a letter to his son Victor, written
at Charleston on Christmas Day of that year.10

When his letterpress was finished, Audubon left
Edinburgh with Mrs. Audubon on April 15, 1831.
Newcastle, York, Leeds, and Manchester were again
visited, and a pause of several days was made at Liver-
pool before proceeding to London, when, as the natural-
ist recorded, they "traveled on that extraordinary road,
called the railway, at the rate of 24 miles an hour." Jjc\

10 See Chapter XXVI I, p. 62.

448 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

May " they visited Paris, Audubon no doubt wishing
to collect the money due from his agent there, as well
as to introduce his wife to the unrivaled attractions of
the great city. Upon returning to London in July he
had the pleasure of again meeting his fidus Achates,
Edward Harris,12 of Moorestown, New Jersey, and
immediately began to put his affairs in order for a long
period of absence.

While Audubon was in Paris, the following letter 13
was written by his staunch friend and supporter in Con-
gress, Edward Everett, who, as has been seen, fully ap-
preciated the national character of his great undertak-
ings. The effort of this able advocate to give The Birds
of America free passage to their native land, however,
do not appear to have been successful until two years
later, as a letter to be quoted in due course clearly indi-
cates.

Edward Everett to Audubon

Charlestown, Mass., May 19th, 1831.
My dear sir

I duly received your favor of the 1st. of Nov. accompanied
with some copies of the Prospectus, and a few days since your
letter of the 5th. March reached me. I owe you an apology
for being so tardy in my reply to the former letter. It reached
me at Washington, while I was confined with a severe illness.

II An indication of the time of this visit is given by the following
inscription written in the copy of the first volume of the Ornithological
Biography, which was presented to Cuvier at this time:

To

Baron G. Cuvier,
with the highest respect of the
author. —

Paris— 17 th. May, 1831.

12 On Wednesday evening, July 27, 1831, Audubon sent the following
note to Mr. Harris: "Come to meet me tomorrow, precisely at twelve
o'clock, at our lodgings, 121 Great Portland street."

13 For the perusal of this letter the reader is indebted, as in so many
other instances, to Mr. Ruthven Deane.

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 449

with which, since Oct. last, I have till lately been much afflicted.
I was, most of the session, in such a state of health, as to be
kept at my lodgings, and when in my place, in the House of
Representatives, little able to attend to business. As soon as
I went abroad, after the receipt of your letter, I consulted
some of the most influential members of Congress, as to the
probability of being able to pass a bill for the free introduc-
tion of your work. Last winters session was the short session,
terminating by the Constitution on the 3d. of March. At this
session, it is always very difficult to pass any bills, originating
during the session. The time is regularly taken up by bills,
prepared the previous winter. In addition to this circum-
stance, more than half of the last session was taken up, by an
impeachment before the Senate. A procedure, which suspended
during its continuance, the legislative business of the two
Houses, and left no time for scarce anything, beyond the
annual appropriation bills for the support of the government.
Under these circumstances, the gentlemen, whom I consulted,
were of opinion with me that it was impossible, for want of
time, to pass a bill in your favor, and that it was therefor
better not to attempt it, at the late session, but to reserve it
for next winter, when it can be brought up seasonably, and
with good hope of success. I shall take great pleasure to seize
the first moment, at the opening of the next session, to bring
the subject before Congress.

The portions of your work, which arrived at Washington
before I left it, were publicly exhibited in the library, and
attracted great attention and unqualified admiration. The
same is true of the copy received by the Boston Athenaeum.
The plates were specially exhibited in the great hall of the
Athenaeum, to the entire satisfaction and delight of those who
saw them.

The copy-right law authorizes any citizen of the U. States
to take out a copy-right of his work, on depositing a printed
copy of the title page in the office of the District Court. I
infer from your letter of the 5th. of March, that you had sent
copies of the printed sheets of your work to Drs. Harlan and

450 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

M. Mertrie [McMurtie] of Philadelphia with a view of hav-
ing the copy-right.

I have distributed a part of your prospectuses, and shall do
the same with the rest, in the manner that may seem most likely
to promote your interest. I regret to say, that I have not yet
been able to add another, to the list of your subscribers.

You mention, in each of your letters, the little picture you
were so kind, as to propose sending me. This alone leads me
to say, that whenever it comes to hand, it will be most wel-
come : but that, engaged as you are in laboring in the cause
of science and of America, you must not feel obliged to con-
sume one hour of your precious time at the sacrifice of those
higher objects.

I am happy to be able to say to you, that my health, though
not wholly restored, is greatly improved, and that if you will
continue to favor me with your commands, I will prove my-
self, hereafter, a more punctual correspondent.

I look forward with sincere pleasure, to the prospect of
meeting you again, on this side of the Atlantic, and with my
respectful compliments to Mrs. Audubon, I beg leave, dear sir,
to tender you the assurance of my high respects, and with it
my most friendly salutations.

Edward Everett.

P. S. Since the foregoing was written, I have received your
favor of the 23d. of April. I beg leave particularly to thank
you for your kindness in reference to the picture. I shall
prize it, not merely on account of its scientific value and beauty
as a work of art, (both of which I feel assured it will be found
to possess) but as a token of your friendly regard. It will
give me great pleasure to furnish you any letters in my power,
for your adventurous south western tour. These I shall have
the pleasure of handing you, when we meet this side the
water.

You were elected in November last a fellow of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, on the nomination which I had
the honor to submit to that body. Owing to a change in the

AUDUBON'S LETTERPRESS 451

secretaryship a delay arose in preparing your diploma, which
will however be forwarded in a few days.

Upon balancing his accounts with The Birds of
America at about this time, Audubon thought it was
truly remarkable that $40,000 should have passed
through his hands for the completion of the first volume.

Who would believe that once in London I had only a
sovereign left in my pocket, and did not know to whom to
apply for another, when at the verge of failure; above all,
that I extricated myself from all my difficulties, not by borrow-
ing money, but by rising at four o'clock in the morning, work-
ing hard all day, and disposing of my works at a price which
a common labourer would have thought little more than suffi-
cient remuneration for his work? To give you an idea of my
actual difficulties during the publication of my first volume, it
will be sufficient to say, that in the four years required to
bring that volume before the world, no less than fifty of my
subscribers, representing the sum of fifty-six thousand dol-
lars, abandoned me! And whenever a few withdrew I was
forced to leave London, and go to the provinces, to obtain
others to supply their places, in order to enable me to raise
the money to meet the expenses of engraving, coloring, paper,
printing . . .; and that with all my constant exertions, fa-
tigues, and vexations, I find myself now having but one hundred
and thirty standing names on my list.

t^Ts^e*— <^?^:^fc??£>1^£>_^)

AFTER PORTRAIT BV GEORGE P. A. HEALY, 18J8 ; ORIGINAL IN POSSESSION
OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY.

AUDUBON

THE

NATURALIST
VOLUME II

SONNET

TO J. J. AUDUBON, ESQ., ON BEHOLDING HIS DRAWINGS.

Is there delight in Nature's solitudes,

Her dark green woods, and fragrant wilderness,
In scenes, where seldom human step intrudes,

And she is in her wildest, loveliest dress?
Is there delight in her uncultured flowers,

Each ripened bloom or bright unfolding dye,
Or in the tribes which animate her bowers,

And through her groves in living beauty fly?
Then, on thy canvas as they move and live,

While taste and genius guide the fair design,
And all the charms which Nature's works can give

With equal radiance in thy colours shine;
Amidst the praise thy coiintry's sons extend,

The stranger's voice its warm applause shall blend.

J. E. R. [Jane Elizabeth Roscoe].
The Winter's Wreath, 1832.

AUDUBON

THE

NATURALIST

CHAPTER XXVI

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA AND THE SOUTH

ATLANTIC

Obituary published in London on day of his arrival in New York — As-
sistance from the Government — John Bachman becomes his friend-
Winter in Charleston— His folios as gifts— To Florida with two as-
sistants— Letters to Featherstonhaugh — St. Augustine — Misadventures
in the mud of East Florida — Audubon on Florida's future — At the
sources of the St. John's— Aboard the Marion — Return from Key
West — A merchant of Savannah— Disbanding of party at Charleston.

In the summer of 1831 Audubon felt that he must
again return to America and extend his researches to
the north, south and west, as well as begin a campaign
for subscribers in the United States. His large folio
was now running into its second volume, and the first
installment of his text had been published ; the time was
favorable to his plans, and he hoped to remain in the
country two or three years.

For the second time the publication of his plates
was entrusted to friend Children, and with Mrs. Audu-
bon he set sail for New York on August 2, 1831. From
the American metropolis he wrote to Joseph B. Kidd
on September 7 as follows : *

1 Quoted by Captain Thomas Brown (Bibl. No. 163) in the Edin-
burgh Caledonian Mercury, November 3, 1831.

1

2 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

We landed on the 3d . . . [of September] after a re-
markably fine passage of 33 days. In two days more I pro-
ceed to the woods, and away from white man's tracks and
manners. I hope you are going on well with your work. . . .
I have a new subscriber here. The papers and scientific
journals (we have not many,) are singing the praises of my
work, and, God willing, I may yet come out at the broad end
of the horn ; at all events, I will either break it or make a
spoon! I shot sixteen birds on the passage, which I got through
the kind attention of our commander. I killed fifty more,
when the "Columbia" was going too fast to stop for the pur-
pose of picking them up. My young man is now busily engaged
in skinning, and killed a bag-full of warblers yesterday . . .
prices of peaches, first quality, 75 cents per bushel, — apples,
half that price; — water melons are dull of sale, as also cante-
lopes and nutmeg melons. Fish alive in the markets, and,
vive la joie, no taxes on shooting or fishing."

What Audubon actually did was to proceed to
Philadelphia, where Mrs. Audubon left him to visit her
sons in Louisville, and where he laid his plans for ex-
ploring the Southern States, especially the islands and
eastern coast of the Florida peninsula. For this expedi-
tion he engaged two assistants, one of whom was Henry
Ward, the "young man" mentioned above, an English-
man who had come with him to America as taxidermist,
while the other was George Lehman, a Swiss landscape
painter whom he seems to have found at Philadelphia.
With them he soon started for Washington to obtain
assistance from the Government.

On the very day that Audubon landed in New York,
there appeared in the London Literary Gazette a serio-
comic notice under the title of "Wilson the Ornitholo-
gist," who, it may be remembered, had died in Phila-
delphia eighteen years before. Said the editor of the
Gazette:

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 3

We observe with sorrow an account of the death and burial
of poor Wilson, somewhere in the state of Philadelphia, even
while the Edinburgh journals are anticipating his return, laden
with scientific treasures. We have now before us No. 1 of his
Illustrations of American Ornithology, on a reduced scale, to
sort with Professor Jameson's edition — a pretty and attrac-
tive publication. The coloured prints are extremely correct
and well done.

When on September 8 the Edinburgh Caledonian Mer-
cury had called attention to this egregious blunder re-
garding Wilson, the Gazette explained that his name
had been confused with that of Audubon, whose obit-
uary presently appeared in its issue of October 29, the
editor remarking that this naturalist's death was equally,
if not more, to be deplored than that of Wilson. Cap-
tain Brown then sent to the Caledonian Mercury Audu-
bon's letter to Kidd, quoted above, which was written
from New York four days after the naturalist's death
was announced in England. "What is the editor of the
Literary Gazette about," exclaimed a writer in the Edin-
burgh paper; "he first resuscitates a man who has been
dead 18 years, only to kill him again, and then, by way
of correcting his error, kills another, who is now clearly
proved to have been alive and well several days after
the date of his obituary in London."

As was often the case, Audubon's ambitious hopes
for exploring the continent far outran his means and
powers of accomplishment. Colonel John James
Abert, whose counsel he sought in Washington at this
time, said:2 "His plan is first to examine the peninsula

2 Extract of letter of Colonel Abert. See G. W. Featherstonhaugh
(Bibl. No. 164), Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural
Science, vol. i, p. 229 (1831).

John James Abert (1788-1863), long associated with the Bureau of
Topographical Engineers of the United States Army, became brevet

4 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

of Florida; then the regions west of the Mississippi,
Mexico, and if possible penetrate into California. He
also contemplates crossing the Rocky Mountains and
pursuing the Columbia River to its mouth, and thinks
that he will be absent from us about two years." In
November G. W. Featherstonhaugh, the geologist, also
made this announcement in his Monthly American Jour-
nal of Geology and Natural Science:

We are authorized to state that information of the progress
of Mr. Audubon will be given, from time to time, to the scien-
tific world, in the pages of this journal.

We are gratified in being able to state, that he was received
in the most cordial manner, at Washington, and that the dis-
tinguished gentlemen in authority there, have given him such
letters to the military posts on the frontiers, as will assure
him the aid and protection his personal safety may require.
We anticipate the most interesting reconnaisances, both geo-
logical and zoological, from this enterprising naturalist, who
is accompanied by Mr. Lehman, as an assistant draftsman, and
by an assistant collector who came with him from Europe.

The "distinguished gentlemen" at Washington who
particularly aided Audubon at this time, besides Colonel

lieutenant-colonel in charge of that office in 1837; according to Ruthven
Deane (see Bibliography, No. 216), he was an organizer of the National
Institute of Science, afterwards merged with the Smithsonian Institution
at Washington; an ardent friend of Audubon, he assisted him in many
ways, and, as Dr. Richard Harlan affirmed, paid dearly for his support
by being rejected for membership in the American Philosophical Society
at Philadelphia. Harlan wrote to Audubon on January 27, 1832, that
out of twenty-five members present on the occasion referred to, five, led
by Mr. George Ord, Mr. Isaac Lea, and Dr. Hays, had voted against
him: in his opinion no possible grounds could be found for opposing
so desirable a member excepting his friendship for Audubon and his
support of the snake "Episode" (see Chapter XXVIII). In 1832 Abert's
paper on the "Habits of Climbing of the Rattlesnake," which was written
in the previous year, had appeared in a Philadelphia journal (see
Bibliography, No. 107). To this friend Abert's Squirrel, Sciurus abcrti,
was later dedicated; see Audubon, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North
America (Bibl. No. 6), plate 153.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 5

Abert, were Edward Everett, Levi Woodbury, Secre-
tary of the Navy, and Lewis McLane, Secretary of the
Treasury. He was particularly anxious to obtain ac-
commodation for his party aboard a government vessel,
but it was some time before a suitable one was available.
They left Washington about October 15, 1831, and went
by steamer to Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia, where
the Governor, John Floyd, whom Audubon had known
in his Kentucky days, gave him numerous letters of
introduction. At Charleston, their next stopping-place,
he had hardly begun work in the field when he was
sought out by the Rev. John Bachman, by inclination
a naturalist of the old school and by profession a Luther-
an minister, who at once took the whole party under
his hospitable roof, where they remained a month. Thus
began a life-long and almost ideal friendship between
these two men, so unlike in character, in temperament
and in training, which was quite as important to the
modest German- American divine as to the impulsive
Franco- American painter and student of birds. It was
Audubon's infectious enthusiasm which kindled to an
ardent flame that love of nature which was innate in
Bachman, and which eventually brought his name and
work to the attention of the scientific world.

Audubon remained at Charleston with the Bachmans
until November 15, when the opportunity which they
had awaited came suddenly, and they sailed for St. Au-
gustine, Florida, on the government schooner Agnes.
On that day Bachman wrote to Mrs. Audubon, in com-
pliance "with a request of your kind and worthy hus-
band, who laid an injunction on me this morning": 3

3C. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No. 191),
to which work I am indebted for numerous extracts from Bachman's
letters to Audubon and for various incidents relating to the different
members of both families.

6 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The last has been one of the happiest months of my life.
I was an enthusiastic admirer of nature from my boyhood, and
fond of every branch of Natural History. Ornithology is, as
a science, pursued by very few persons — and by none in this
city. How gratifying was it, then, to become acquainted with
a man, who knew more about birds than any man now living —
and who, at the same time, was communicative, intelligent, and
amiable, to an extent seldom found associated in the same in-
dividual. He has convinced me that I was but a novice in the
study ; and besides receiving many lessons from him in Ornithol-
ogy, he has taught me how much can be accomplished by a
single individual, who will unite enthusiasm with industry. For
the short month he remained with my family, we were in-
separable. We were engaged in talking about Ornithology —
in collecting- birds — in seeing them prepared, and in laying
plans for the accomplishment of that great work which he has
undertaken. Time passed rapidly away, and it seems but as
yesterday since we met, and now, alas ! he is already separated
from me — and in all human probability we shall never meet
again. ... I need not inform you that Mr. Audubon was
a general favorite in our city. His gentlemanly deportment,
his travels and experience, his information and general tal-
ents, caused him to be sought after by all. But your husband
knew that the great objects before him required his unremitted
attention, and he was obliged to deny himself to his friends,
on many occasions, and devoted to them only his evenings.

There seems quite a blank, in my house, since K? has gone,
for we looked on him as one of our family. He taught my
sister, Maria, to draw birds ; and she has now such a passion
for it, that whilst I am writing, she is drawing a Bittern, put
up for her at daylight by Mr. Audubon.

On December 23 Bachman wrote to Audubon:
"Your visit to me gave me new life, induced me to go
carefully over my favorite study, and made me and my
family happy." His sister-in-law, Miss Maria Martin,

BEECHGROVE, WILLIAM GARRETT JOHNSONS PLANTATION HOUSE IN WEST FELI-
CIANA PARISH, LOUISIANA, WHERE MRS. AUDUBON LIVED AND
TAUGHT FOR TWO YEARS, 1837-1829.

After a photograph by Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur, 1916.

JOHN BACHMAN'S HOUSE IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.

After a photograph in possession of Mr. Ruthven Deane.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 7

who possessed considerable artistic talent, became one of
Audubon's enthusiastic helpers, and not only drew birds
for him but painted many of the flowers and insects
which were later used for the embellishment of his plates.
John Bachman's serious contributions to natural history
also date from this visit. To repay him and his family
for their hospitality, Audubon presented them with the
first volume of The Birds of America, but the folio was
not received until some time later; he was referring to
this when he wrote to Bachman, just before sailing from
New York, on April 5, 1834, and asked him to accept
"the superbly bound book" from "your old Friend, in
part atonement for the troubles I have given you, and
the leatherings you may yet receive at my hands at
chess." In a letter to Miss Martin, written also from
New York on the following day, he said: "The Great
Volume which Maj. Glassel did fortunately return into
your hands, I give with all my heart to my valued
friends, the Bachmans, and shall try to furnish them
the sequel in like binding." 4

Audubon scattered detached plates and numbers of
his large work freely among his friends, and sometimes
spoke of a gift of the whole. The costly nature of such
a present in most cases, no doubt, led to a change of
mind if not of heart, but not in all, for a number of his
presentation copies still exist. One was given to David
Eckley 5 of Boston, a noted sportsman who had aided

4 This "Great Volume," bound in fine Russia leather, was still in pos-
session of the Bachman family in 1888, and is said to represent one of
the earliest impressions of the plates, which Audubon had selected and
used for exhibition purposes. See C. L. Bachman, op. cit., p. 101.

°This unique copy of The Birds of America bears the inscription:
To my worthy Friend

D d. Eckley, Esq., of [Boston]
this volume is given with
his sincere and good wishes.

John J. Audubon.

8 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon in collecting materials for his work. In a
letter written at Charleston, January 1, 1837, to young
Thomas M. Brewer, Audubon said: "Please to call on
my good friend David Eckley, Esq., present to him and
to his family my very best regards, and ask of him
whether he has collected any hawks or owls for me. If
so, take them from him, and place them in the general
receptacle of 'pale-faced rum.' Another copy is said
to be in possession of the Public Library of Manchester,
England, and to have been bequeathed to that institu-
tion by the Earl of Crawford. A complete set of the
Birds was also presented to his friends, the Rathbones
of Liverpool, and is still in possession of the family.
We shall now return to our narrative and fulfill our
promise of reproducing Audubon's own account of his
journey from Richmond to Florida:6

Audubon to G. W. F 'eather stonhaugh

I am now seated in earnest to give you an unceremonious
summary of my proceedings up to this time, since we left Rich-
mond, in Virginia. As a geologist, I venture to suppose you
Would have been but indifferently amused, if you had been with
us in our journey from this latter place to Charleston, in
South Carolina ; and as an ornithologist, I cannot boast of the

The plates thus dedicated were unbound, and apparently in their
original covers, which consisted of plain brown sheets. They passed
through the hands of Messrs. Burrows Brothers' Company, Cleveland, to
Mr. Robert H. Sayre of South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and were
originally received by the American dealers from the Messrs. Sotheran &
Company of London. Possibly this was the set mentioned by Coues, who
says "Triibner . . . quotes the work with plain plates. I have never
seen one in that condition" (Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 612; Bibl. No.
181). After Mr. Sayre's death, his library was dispersed by public auction
at Philadelphia, when this complete set of Audubon plates, though in an
uncolored state, brought .^3,200; see Public Ledger, November 9, 1907. But
according to Ruthven Deane the Sayre plates were colored.

6 Letter (No. 1) from Audubon to the editor of the Monthly Ameri-
can Journal of Geology arid Natural Science (Bibl. No. 34), published in
vol. i, p. 358 (1832) ; dated "St. Augustine, East Florida, Dec. 7, 1831."

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 9

enjoyment I found; poor coaches, dragged through immense,
deserted pine forests, miserable fare, and neither birds nor
quadrupeds to be seen. We at length approached Charleston,
and the view of that city from across the bay was hailed by
our party with unfeigned delight. Charmed, as we were, with
having terminated our dreary journey, it did not occur to us
to anticipate the extraordinary hospitality which awaited us
there, and which led to a residence of a few of the happiest
weeks I ever passed.

I had passed but one night in the city, when I was pre-
sented to the Rev. Mr. . This benevolent man, whom I am

proud to call my friend would not suffer the "American Woods-
man" to repose any where but under his roof ; and not him
alone — all his assistants too. When I tell you that he was
an old friend of Alexander Wilson, that he shoots well, is an
ornithologist, a philosophical naturalist, and that during the
time we enjoyed his hospitality, he took us all over the country
with his carriages and servants, in search of specimens, and
that he was every thing a kind brother could be to me, you
may suppose that it is with great sincerity I say, and ever
shall say, God bless him ! When I first saw this excellent man,
he was on horseback, but upon my being named to him, he
leaped from his saddle, suffered his horse to stand at liberty,
and gave me his hand with a pressure of cordiality that elec-
trified me. I saw in his eyes that all he said was good and
true ; and although he spoke of my labours in terms far ex-
ceeding what is due to them, I listened to him pretty well as-
sured that he did not intend me to play the part of Gil Bias
over again ; for myself, my assistants, George Lehman and
Henry Ward, were removed in a jiffy to his own mansion, in-
troduced to the family, and at work the very next morning.

Although the weather was "shockingly hot," they
prepared three hundred specimens, embracing about

These letters, which were hurriedly written in the field, appeared in
a short-lived and forgotten publication; they are here given in part on
account of the general interest of the narrative.

10 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

sixty land and water birds, and sent all the "pickled

specimens to our mutual friend H " [Dr. Harlan, of

Philadelphia] for safe keeping until their return.

I jumped at once into my wood-hunting habits. All hands
of us were up before day-break, and soon at work, either in
the way of shooting, taking views, or drawing birds ; after
sunset — scribbling in our journals. ... In the early part of
November the alligators had gone into their winter quarters ;
the migratory birds were passing swiftly on towards the south,
although we had had no frost. The planters considered the
country as still unhealthy, and resorted to the city at night.
If I had been governed by the practice and advice of many, I
should not have put a foot in the mud, either salted or fresh ; but
difficulties of this character must be disregarded by the Ameri-
can woodsman, while success, or the hope of it, is before him.

It is impossible to do justice to the generous feelings of
the Charlestonians, or to their extreme kindness towards me.
Many of the gentlemen took the greatest interest in my pur-
suits ; one, Dr. , presented me with an excellent New

Foundland dog, and other valuable memorials of his regard.
Another, Dr. , gave me a collection of shells, from the adja-
cent waters. The ladies presented me with a capital supply of
snuff.7 Desirous of going to Cole's Island, distant about 25 or
30 miles, to look after some marine birds, a boat, four hands
and a pilot, were immediately offered to me, free of all ex-
pense, with the liberty to detain them as long as was agree-
able to me. It is not possible for me to express properly the
sense I feel of the kindness I received from that warm-hearted
and intelligent people.

And now, as you have good naturedly listened to what I
have felt bound to say on the score of gratitude, I will tell you
what I know you are impatient to come to — something about
my proceedings at Cole's Island. It lies south from Charleston
about 25 or 30 miles ; there we arrived and encamped for the

See Audubon's New Year's resolution against snuff, Vol. I, p. 396.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 11

night: certain beef-steaks we brought with us we roasted upon
sticks, and the adjacent shore provided us with excellent
oysters : gaiety, good appetites, and our hearts all right, made
the time pass pleasantly, and it was with some reluctance we
spread our blankets, and arranged the fire preparatory to go-
ing to rest. Nothing is more valuable to a naturalist, and
particularly to an ornithologist, than the first hours of the
day ; therefore, long ere the sun had glowed over the broad
sea that lay before our camp, we had reached another island
where birds resort to roost by thousands ; but, notwithstanding
these multitudes, not a new species did we procure. We, how-
ever, had the pleasure of observing two noble "birds of Wash-
ington," 8 sailing majestically over the broad watery face.

But it was necessary to bring my stay in Charleston to a
close, and it was somewhat difficult too. My friends had in-
creased in number ; they were in the habit of accompanying
me in my shooting excursions ; I was becoming very much at-
tached to them ; invitations poured in from various parts of the
country ; and I really believe that had I been willing, we might
have remained there and in the neighborhood, if not all our
lives, at least as long as would have caused a rare scarcity of
the feathered tribes, in that portion of the Carolinas. But
my mind was among the birds farther south, — the Floridas,
Red River, the Arkansas, that almost unknown country, Cali-
fornia, and the Pacific ocean. I felt myself drawn to the un-
tried scenes of those countries, and it was necessary to tear my-
self away from the kindest friends.

We embarked on the schooner Agnes ; the wind was fair,
and we hoisted all sails for the Floridas. Our passage was
not short ; the wind changed, and we put back into St. Simon's
Island Bay. This was one of the few put backs in life of a
fortunate kind for me. I made for the shore, met a gentleman
on the beach, presented him my card, and was immediately
invited to dinner. I visited his gardens, got into such agree-
able conversation and quarters, that I was fain to think that

8 See Vol. I, p. 400.

12 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

I had landed on some one of those fairy islands said to
have existed in the golden age. But this was not all ; the owner
of this hospitable mansion pressed me to stay a month with him,
and subscribed to my Birds of America in the most gentle-
manly manner. This was T. B. K., Esq.9 But the wind
shifted; I was sent for, and our voyage to St. Augustine re-
sumed.

St. Augustine, whatever it may have been, is far from be-
ing a flourishing place now. It lies at the bottom of a bay,
extremely difficult of access, even for vessels of light draft,
which seldom reach the "city" in less than a day. I cannot say
much for the market, nor for the circumjacent country.
Oranges and plenty of good fish seem to contribute the wealth
of the place. Sands, poor pine forests, and impenetrable thick-
ets of cactus and palmettos form the undergrowth. Birds are
rare, and very shy; and with all our exertions, we have not
collected one hundred skins in a fortnight that we have been
here. I have received many kind attentions, and numerous
invitations to visit plantations, on our way to the south, where I
shall direct my steps in a few days. I have drawn seventeen
species, among which one mongrel vulture, which I think will
prove new. You will see it, I hope, very soon.

I will give you a sketch of our manner of passing the time.
We are up before day, and our toilette is soon made. If
the day is to be spent at drawing, Lehman and I take a walk,
and Ward, his gun, dog, and basket, returning when hungry
or fatia-ued, or both. We draw uninterruptedly till dusk,
after which, another walk, then write up journals, and retire to
rest early. When we have nothing on hand to draw, the guns
are cleaned over night, a basket of bread and cheese, a bottle
with old whiskey, and some water, is prepared. We get into
a boat, and after an hour of hard rowing, we find ourselves in
the middle of most extensive marshes, as far as the eye can
reach. The boat is anchored, and we £ro wading through
mud and water, amid myriads of sand-flies and mosquitoes,

"Thomas Butler King, of St. Simon's Island, Georgia.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 13

shooting here and there a bird, or squatting down on our hams
for half an hour, to observe the ways of the beautiful beings
we are in pursuit of. This is the way in which we spend the
day. At the approach of evening, the cranes, herons, pelicans,
curlews, and the trains of blackbirds are passing high over our
heads, to their roosting places; then we also return to ours.
If some species are to draw the next day, and the weather is
warm, they are outlined that same evening, to save them from
incipient putridity. I have ascertained that feathers lose their
brilliancy almost as rapidly as flesh or skin itself, and am of
opinion that a bird alive is 75 per cent more rich in colours
than twenty-four hours after its death; we therefore skin
those first which have been first killed, and the same evening.
All this, added to our other avocations, brings us into the night
pretty well fatigued. Such, my dear friend, is the life of an
active naturalist ; and such, in my opinion, it ought to be. It
is nonsense ever to hope to see in the closet what is only to
be perceived — as far as the laws, arrangements and beauties of
ornithological nature is concerned, — by that devotion of time,
opportunities, and action, to which I have consecrated my
life, not without hope that science may benefit by my labours.
As to geology, my dear Friend, you know as well as my-
self, that I am not in the country for that. The instructions
you gave me are very valuable, and I shall be vigilant. The
aspect of the country will soon begin to change, and as I pro-
ceed, I will write to you about all we see and do. . . . Do not
be afraid of my safety ; I take a reasonable care of my health
and life. I know how to guard against real difficulties, and
I have no time to attend to that worst of all kinds of diffi-
culties,— imaginary ones. Circumstances never within my con-
trol, threw me upon my own resources, at a very early period
of my life. I have grown up in the school of adversity, and
am not an unprofitable scholar there, having learnt to be satis-
fied with providing for my family and myself by my own exer-
tions. The life I lead is my vocation, full of smooth and rough
paths, like every vocation which men variously try. My physi-
cal constitution has always been good, and the fine flow of

14 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

spirits I have, has often greatly assisted me in some of the most
trying passages of my life. I know I am engaged in an arduous
undertaking; but if I live to complete it, I will offer to my
country a beautiful monument of the varied splendour of Ameri-
can nature, and of my devotion to American ornithology.

John James Audubon.

Ther., this day, at 2 p. m.,

78° Fahr.

On the following day, December 8, 1831, Audubon
sent the following request to Dr. Harlan of Philadel-
phia: "I wish you also to send me — to Key West — , 20
more pounds of powdered arsenic from Friend Weth-
erell's shop,10 and also a double barelled gun of usual
length, as good as you can procure for 30 dollars ; prob-
ably a second hand one may be procured; it must be
percussion and, if possible, back action." Dr. Richard
Harlan, who often transmitted to Mrs. Audubon any
news which came direct from her husband, wrote to her
on December 10, 1831, as follows: "

I have just recd a letter from Mr Aud — dated St. Augus-
tine Nov. 24th they enjoy health amidst their fatiguing avoca-
tions— has obtained another subscriber, living on S1- Simons
island named Th°- Butler King — to whom I am to send the
work as soon as the Copies exported arrive from London — he
has good expectations of adding some new birds to his list —
have you seen the Sonnet addressed to Mr Aud. in the "Wreath"
a London annual for 1832? — under the signature of J. E. R?
— our newspapers announce the arrival, departure & progress
of Mr Audubon, as if he was an Embassador — and so he is,
one of Natures

10 Then belonging to the four sons of Samuel Wetherill, who suc-
ceeded to the white lead and drugs industry after his death in 1829.

11 For the favor of reproducing this and another letter by Dr. Harlan
given in Chapter XXVII, as well as the sonnet referred to, which will be
found facing page 1 of this volume, I am indebted to Mr. Ruthven Deane.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 15

The winter season at St. Augustine proved unfavor-
able for the naturalist's work, and he anxiously awaited
the coming of the government vessel, the Spark, to the
commander of which he bore letters from Washington.
After spending about three weeks in the neighborhood
of the city, the party proceeded through the inlet which
divides Anastasia Island from the mainland, to the
plantation of General Hernandez, thirty-five miles dis-
tant, where they were entertained for ten days. On
Christmas morning they set out afoot for the plantation
of John Bulow, of Bulowville, fifteen miles away. To
follow the naturalist's account:

A wagon was sent for our baggage and horses for our-
selves were offered at the same time, but it was not my desire
to give unnecessary trouble, and above all upon an occasion
when I was glad to see the country in as much detail as pos-
sible, and anxious to avail myself of every occasion to get new
birds.

During the whole long stay with Mr. Bulow, there was no
abatement of his kindness, or his unremitted efforts to make me
comfortable, and to promote my researches. I shall ever feel
grateful to one of the most deserving and generous of men.

On December 28 their host proposed that they should
descend the Halifax River in search of new and valu-
able birds to a point about forty miles from that place
and eighty miles from St. Augustine.12

Accordingly, the boat, six hands, and '''three white men"
with some provisions, put off with a fair wind, and a pure sky.
. . . We meandered down a creek for about eleven miles — the
water torpid yet clear — the shore lined with thousands of
acres covered by fall grapes, marshes, and high palm trees,

12 The following account is quoted from Audubon's second letter
to G. W. Featherstonhaugh (Bibl. No. 35), dated "Bulowville, East Florida,
December 31, 1831;" published, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 407 (1832).

16 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

rendering the shore quite novel to my anxious eye. Some birds
were shot, and secured so as to be brought back, in order to
undergo the skinning operation. Before long we entered the
Halifax river, an inland arm of the sea, measuring in breadth
from a quarter to nearly a mile.

They reached a spot, called "Live Oak Landing,"
where a schooner from New York was then anchored,
and there passed the night.

At sunrise the next morning, I and four negro servants
proceeded in search of birds and adventures. The fact is,
that I was anxious to kill some 25 brown Pelicans ... to
enable me to make a new drawing of an adult male bird, and
to procure the dresses of the others. I proceeded along a
narrow, shallow bay, where the fish were truly abundant. Would
you believe it, if I were to say, that the fish nearly obstructed
our head-way? Believe it, or not, so it was; the waters were
filled with them, large and small. I shot some rare birds, and
putting along the shore, passed a point, when lo, I came in
sight of several hundred pelicans, perched on the branches
of mangrove trees, seated in comfortable harmony, as near each
other as the strength of the boughs would allow. I ordered to
back water gently ; the hands backed water. I waded to the
shore under cover of the rushes along it, saw the pelecans fast
asleep, examined their countenances and deportment well and
leisurely, and after all, levelled, fired my piece, and dropped
two of the finest specimens I ever saw. I really believe I would
have shot one hundred of these reverend sirs, had not a mis-
take taken place in the reloading of my gun. A mistake, how-
ever, did take place, and to my utmost disappointment, I saw
each pelecan, old and young, leave his perch, and take to
wing, soaring off, well pleased, I dare say, at making so good
an escape from so dangerous a foe.

After shooting more birds, and pushing or pulling
their boat "over oyster banks sharp as razors," they

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 17

made the schooner at the landing again. "The birds,
generally speaking," he continues, "appeared wild and
few — you must be aware that I call birds few, when I
shoot less than one hundred per day."

Such remarks as we have just quoted might convey
the impression that the American woodsman, with whose
name the cause of bird protection is now associated in
this country, was a reckless destroyer of all bird life,
but this was far from the case. It must be remembered
that this was over eighty years ago, when the unrivaled
abundance of our birds was such that the necessity of
their conservation had hardly entered the dreams of the
most discerning. Audubon no doubt had gradually
yielded to the prevalent mania for describing and figur-
ing new species, and to make out all the minute specific
differences a large series of specimens was necessary;
still more were needed for the detection of individual
variation, which did not escape him, and much less his
assistant, William MacGillivray, who demanded large
numbers for his anatomical studies. Furthermore,
Audubon counted upon defraying a part of his expenses
by collections of skins of American birds, which were
then desiderata among the museums of Europe.13

When it was proposed that they should return,

preparations were accordingly made, and we left the schooner,
with tide and wind in our teeth, and with the prospect of a
severe, cold night. Our hands pulled well, and our bark was
as light as our hearts. All went on merrily until dark night
came on. The wind freshening, the cold augmenting, the pro-
visions diminishing, the waters lowering, all — all depreciating
except our enterprising dispositions. We found ourselves fast
in the mud about 300 yards from a marshy shore, without the
least hope of being able to raise a fire, for no trees except palm

13 See Vol. II, p. 129.

18 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

trees were near, and the grand diable himself could not burn
one of them. Our minds were soon made up to do — what?
Why, to roll ourselves in our cloaks, and lay down, the best way
we could, at the bottom of our light and beautiful barque.
Good God, what a night ! To sleep was impossible ; the cold in-
creased with the breeze, and every moment seemed an hour,
from the time we stretched ourselves down until the first glimpse
of the morn ; but the morn came, clear as ever morn was, and
the north-easter as cold as ever wind blew in this latitude. All
hands half dead, and masters as nearly exhausted as the hands
— stiffened with cold, light-clothed, and but slight hope of our
nearing any shore ; our only resort was, to leap into the mire,
waste-deep, and to push the barque to a point, some five hun-
dred or six hundred yards, where a few scrubby trees seem to
have grown to save our lives on this occasion. "Push, boys,
push ! Push for your lives !", cry the generous Bulow, and the
poor Audubon. — "All hands push !" Aye and well might we
push : the mire was up to our breasts, our limbs becoming
stiffened at every step we took. Our progress was slowly per-
formed as if we had been clogged with heavy chains. It took
us two and a half hours to reach the point, where the few
trees of which I have spoken were; but, thank God, we did get
there.

We landed . . . and well it was that we did ; for on reach-
ing the margin of the marsh, two of the negroes fell down in
the marsh, as senseless as torpidity ever rendered an alligator,
or a snake; and had we, the white men, not been there, they
certainly would have died. We had carried them into the little
grove, to which, I believe, all of us owe our lives. I struck a
fire in a crack; and, in five minutes, I saw, with indescribable
pleasure, the bright, warming blaze in a log pile in the center
of our shivering party. We wrapped the negroes in their blan-
kets— boiled some water, and soon had some tea — made them
swallow it, and with care revived them into animation. May
God preserve you from being ever in the condition of our
party at this juncture; scarcely a man able to stand, and the
cold wind blowing as keenly as ever. Our men, however, gradu-

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 19

ally revived — the trees, one after another, fell under the
hatchet, and increased our fire — and in two hours I had the
pleasure of seeing cheerful faces again.

Their predicament, however, was still serious, for, to
continue the narrative, they were

confined in a large salt marsh, with rushes head high, and
miry; no provisions left, and fifteen miles from the house of
their host.

Not a moment was to be lost, for I foresaw that the next
night would prove much colder still. The boat was manned
once more, and off through the mud we moved to double the
point, and enter the creek, of which I have spoken, with the
hope that in it we should find water enough to float her. It did
happen so, thank God ! As we once more saw our barque afloat,
our spirits rose, — and rose to such a pitch that we in fun set
fire to the whole marsh: crack, crack, crack! went the reeds,
with a rapid blaze. We saw the marsh rabbits, scampering
from the fire by the thousands, as we pulled our oars.

Their pleasure in being afloat was short-lived, for
"the northeaster had well nigh emptied the creek of its
usual quantum of water," and they were again obliged
to wade to effect a landing, their object being to gain
the east Florida coast and thus make their escape. This
was finally attained after abandoning their boat, when
began a long tramp on the beach, in the teeth of the
wind,

through sand that sent our feet back six inches at every step
of two feet that we made. Well, through this sand we all
waded, for many a long mile, picking up here and there a shell
that is nowhere else to be found, until we reached the landing
place of J. J. Bulow. Now, my heart, cheer up once more, for
the sake of my most kind host. ... I assure you, I was glad
to see him nearing his own comfortable roof; and as we saw

20 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the large house opening to view, across his immense plantation,
I anticipated a good dinner with as much pleasure as I ever
experienced.

All hands returned alive; refreshments and good care have
made us all well again, unless it be the stiffness occasioned in
my left leg, by nearly six weeks of daily wading through
swamps and salt marshes, or scrambling through the vilest
thickets of scrubly live oaks and palmitoes that appear to have
been created for no other purpose but to punish us for our
sins.

Readers of the following account who have visited
eastern Florida may conclude that Audubon was not a
good prophet, but probably at that early day no one
could have made a better forecast of the future :

The land, if land it can be called, is generally so very sandy
that nothing can be raised upon it. The swamps are the only
spots that afford a fair chance for cultivation; the swamps,
then, are positively the only places where plantations are to
be found. These plantations are even few in number; along
the coast from St. Augustine to Cape Carnaveral, there are
about a dozen. These, with the exception of two or three, are
yet young plantations. General Hernandez's, J. J. Bulow's,
and Mr. Durham's are the strongest, and perhaps the best.
Sugar cane will prosper, and doubtless do well ; but the labour
necessary to produce a good crop, is great! great!! great!!!
Between the swamps of which I now speak, and which are found
along the margin laying west of the sea inlet, that divides the
main land from the Atlantic, to the river St. John of the in-
terior of the peninsula, nothing exists but barren pine lands
of poor timber, and immense savannas, mostly overflowed, and
all unfit for cultivation. That growth, which in any other
country is called underwood, scarcely exists; the land being
covered with low palmitoes, or very low, thickly branched
dwarf oaks, almost impenetrable to man. The climate is of
a most unsettled nature, at least at this season. The thermom-

EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWING IN WATER-COLOR OF THE CAROLINA PARROT, ON

BRANCH OF THE HICKORY, DATED "HENDERSON, JUNE 9TH, 1811."

THE ORIGINAL BEARS THE NOTE: "POOR IMITATION OF COLOR,

THE NATURAL BIRD BEING EXTREMELY GLOSSY

AND RICH."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 21

eter has made leaps from 30 to 89 degrees in 24 hours, cold,
warm, sandy, muddy, watery, — all these varieties may be seen
in one day's travelling. . . . Game and fish, it is true, are
abundant ; but the body of valuable tillable land is too small to
enable the peninsula ever to become a rich state.

On January 6, 1832, the party started to visit a
famous spring near the sources of the St. John's River,
which was described in his third letter to Featherston-
haugh as well as in a later "Episode." 14 There his host,
Colonel Rees, who utilized the abundant flow from this
curious spring for grinding the whole of his sugar cane,
took them down the Spring Garden Creek to a series
of muddy lakes which emptied into the St. John's. The
mud on this occasion was the cause of great disappoint-
ment to the naturalist, for it made it impossible for him
to recover what he believed to represent a new species of
Ibis, which was shot in one of those bottomless pits.
"Being only a few yards distant from us," to quote from
Audubon's third letter,15 "and quite near enough to
ascertain the extent of my loss, I submitted to lose a
fine pair of a new species, the which if I ever fall in
with it again, I shall call Tantalus fuscus."

When they had reached the borders of Woodruff's
Lake, after noon, fatigued and hungry, he continued :

We landed on a small island of a few acres, covered with a
grove of sour orange trees, intermixed with not a few live
oaks. The oranges were in great profusion on the trees — every-
thing about us was calm and beautiful and motionless, as if
it had just come from the hand of the Creator. It would have
been a perfect Paradise for a poet, but I was not fit to be in

"See following Note; and "Spring Garden," Ornithological Biography
(Bibl. No. 2), vol. ii, p. 263.

16 See Bibliography, No. 36 ; undated ; published, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 529
(1832).

22 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Paradise; the loss of my ibis made me as sour as the oranges
that hung about me. I felt unquiet, too, in this singular scene,
as if I were almost upon the verge of creation, where realities
were tapering off into nothing. The general wildness the eternal
labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked, and apparently
never ending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps —
all these things had a tendency to depress my spirits, notwith-
standing some beautiful flowers, rich looking fruits, a pure sky,
and ample sheets of water at my feet. Here I am in the Floridas,
thought I, a country that received its name from the odours
wafted from the orange groves, to the boats of the first dis-
coverers, and which from my childhood I have consecrated in
my imagination as the garden of the United States. A gar-
den, where all that is not mud, mud, mud, is sand, sand, sand ;
where the fruit is so sour that it is not eatable, and where
in place of singing birds and golden fishes, you have a species
of ibis that you cannot get when you have shot it, and alliga-
tors, snakes, and scorpions.

Mr. Bartram was the first to call this a garden, but he is
to be forgiven ; he was an enthusiastic botanist, and rare plants,
in the eyes of such a man, convert a wilderness at once into a
garden.

When we had eaten our humble repast at the sweet little
Orange Grove Island, we left it "alone with its glory," but not
without a name. It was determined, nolens volens, that it
should be called Audubon's Island, on the St. John's river.
Lat. 29° 42'.

Early in February, 1832, Lieutenant Piercy took
Audubon and his assistants aboard the government
schooner Spark at St. Augustine, and sailed for the
mouth of the St. John's River, which he had orders to
ascend in the interests of the Revenue Service. On Feb-
ruary 12, when they had reached a point one hundred
miles from the mouth of the river, the vessel, being in
need of repairs, was suddenly recalled. Audubon, with

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 23

two men, thereupon engaged a boat and attempted to
return to St. Augustine across country, by a short cut
to the eastward. They were soon stranded and the party
divided. Audubon with his dog and one companion then
endeavored to make their way by land to the town,
eighteen miles distant, but they were overtaken by a
terrific gale and thunder-storm, and in order to keep to
the trails were often obliged to grope their way on hands
and knees.16

At about this time the publishers of the Journal of
Geology and Natural Science, from which we have
quoted, failed, and Featherstonhaugh, who assumed
their debts to all subscribers, was obliged to bring it to a
close with the completion of the first volume; Audu-
bon's third and last letter appeared in the valedictory
number for June, 1832.

Again the naturalist applied to the government offi-
cials at Washington for assistance, and, as the following
letter shows, Edward Everett again came to his aid, as
did also Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Navy, to
whom Audubon later received a personal introduction
from Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court:

Levi Woodbury to Louis McLane

Navy Department

February 2} 1832

Sir,

The letter of the Honorable Mr. Everett of the 18 th. inst.
relating to Mr. Audubon &c and referred by you to this De-
partment, has been received.

I regret that the impaired condition of the Spark made it
necessary some weeks ago, to order that vessel to Norfolk to
be refitted.

18 See "St. John's River in Florida," Ornithological Biography, vol.
ii, p. 291.

24 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

I have heretofore taken much pleasure in furnishing Mr.
Audubon with credentials to the officers of the Navy, and re-
questing [them] to furnish every aid, in the prosecution of
[his] scientific researches: and shall be happy to afford any
further facilities within the power of the Department.
I am very respectfully

&c &c

Levi Woodbury
Honorable. L. Mc Lane
Secy of the Treasury

Finally, on April 15, 1832, Audubon and his party-
were able to board the revenue cutter Marion, com-
manded by Robert Day, and the opportunity thus af-
forded for exploring the dangerous east Florida coast
amply repaid them for their long and vexatious delays.
They visited the islands from St. Augustine to Key
West, and examined every part of the shore which it was
the duty of the Marion to approach. At Indian Key
the deputy collector, Mr. Thurston, gave Audubon the
services of his pilot, a veteran sailor and hunter, who
accompanied him on the Marion for a number of weeks
and led many boat journeys to lonely islands, where
vast colonies of sea fowl then dwelt in undisputed pos-
session. The leisurely movements of the vessel also en-
abled the naturalist to produce many finished drawings,
and to obtain materials for fresh "Episodes." 1T At Key
West Audubon was hospitably received by Major Clas-
sel,18 and by Dr. Strobel, who was of great assistance
both to him and to Bachman in procuring new birds
from that little known point.

The unexpected delays experienced in Florida, and
the expense which the presence of his assistants neces-

17 See "The Florida Keys," Ornithological Biography, vol. i, pp. 312
and 345, and "The Turtlers," ibid., vol. ii, p. 370.

18 See Vol. II, p. 7.

EXPLORATIONS IN FLORIDA 25

sarily entailed, in all probability, deterred the naturalist
from the more hazardous and uncertain enterprise of
attempting to reach the Rocky Mountains and the Pa-
cific Coast, which for years had been the great object of
his ambition. At all events, after their work was fin-
ished at Key West, the party returned to Charleston.
When returning previously they had boarded the packet
schooner Agnes, which was to bear them with their col-
lections to Charleston. Audubon, however, left the ves-
sel at Savannah, in order to deliver letters from the
Rathbones of Liverpool to a number of their rich mer-
chant friends in the former city. One of these, named
William Gaston,19 at first declined to subscribe to The
Birds of America, on the ground of its great expense
and the demands made upon his purse by charity, but
his indifference was quickly overcome : not only did he
write his name on Audubon's list, but he immediately
went out and obtained three other subscribers; he even
insisted on becoming Audubon's agent at Savannah, and
saw to it that none of those subscriptions was ever al-
lowed to lapse in after years. Savannah eventually
gave him six subscribers, which was more than were
credited to either Philadelphia or Baltimore.

At Charleston the party disbanded. Lehman re-
turned to Philadelphia, whither Audubon later followed
him, but Henry Ward obtained a position with the
Museum of Natural History, in which Bachman was
interested, and he appears to have been of much assist-
ance both to Bachman and to his friend in procuring for
them specimens of new or desirable birds and mammals ;
at a later day, however, he seems to have fallen into dis-
esteem on account of unpaid debts.

19 See "A Merchant of Savannah," Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No.
2), vol. ii, p. 549.

CHAPTER XXVII

EASTERN VISIT AND EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTH

ATLANTIC

Bachman's success as a canvasser — Boston visit — Journey to Portland —
Ascent of the St. John's — Return overland — Victor Audubon becomes
his father's agent — Winter in Boston— The Golden Eagle — Stricken
with illness — Expedition to Labrador planned — American support —
Sails from Eastport with five assistants — Discoveries and adventures
on the Labrador — Safe return — Another winter at Charleston — Sued
for old debts — Experience with vultures — Advice and instruction to
a son — Working habits — Return to England.

Foiled in his attempt to see the Florida coast at the
season best suited to his purposes, and disappointed in
his ambition to penetrate to the Far West, Audubon now
turned his attention to the East and determined to follow
the migratory birds to their summer homes in the North
Atlantic. He left Charleston in early June, 1832, and
went to Philadelphia,1 where he remained about a month,
waiting, it seems, for his wife and two sons to join him.
In a letter to Edward Harris, dated at Philadelphia,
June 9, 1832, he said that he had left the "National
hotel, on account of the too high price, I found I would
have to pay there, and removed to Camden, at a Mr.

*It was possibly during his visit to this city that an experiment was
made in bringing out some of his plates by lithography. Two copies of
a large plate, possibly the only one produced, lithographed without colors,
were shown to me by Mr. Goodspeed, of Boston, in the summer of 1910;
these represented the "Rallus crepitans — Marsh Hen," and bore the follow-
ing legends: "By John J. Audubon, F.R.S., &c, &c," and "Drawn &
Printed by Childs & Inman, Philadelphia, 1832." Three birds are here
figured in place of the two which appear in the plate of this species which
Havell later engraved, and in composition the two publications are quite
distinct.

26

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 27

Armstrong's, where I formerly boarded"; he asked
Harris to send him "a pair of fine woodchucks," as he
wished to secure a drawing of those animals.

It is interesting to notice that while Audubon had
been absent in Florida, his friend Bachman had busied
himself in his behalf and eventually succeeded in placing
three copies of The Birds of America in public institu-
tions in Charleston. On December 23, 1831, he wrote
to Audubon, who was then at St. Augustine:

I arrived in Columbia, S. C, almost too late, for the
"House" had just resolved that the State was too poor to
subscribe for Audubon's work. I felt that it would be a dis-
grace to the State ; and, for the first time in my life, I turned
to electioneering. And now, behold me among the back coun-
trymen, spinning long yarns. The thing however, took, and
your book is subscribed for. ... I read what was said in
your favor with regard to the "Rattlesnake Story," and thus
far, they have not found a wrong twist in your yarn ; but be
careful in describing the wonders of the South and West.

Audubon wrote to Bachman from Philadelphia, July
1, 1832 : "G. Ord has caused a most violent attack on
my veracity to be inserted in a London journal; how
will he stand mine eye, on Tuesday next at the Society,
is more than I can at present tell. . . . Mr. Berthoud
will ship you 3 volumes of the Birds of America, and
the succeeding numbers ; he will send a bill of sale of
those."

His plan was now to visit Boston and Maine, and
he left Philadelphia with his family in early August;
they traveled by stage to New York, but upon finding
that the city was then suffering from a periodic scourge
of the cholera, tarried but a day and hastened on. The
following letter which Richard Harlan sent after his

28 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

friend in August of this year shows that his own city did
not escape the pest:

Richard Harlan to Audubon

[Addressed] J. J. Audubon Esqr.

N° Pearle st.
Boston

[Philadelphia, August, 1832.]
Dear Sir —

I have just recd- your favour of the 5th inst — by which I
perceive you are not in possession of the letter I addressed
you to the care of Mr Berthoud, the day after your departure.
I have since forwarded two others one from N. Orleans, also to
care of Mr- Berthoud — The Cholera has raged dreadfully in
some localities here — I was engaged on Monday superintending
the removal of the sick prisoners from the jail in arch S** at the
request of the City authorities — I was there three times dur-
ing the day — 60 were sick at one time, the suffering, and agony
of the dying wretches, was an awful sight to witness, 26 died
there that day, and about as many more who were removed
to the various local Hospitals — I have treated altogether up
to present date 35— of whom 18 from prison. 16 have died —
and only one remains today — my success is rather encouraging
considering the habits of the poor wretches whose cases fell
under my care — most of the fatal cases were in a dying state
when admitted — I would not have recd- them, but for the wish
to alleviate suffering and scatter the tenants of the infected
rooms of the jail — The Newspapers do not give an accurate
account, because numbers are cured in the early stages whose
cases are never reported — the statements of deaths are more
accurate — and I suppose the greatest mortality has not ex-
ceeded 100 per diem — today only 26 deaths reported, there
will probably be more tomorrow — I am happy to hear of yr.
safe arrival and reception in Boston, in Mr Perkins you will
find an aimable, liberal, and efficient patron, Mr Featherston
[Featherstonhaugh] has been in town, but is at present at

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 29

Braddywine springs — his may N° has just appeared — he told
me it would be in time to strike out Vignolas name — in the next
N° My term of duty as Surgeon to the alms House commenced
at the 1st of August — the sik for the surgical wards have also
suffered, but not so much as the poor tenants of the cells, it
has nearly cleaned them out — some respectable, but weakly
families in the city have already suffered — My time is use-
fully, at least, if not profitably employed, night and day.
cholera, cholera, cholera ! ! ! ! — Tho' I may have no time to
write much — I always think of absent frd — Remember to
Nuttall, and all yr. family, Most truly yrs

R Harlan

Audubon's visit to Boston in the summer of 1832
was a red-letter period in his career. So warmly was he
then welcomed by the leading public and professional
men of the city that he could never say enough in praise
of the Bostonians. Dr. George Parkman, Dr. George
C. Shattuck, and Col. Thomas H. Perkins,2 who was
already one of his subscribers, were among his most en-
thusiastic supporters. Of Parkman Audubon said : "He
it is, whose memory is most dear to me." It was doubt-
less Parkman, then a prominent physician in Boston,
who introduced Audubon to the president of Harvard
University, Josiah Quincy, whose name was added to
his list.

On August 14, shortly after reaching Boston, Audu-
bon wrote to his friend Harris:

2 In a letter written to Audubon by his engraver, January 20, 1831,
Havell said: "Since writing my last, I have a new subscriber from America,
the Honble. T. H. Perkins, Boston Athenaeum. I packed it in a tin case,
and a wooden one; for the whole I am paid thro, the banking house
of the Baring Brothers, & Co., Bishopsgate St."

The copy of The Birds of America in possession of the Boston Society
of Natural History bears the following in autographic inscription on the
fly-leaf of the first volume: . Cost $1125—

T. H. Perkins
1837.

30 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

We left Camden, pushed by the season, and the desire I
have to fulfil towards my subscribers, the world, and indeed
myself, the task allotted me by nature, — the completion of
my work. . . . Allow me to say that with my work, as in the
days of '76, the Bostonians have proved themselves the best
supporters of a good cause in the country. We expect the
support of the Cambridge University, that of the Natural His-
tory Society, & again of the State! (Pray remember how
anxious we are to have all the States.)

I made drawings of 3 rare species ; one is the Marsh Wren,
for which I searched in vain when near Salem ; the 2 d. is a Fly-
catcher, described by Mr. Nuttall, and the last a Thrush.

We leave tomorrow for Portland, in Maine, through which
we will merely pass, and ere one week expires, expect to be
at the Bay of Fundy.

The Audubon family now traveled by carriage and
mail-coach along the entire coast of Maine, but made no
prolonged stay until they reached Eastport, where ex-
cursions were taken into the surrounding country, and
the woods and shores were thoroughly ransacked. At
Dennisville they made the acquaintance of Judge Lin-
coln's family, which rendered their stay of a number of
weeks "exceedingly agreeable"; as will appear later,3
it was this agreeable family that furnished Audubon
with a valuable recruit for his expedition to Labrador.
Towards the end of September they entered New
Brunswick and began to ascend the St. John River.
A week was passed at Fredericton, where they were
hospitably received by Sir Archibald Campbell. Thence
they continued in a small boat, which was towed up-
stream by mules, to Woodstock, N. B. There a cart
was procured, in which they proceeded overland to
Houlton, in Aroostook County, then "A neat village,

3 See Vol. II, p. 43.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 31

consisting of some fifty houses," and after a few days
passed at this garrison town in looking for new birds,
they started for Bangor, following the old military road
which led along the Penobscot River to Old Town. Said
the ornithologist of this journey:

Autumn, with her mellow tints, her glowing fruits, and her
rich fields of corn, smiled in placid beauty. Many of the fields
had not been reaped; the fruits of the forests and orchards
hung clustering around us, and as we came in view of the
Penebscot river, our hearts thrilled with joy. . . .

The road which we followed from Old Town to Bangor was
literally covered with Penobscot Indians, returning from mar-
ket. On reaching the latter beautiful town, we found very
comfortable lodgings in an excellent hotel; and the next day
we proceeded by the mail to Boston.4

Audubon felt that he ought to remain in America
for at least another year, and decided to send his son,
Victor, to England to take charge of his publication.
This work had now become a paramount family interest,
and for the nineteen years of life that remained to the
elder Audubon, his two sons virtually became his assist-
ants, John as an active collector and companion in the
field, and Victor as his business agent and secretary. In
writing again to Edward Harris, from Boston, Novem-
ber 1, 1832, Audubon noted that they had found the
Canada Grouse in abundance, and that he was assured of
its breeding commonly within the Union; Victor, he
added, had sailed to England, "on the tenth of last
month" on the packet ship South America.

The autumn of 1832 and the following winter were
spent in Boston, where the naturalist was busily engaged
in drawing and in laying plans for the now famous ex-

4 See "Journey in New Brunswick and Maine," Ornithological Biography
(Bibl. No. 2), vol. ii, p. 467.

32 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

pedition to the coast of Labrador. Meantime Bachman,
who was keenly interested in his success, was urging him
to return to Charleston; on October 20, 1832, he wrote:
"A month in your society would afford me greater pleas-
ure than the highest prize in a lottery. I cannot, I find,
feel myself at home with new birds without having the
skins to refer to. My cabinet is enlarging every day.
Henry Ward now prepares the skins — a pair of each.
. . . What ducks, that are not likely to be obtained for
you in Boston, would you like Maria to draw for you?"
Writing again on the 26th of October, he said: 5

I wish to know what you are doing — what progress your
work is making; and, whilst I feel deeply interested for your
fame. ... I feel also a particular interest in your personal
welfare, and that of all that belongs to you ; . . . Besides, I
want to see you once more to ascertain whether you have stuck
to your good resolutions, viz., never to swear (which is a vul-
gar practice for one who is conversant with the most beauti-
ful of God's works, the feathered race), and never to work on
Sundays. However, you are now under the tutorage of your
good wife, and, I doubt not, you are as obedient to her in
these things, as you ought to be. . . . You say new birds are
scarce. So they are, and yet, in my opinion, we will occasion-
ally find them for half a century to come. (November 11)
Maria has figured for you the "White Hibiscus," and, also, a
red one, both natives and beautiful ; a Euonymus in seed, in
which our Sylvia is placed; the white Nondescript Rose; the
Gordonica, a Begonia. . . . She is prepared to send them to
you; shall she ship them at once to Boston? . . . Your resolu-
tion to publish the 3 rd. Vol. of Water Birds, you will recol-
lect was partly entered into here, and from that moment, my
mind was at ease. It will give you four or five years in ad-
vance, and will enable you, in a 5th. Vol., to add all recent

5C. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No. 191).

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IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 33

discoveries of Land and Water Birds. Should you, yet be
able to go to Florida and the Pacific, I apprehend that you will
extend our American Ornithology to 460 or 470 species, per-
haps more. Your sons being able to skin birds and paint them,
is a great desideratum ; it should be mentioned in the preface
to your next volume. The talents of the family combined. . . .
will now place the work beyond the fear of falling through, even
in case of your death, and the public ought to know it. But
you must push for subscribers. If your son Victor can do
nothing in Europe, you must go there yourself, and sooner
than let the work suffer, you must go on a pilgrimage through-
out all the great cities of our Union. Should God spare your
life, I want to hear of you enjoying, in your old age "Otium
cum dignitate," and to see your children reaping some of your
recompense.

Under date of December 20, 1832, his friend "had
nothing to write but bad news," and hoped "to see our
political atmosphere a little brighter. Do not ask me
about birds ; I do not know a Buzzard from a King Bird.
. . . Oh, what an enjoyment it would be for me to
escape, just for one week, from the hydra-headed 'Nulli-
fication,' and sit by your side and talk birds !"

Audubon was anticipating his third volume of plates,
devoted mainly to water birds, which was begun with
Number 45, in 1834, when the following letter was sent
to his son in London:

Audubon to his Son, Victor

Boston, Jany, 17 th, 1833 — .
My dear Victor —

The Columbia arrived yesterday at New York, and
N [icholas]. B [erthoud]. has forwarded us Mr. Havell's let-
ter and yours, both dated 30 th. of November last — . I hope
soon to see the drawings to work on them — . You give no

34 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

account of that of The Bartram Sandpiper and of The Spotted
Sandpiper — ; probably they have escaped you — let me know
so that I may renew these should they be missing — , but I
think my Friend Children has them — enquire —

The Charlotte is not yet in. She had not left Deal on the
27th of Nov r —

Your Dear Mother & John wrote to you this morning and
you will probably receive this, and that letter at the same
moment — .

We will keep all the half Bound Copies of Volume 1st. in
America where I hope soon to dispose of them — go on and
push the Work with care and all will be well — give our best
regards to Havell & his wife & family — I had expected the
Death of his Father 6 sometimes — remembrances to our good
friend Children, Cuthbutton &c, &c. I will be able to arrange
100 Drawings of Water Birds, ready, and in that finest of
style for Publication — Tell Havell I will write to him in a very
few Days, and to keep up a good Heart — I hope we will all
meet early in the Spring of 1834 —

God bless you my Dear Victor: employ your time well and
[you] cannot fail being as Happy, at least as it is possible to
be, far away from your Dear Mother, John & Your ever
affectionate Father & Friend,

John J. Audubon
Send the Gun & Drawing Paper of N — Largest & Middle Size
as quick as possible —
[Addressed] Victor G. Audubon Esqr.,

Care of
Robt. Havell, Esqr.,
Engraver,
77 Oxford Street,
London.

While at Boston in the winter of 1833, Audubon
obtained from the proprietor of the New England Mu-

6 For notice of Robert Havell, Senior, who died in 1832, see Vol. I, p. 382.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 35

seum, in Court Street, a superb specimen of the Golden
Eagle, which had been caught in the White Mountains
in a trap set for foxes. Possessed with a desire to depict
this noble bird, he worked so hard at the drawing that,
as he said, it nearly cost him his life; he was suddenly
seized with "a spasmodic affection," which prostrated
him for a time and greatly alarmed his family, but
thanks to a strong constitution and to the aid of his
medical friends, Doctors Parkman, Warren and Shat-
tuck, the crisis was averted, and he was soon able to
continue his labors. "The drawing of this Eagle," said
the naturalist, "took me fourteen days, and I had never
before laboured so incessantly excepting at that of the
Wild Turkey." He was at work on this painting when
the following letter 7 was dispatched to his eldest son:

Audubon to his Son, Victor

BOSTOK.

Feb. 5 th 1833.

My dear friends

I am just now quite fatigued by the drawing of a Golden
Eagle which although it will make a splendid plate has cost me
sixty hours of the severest labor I have experienced since I
drew the Wild Turkey. You shall I hope see it through the
care of Mr. Gordon.8 Do not ever ship any more Nos. to
this port unless on vessels that are intended as packets. The
Charlotte has not come and it will be a rubber if I can get
enough cash to establish our going to Labrador until she does.
Push Jos. B. Kidd of Edinburgh if he can be pushed to paint
copies of our drawings. I look on that series as of great
importance to us all. Havell's blunder in not having the num-

7 Originally published by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 48), The Auk,
vol. xxii, 1905.

8 Alexander Gordon, who married Ann Bakewell, youngest sister of
Mrs. Audubon. For notice of Jos. B. Kidd, mentioned below, see Vol. I,
p. 446.

36 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

bers and paper on board the New York in time, is one which,
with him I can never correct. If you can do more than I on
this score of punctuality I will be gratified. I shall proceed to
New York as soon as the weather moderates, on Sunday last
the thermom. was 12 below zero. The work is now I am as-
sured free of duty. When you write give a word of recollection
to Dr. Parkman who is a most desirable and worthy friend.
God bless you, forever yours

J. J. Audubon.

In the spring of 1833 Audubon was determined to
carry out a long cherished desire to explore the coast of
Labrador, where he hoped not only to discover many
new birds, but to ascertain the summer plumages and
breeding habits of a host of water fowl that were known
to resort in the milder season to that stern and rock-
bound shore. Accordingly, he set about with charac-
teristic energy to organize and finance an expedition
upon his own responsibility. The number of his Ameri-
can subscribers was steadily increasing, and at that mo-
ment he felt a degree of confidence in the future of his
work to hazard almost any undertaking. In April, when
his plans were fixed, he went to New York to consult
with his wife's brother-in-law and agent, Nicholas A.
Berthoud, and to settle his business affairs before leaving
the country. While there he wrote the following long
letter9 to his son, Victor, filled, as usual, with careful
instructions and interesting personal details. It will be
noticed that when he took pen in hand the number of
his American subscribers stood at 51, but before he laid
it down it had risen to 54 ; his belief that his efforts in the
cause of natural science would receive a hearty response
in his own country was fully justified.

'Originally published by George Bird Grinnell (Bibl. No. 54), The
duk, vol. xxxiii, 1916.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 37

Audubon to his Son, Victor

New York April 28th. 1833—
My dear Victor —

On opening the box containing the numbers last sent to this
place for distribution, we found the contents Wet and of course
some of them damaged. We have however dried them and
made of them that could be done and they will all go on Mon-
day (tomorrow) to their Several destinations — In future I
recommend that Each parcel of numbers for the different in-
dividuals are rolled up in separate Parcel, inclosed in good
stout brown Paper, and each directed outside, enumerating the
numbers therein contained — then put all the Rolls in a Box —
in this manner they all will be less liable to Injury, will not
need to be undone here for we have no trouble at all at the Cus-
tom House, and it will Save the handling of the Plates at the
Compting House. —

N. Berthoud rendered me his account yesterday I send
you inclose a Copy of it — and I also send you a Copy of a
general & particular memorandum left with him, by the assist-
ance of which the Business is clearly exhibited, so that each
Subscriber's Standing with the Work Shows at once. —

The Balance in our favor in N. Berthoud's hands is
$ 1358.91 — We have due South of this $ 1834.48. and at Bos-
ton $ 1220.00— altogether $ 4413.39.— The Boston amount
will be ready for me when I reach there on Thursday next. — I
take from N. B's hands here $ 800 :00.— 300 $ of which I give
to your Dear Mother — when at Boston I will take 500 $ more
and send the Balance to N. Berthoud — he will then have about
$ 1278.91 of cash out of which he will send you 100 £ say 480 $
leaving still with him about $ 798.91. besides what he will col-
lect from the South the amount which is mentioned above, all
of which I hope will be collected ere I return to this Place, as
early as I can without losing the opportunity of doing all that
can be done.

You will easily perceive by all this that we have been ex-
tremely fortunate of late on this Side of the Water, and the

38 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

400 £ forwarded to you will fully enable you to meet the de-
mands of Havell &c for the 20 Volumes you have to send here &
other emergencies. — We have at Present 51 Subscribers in the
U, States, without the name of Docr Croghan from whom not a
word has been heard, and also without that of Baron Krudener
who is now at Washington City, but who has not taken any
cognisance of the letter I sent him. N. Berthoud is going to
write to him and I hope the Baron will take the work. — he cer-
tainly ought.

I found the Plates sent here better coloured than usual and
with your present assistance I greatly hope the goodness of
the Work will still improve. — Nicholas will forward you Two
very beautiful Numbers — the Plates are as follows,

N° 37. Plate 181. Golden Eagle Figures 1

" —182. Ground Doves " 5

"—183. Golden crested Wren " 2

" — 184. Mangrove Humming Bird. 5

" —185. Bachman's Warbler 2

N° 38.— " —186. Pinnated Grous " 3

" —187. Boat Tail Grackle " 2

" —188. Tree Sparrow " 2

" —189. Snow Bunting " 3

"—189. Yellow bellied Woodpecker. " 2

I should have sent you 2 more Numbers had I The Two large
Plates for them, but hoping that I may meet with something
Large & perhaps New I Shall not do so, until I return which
will be Still time enough.- — I am very anxious to See the 2 d
Volume finished and for this reason invite you to push the
Work, as much as you can & have it very well executed mean-
time.

The State of Maryland is subscribed to by D. Ridgely M.D.
Librarian of that State, he desires the 1st Volume and the
following numbers forwarded as soon as can be. — Send it here
— as he has authorized N. B. to draw on him for Payment. —

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 39

Miss Harriet Douglass also desires to have her Number sent
here for the Future. I hope the Copies for Co1 Perkins &
othere at Boston & vicinity, as well as for Wm Oakes, & John
Neale will soon arrive. —

April 30th — Since the above, I have obtained Two more
Subscribers — the names of whom are

1. Richd F. Carman. New York
1. L. Reed Do Do.—

I was told last night that the State has also Subscribed,
but cannot tell until I see this day's Paper — Whilst at the
Lyceum of Natural History last evening, I was promised their
Subscription on Monday next — being the Society's day of
business.

I have concluded to send the 2 Numbers of Drawings by the
Packett — The Tin case containing them, will be given to the
special care of the Capn on whom you will do well to call im-
mediately.— I have given a 1st Volume to Nicholas Berthoud ;
there are many enquiries made to see the Work and it answers
that purpose well.

John & I leave for Boston either this afternoon or to-
morrow— perhaps tomorrow as we have much to do. — It is not
probable that Edd Harriss will join us at East Port and go to
Labrador with us — I shall write to you at every opportunity
as these may occur, and doubtless from Halifax.

Mr Inman has painted my Portrait in Oil, and / say that
it is a truer portrait of me than even the Miniature. — Now my
Dear Victor exert yourself in the having all the Volumes com-
pleated which I have written for — See that they are carefully
packed with Paper between each &c &c &c I shall not close
this until I have given the Box to the Capn and when I hope to
add the Subscription of this State. —

2, o'clock — I have just returned from the bustle of the
Lower part of the City — the State has Subscribed ! There-
fore add that valuable one. There is no Packet for London
Tomorrow, therefore the Drawings will go off on the 10th of
May by the Capn in whose particular care they

40 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

will be given. — These 10 Drawings have been insured this morn-
ing against all Risk, for 2,000 $ at % per Centum — I hope you
will receive them in perfect order; they are carefully packed
by myself in a Tin Box securely sodered &c &c.

We have now 54. Subscribers in America.
Mr Inman is going to Paint the Portrait of your Dear Mother,
and I have not a doubt that it will be "good & true." The
Weather is extremely Warm — The Thermometer ranges at
nearly 72. The Martins are flying over the City and To-
morrow I shall fly toward the Coast of Labrador — If fortunate
I shall bring a load of Knowledge of the Water Birds which
spend the Winter in our Country and May hope to Compete
in the study of their Habits with any Man in the World.

My Good Friend Charles Bonaparte as (I am told) taken
umbrage at a Passage in My Introduction (first Volume)10
Which proves how difficult it is to please every one — I am going
to write to him by Duplicate to try to correct that Error of
his — God ever bless You my Dear Son, and May We all meet
Well & Happy

Yours ever affectionately,

John J. Audubon.

Audubon was particularly anxious to enlist a number
of enthusiastic young men in the Labrador enterprise,
and had hoped that his friend, Edward Harris, would
join the party. Upon his return to Boston he started
at once for Eastport, Maine, where he expected to char-
ter a vessel and complete his preparations. On May 9,
1833, he wrote to Harris from that point:

The more I approach the desired object of this voyage,
the more bouyant my spirits, and the greater my hopes that
when I return I will bring a cargo (not of codfish) but of most
valuable information. Make up your mind ; shoulder your fire-
lock, and away to the fields where science awaits us with ample

10 See Chapter XXIX, p. H8, and the letter which Audubon wrote
to Bonaparte at this time.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 41

stores, the contents of which are the rarest materials ever em-
ployed by nature.

To this friend he wrote again from Eastport on the
14th of the same month:

As to my making use of your name in my letterpress, I shall
act as you desire, and yet I hope and fully expect no denial on
your part, on such occasions as will grant me the pleasure of
giving public notice of the treatment I have received from you.
I owe such a thing to you as a trifling, very trifling, mark of my
gratitude towards one, whom I shall never cease to admire and
esteem.

The National Gazette of Philadelphia for May 2,
1833, devoted an editorial to Audubon and his prospec-
tive Labrador journey, in which the writer said: "We
wish him a degree of success and prolongation of vigor
equal to his great merits: indeed, for the past at least,
success is fully assured." He added that between fifty
and sixty subscribers to The Birds of America had then
been obtained in the United States; Boston had fur-
nished eighteen ; New York, eleven ; Philadelphia, four ;
Baltimore, eight; Savannah, seven; Louisville, two, and
New Orleans, three; moreover, the legislatures of Mas-
sachusetts, New York, Maryland and South Carolina
and the Congressional Library were subscribers for one
copy each. The writer continued :

A contribution to Mr. Audubon equal at least to that of
Boston or New York, would seem due from Philadelphia. The
subscription price may be considered as large ($ 1,000), but
how rich, ornamental, instructive, and entertaining is the work,
and how much preferable to the merely personal gewgaws or
transitory gratifications, upon which greater sums are as fre-
quently expended ! There are few minds of any refinement or

42 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

elevation, to which an act that rewards genius and fosters
science, would not yield higher and more durable pleasure than
any ordinary luxury.

We learn that Mr. Audubon will return to the United
States next autumn, and make a short sojourn before his em-
barkation for Europe. Eight or nine more years, it is sup-
posed, will yet be necessary for the consummation of his grand
design. His constitution appears to be still vigorous ; his zeal
is unabated ; his powers of graphic delineation have suffered no
decay ; we may, therefore, expect that he will realize all his
own laudatory hopes and projects, and in so doing confer new
obligations on the votaries of natural history, and reflect ad-
ditional honor on his country.

While Audubon was still at Eastport, and looking
anxiously for young recruits, the following letter
was received from Dr. George Parkman: n

Dr. George Parkman to Audubon

Boston, May 25 th. 1833.
J. J. Audubon Esqr.
Dear Sir

Through the unceasing & active good-will of our Friend,
Dr. Shattuck, I present to you Mr. Ingalls, son of Dr. Ingalls,
one of our senior physicians & an experienced public teacher
of Anat.y & Surg y —

The son is the father's pupil ; & we have reason to expect
that he will prove a satisfactory disciple to you.

The enclosed I claim for you the right to read, & for myself
to repossess, when we meet again.

respectfully

G. Parkman.

11 Most readers will doubtless recall that Dr. George Parkman was
the victim of an almost unbelievable tragedy in 1849, when he met his
death at the hands of a colleague; the entire country was then aroused
as it seldom had been by an event in the annals of crime.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 43

Edward Harris was unable to accompany his friend,
and the four young men eventually chosen were Joseph
Coolidge,12 William Ingalls, of Boston, Thomas Lin-
coln, of Dennisville, Maine, and George Cheyne Shat-
tuck,13 the son of Dr. George C. Shattuck of Boston;
these, with John Woodhouse Audubon and the natural-

*l p,,-* ^/tf>«.#C (2>A. x/'de/ft*'^. . kS Ait***./- /* y** /

K^/fia&//s' t*v+ y (-P* ^yr>jr£-//s , 0*<t- "/ 0/ri- t*esr*'i*^ yf/t
era** , &. +h a.yt/tt.*. 'k» cA.ec /o-ac£e^ <*f &-y\(tA. ' 3) J»*r

//

a/wi /ntr?^i .

LETTER OF DR. GEORGE PARKMAN TO AUDUBON, MAY 25, 1833.

From the Howland MSS.

ist, made up the party. The schooner Ripley, a staunch
new vessel of 106 tons, was chartered at Eastport, and
the expedition was ready to start by the latter part of
May. During his stay at Eastport Audubon visited
Grand Manan Island, a favorite resort for sea birds in
the Bay of Fundy, and cruised about the coast in a
revenue cutter. On May 31, he wrote to Victor: 14

12 In 1897 Mr. Joseph Coolidge, who was then living in San Francisco,
was the sole survivor of this expedition; see Maria R. Audubon, Audubon
and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i, p. 347.

13 Dr. George Cheyne Shattuck, like his father a philanthropist, and an
ardent patron of all good works, in 1855 planted a seed on the rocky soil of
New Hampshire which has since shown a marvelous vitality; to him
primarily, and to the revered schoolmasters, the Reverend Dr. Henry Augus-
tus Coit and the Reverend Dr. Joseph Howland Coit, the world owes that
great foundation, St. Paul's School.

14 Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 346.

44 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

I have been working hard at the Birds from Grand Menan,
as well as John, who is overcoming his habit of sleeping late,
as I call him every morning at four, and we have famous long
days. . . .

The hull of the vessel has been floored, and our great table
solidly fixed in a tolerably good light under the main hatch;
it is my intention to draw whenever possible, and that will be
many hours, for the daylight is with us nearly all the time in
those latitudes, and the fishermen say you can do with little
sleep, the air is so pure.

After repeated delays the Ripley sailed from East-
port for Labrador on June 6, 1833, and the journey
proved arduous and hazardous enough. Although dis-
appointing in respect to the number of new species of
birds discovered, Audubon's visit was well timed ; he was
aided by a band of devoted and energetic youth, and
they spent two months on the coast of a wild country,
then but little known save to a nefarious crew of egg
robbers and a few enterprising fishermen. His pub-
lished journal of the voyage shows that he worked to
the full limit of his physical powers in studying and
portraying the wonderful bird life which the party en-
countered. Despite the miseries of seasickness, an in-
competent pilot, tempestuous weather, and the cramped
quarters of a small schooner, where all his drawings had
to be done under an open hatch, he accomplished won-
ders, considering the shortness of his stay. By rising at
three o'clock in the morning and working for seventeen
hours, he succeeded in completing many large drawings
of birds, as well as studies of characteristic flowers ; he
also journalized voluminously and saw much of the coast
and its adjacent islands.

From Eastport they passed through the Gut of
Canso and steered for the Magdalen Islands, where they

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 45

landed and made collections. On June 14 they ap-
proached the famous Bird Rock, which at a distance
seemed to be covered with a mantle of new-fallen snow,
an illusion soon dispelled as their vessel bore them nearer
and a vast concourse of Gannets rose in great clouds
from the rock; "all stood astonished and amazed," said
Audubon, and he felt that such a sight had of itself fully
repaid them for their journey. On June 17, the twelfth
day out from Eastport, they passed Anticosti Island,
and soon began to see what appeared like white sails on
the horizon ; these proved to be snow drifts on the Lab-
rador, and on the 18th they landed at the mouth of the
Natashquan River. Ducks, Geese, Auks and Guille-
mots were there in great multitudes, as well as Gulls
and Terns; many were breeding, and all seemed wilder
than at points farther south, a circumstance which was
explained as soon as they discovered the astounding pro-
portions which the traffic in eggs of sea fowl had at-
tained even at that time.15

On June 27 they procured a new bird 16 which Audu-
bon named after his young companion, Thomas Lincoln
of Dennisville, Maine, and which is still known as "Lin-
coln's Finch." This reference is found in his journal for
the 4th of July: "I have drawn all day, and have fin-
ished the plate of the Fringilla lincolnii, to which I have
put three plants of the country; to us they are very
fitting to the purpose, for Lincoln gathered them."

The Ripley left its anchorage at American Harbor
or Natashquan on June 28, and stood out to sea, their
usual recourse to avoid the intricacies of the coast. After
proceeding fifty miles or more they touched at numerous

15 See "The Eggers of Labrador," Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No.
2), vol. iii, p. 82.

16 Lincoln's Finch, Fringella lincolnii, now Melospiza lincolni.

46 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

islands, where Guillemots, Puffins, and Black-backed
Gulls were breeding in vast numbers, and managed to
anchor safely, in spite of that "ignorant ass" of a pilot,
at a wild and desolate point which a recent traveler has
identified as the harbor of Wapitagun.17 July the sec-
ond was such a beautiful day for Labrador that Audu-
bon went on shore, where he drew this vivid picture of
that desolate land in sunshine:18

The country, so wild and grand, is of itself enough to in-
terest any one in its wonderful dreariness. Its mossy, gray-
clothed rocks, heaped and thrown together as if by chance,
in the most fantastical groups imaginable, huge masses hang-
ing on minor ones as if about to roll themselves down from
their doubtful-looking situations, into the depths of the sea
beneath. Bays without end, sprinkled with rocky islands of
all shapes and sizes, where in every fissure a Guillemot, a
Cormorant, or some other wild bird retreats to secure its egg,
and raise its young, or save itself from the hunter's pursuit.
The peculiar cast of the sky, which never seems to be certain,
butterflies flitting over snow-banks, probing beautiful dwarf
flowerets of many hues [that are] pushing their tender stems
from the thick bed of moss which everywhere covers the gran-
ite rocks. Then the morasses, wherein you plunge up to your
knees, or the walking over the stubborn, dwarfish shrubbery,
making one think that as he goes he treads down the forests
of Labrador. The unexpected Bunting, or perhaps Sylvia,
which perchance, and indeed as if by chance alone, you now
and then see flying before you, or hear singing from the creep-
ing plants of the ground. The beautiful fresh water lakes, on
the ragged crests of greatly elevated islands, wherein the Red
and Black-necked Divers swim as proudly as swans do in other
latitudes, and where the fish appear to have been cast as

"See Charles W. Townsend (Bibl. No. 234), The Auk, vol. xxxiv, p.
133 (1917).

"Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 386.

Plate cxi

Drawn from itdture Jy J. J Audubon F, K.S. F.L.S-

?&Y{y/J' Engraved, Printed.* Coloured by RHavell.

JPaCUS FttiBATil7S,Linn.
AduttMaklrfdui/fen€de.ZlfcunfMi&s.3.#.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 47

strayed beings from the surplus food of the ocean. All — all is
wonderfully grand, wild — aye, and terrific. And yet how beau-
tiful it is now, when one sees the wild bee, moving from one
flower to another in search of food, which doubtless is as sweet
to it, as the essence of the magnolia is to those of favored
Louisiana. The little Ring Plover rearing its delicate and ten-
der young, the Eider Duck swimming man-of-war-like amid
her floating brood, like the guardship of a most valuable con-
voy ; the White-crowned Bunting's sonorous note reaching the
ear ever and anon ; the crowds of sea-birds in search of places
wherein to repose or to feed: how beautiful is all this in this
wonderful rocky desert at this season, the beginning of July,
compared with the horrid blasts of winter which here pre-
dominate by the will of God, when every rock is rendered smooth
with snows so deep that every step the traveller takes is as
if entering into his grave; for even should he escape an ava-
lanche, his eye dreads to search the horizon, for full well does
he know that snow, — snow, is all that can be seen. I watched
the Ring Plover for some time; the parents were so intent on
saving their young that they both lay on the rocks as if shot,
quivering their wings and dragging their bodies as if quite
disabled. We left them and their young to the care of the
Creator. I would not have shot one of the old ones, or taken
one of the young for any consideration, and I was glad my
young men were as forbearing.

On the 6th of July he wrote : 19

By dint of hard work and rising at three, I have drawn a
Colytnbus septemtrionalis [Great Northern Diver] and a
young one, and nearly finished a Ptarmigan ; this afternoon,
however, at half-past five, my fingers could no longer hold my
pencil, and I was forced to abandon my work and go ashore
for exercise. The fact is that I am growing old too fast ; alas !
I feel it, — and yet work I will, and may God grant me life to
see the last plate of my mammoth work finished.

19 Ibid., p. 390.

48 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

On the seventh there is this note :

Drawing all day ; finished the female Grouse and five young,
and prepared the male bird. The captain, John, and Lincoln,
went off this afternoon with a view to camp on a bay about
ten miles distant. Soon after, we had a change of weather,
and, for a wonder, bright lightning and something like summer
clouds. When fatigued with drawing I went on shore for exer-
cise, and saw many pretty flowers, amongst them a flowering
Sea-pea, quite rich in color. . . . The mosquitoes quite as
numerous as in Louisiana.

On July 14 the Ripley took the party forty-three
miles farther east to Little Maccatina, or Hare Harbor,
as it is called today, where they remained until July 21,
proceeding thence to Baie de Portage. Here they were
able to enter their small boats, and visited the captain
of a whaling schooner from New Brunswick, a Canadian
trapper, and a Scotchman, Samuel Robertson by name,
who was engaged in the sealing industry at Sparr Point,
all of whom Audubon pumped for information on the
country and its products. On July 25, they started for
"Chevalier's Settlement," but were caught in a storm,
and came to in Bras d'Or (Bradore) Bay; there they
found the Labrador Duck, which in 1875, but forty- two
years later, had become totally extinct.

At the approach of August the brief Labrador sum-
mer, of barely one month, was drawing to a close, and
Audubon was exerting his utmost efforts to accomplish
his purposes. Under date of August 10 he wrote:20

My reason for not writing at night is that I have been
drawing so constantly, often seventeen hours a day, that the
weariness of my body at night has been unprecedented, by
such work at least. At times I felt as if my physical powers

20 Ibid., p. 425.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 49

would abandon me ; my neck, my shoulders, and, more than all,
my fingers, were almost useless through actual fatigue at draw-
ing. Who would believe this? Yet, nothing is more true.
When at the return of dawn my spirits called me out of my
berth, my body seemed to beg my mind to suffer it to rest a
while longer; and as dark forced me to lay aside my brushes
I immediately went to rest as if I had walked sixty-five miles
that day, as I have done a few times in my stronger days. Yes-
ternight, when I rose from my little seat to contemplate my
work and to judge of the effect of it compared with the nature
which I had been attempting to copy, it was the affair of a
moment; instead of waiting, as I always like to do, until the
hazy darkness which is to me the best time to judge of the
strength of light and shade, I went at once to rest as if delivered
from the heaviest task I ever performed. The young men think
my fatigue is added to by the fact that I often work in wet
clothes, but I have done that all my life with no ill effects. No !
no ! it is that I am no longer young. But I thank God that I
did accomplish my task ; my drawings are finished to the best of
my ability, (and) the skins well prepared by John.

On the 11th of August all hands parted with Labra-
dor without regret, and the captain of the Ripley steered
for Newfoundland, where they landed in St. George's
Harbor on the 13th. That region was searched for five
days, when a fresh start was made for Pictou, Nova
Scotia, but when they encountered head winds, Audu-
bon and his party were landed on the nearest shore
and made their way overland to the town. Thence they
proceeded to Truro and Halifax, and after three days
went on to Windsor, where they watched the famous
tides in the Bay of Fundy — emptying and filling a
broad river, and rising, in course, to a height of sixty-five
feet. From that point a steamboat was taken to St.
John, New Brunswick, where the faithful Harris
awaited the naturalist with tidings of his wife and elder

50 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

son; 21 this intelligence induced him to abandon his con-
templated course through the woods of Quebec and
hasten back to the United States. The party finally
reached Eastport on August 31, after being out nearly
twelve weeks. When the Ripley had docked and their
collections were securely packed, all but Coolidge and
Lincoln returned to Boston, and on September 7 Audu-
bon was again in New York.

The Labrador experience was in a measure disap-
pointing, but the naturalist brought back twenty-three
large drawings of birds, complete or nearly so, and sev-
enty-three bird skins, as well as considerable collections
of marine animals and plants. The expenses of the
journey had been heavy, amounting, as he told his son,
to "about $2,000," but one fine morning when they
had flushed a Black Poll Warbler from its nest, Audu-
bon felt that he was amply "refunded in the sight,"
though this bird was later found to have a much wider
breeding range than he then supposed.

The National Gazette of Philadelphia22 published
a long editorial upon Audubon's return, as well as an
extended account of his journey, extracted from the
Boston Patriot. To quote the editor's comment :

The distinguished naturalist returned from his north-
eastern excursion to Boston Wednesday last. We believe that
there is no one who will not be gratified to learn the progress
of his arduous and unremitted labors in a branch of science,
which he has made peculiarly his own ; and he has kindly fa-

21 As a memento of the Labrador experience, Audubon presented
Harris with his pocket companion, The Genera of North American Birds
and a Synopsis of the Species, by Charles Lucien Bonaparte (New York,
1828), and inscribed it as presented to his friend at "Eastport, Sept. 1, 1833."
This volume, which saw much hard usage on this voyage and is filled with
Audubon's manuscript notes, is now in possession of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

22 For Tuesday, September 10, 1833.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 51

vored us with information on the subject of his recent tour,
which we are glad to lay before our readers ; regretting only
that we are unable to present it in his own rich and animated
language, and to invest it with the attractions which it would
derive from his own descriptive powers.

LETTER OF ROBERT HAVELL TO AUDUBON, JUNE 15, 1833.

From the Deane MSS.

While at Halifax Audubon received a congratula-
tory letter from Bachman, who urged him to visit
Charleston and to bring his family. The invitation was
accepted, and early in September Audubon returned to
New York, where he immediately prepared the new
drawings for dispatch to London; thirteen of the land

52 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

birds were for the completion of his second volume,
and seventeen, representing water fowl, were to form
the initial series of the third; all, as usual, were heavily
insured.

Audubon left New York with his wife on September
25 and spent nearly a month en route to Charleston,
while John, who intended to accompany his father to
Florida, went direct by water. Dr. Thomas L. Mc-
Kenney, of Philadelphia, in a letter to Lewis Cass, Sec-
retary of War, said : 23

Mr. Audubon makes no more of tracking it in all directions
over this, and I may add other countries, than a shot star does
in crossing the heavens. He goes after winged things, but
sometimes needs the aid of — at least a few feathers, to assist
him better to fly. He means to coast it again round Florida —
make a track through Arkansas — go up the Missouri — pass on
to the Rocky Mountains, and thence to the Pacific. He will
require some of your official aid.

As a contrast to the warmth of Audubon's greeting
in Philadelphia, while in that city he was arrested for
debt, and was on the point of being taken to jail when
he was offered bail by a friend. "This event," he said,
"brings to my mind so many disagreeable thoughts con-
nected with my former business transactions, in which I
was always the single loser, that I will only add I made
all necessary arrangements to have it paid."

Four new subscribers were obtained at Baltimore,
but when the naturalist applied to Secretary Cass at
Washington for the privilege of accompanying an ex-
pedition to the Rocky Mountains under the patronage
of the Government, he met with a cool reception, and

23 Lucy Audubon, ed., Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist
(Bibl. No. 73), p. 377.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 53

though he had forgotten his letter from Dr. McKen-
ney, he was resolved not to trouble that official further.
At this juncture he met Washington Irving, who did
his best to save the situation, and thought that Audubon
had been mistaken in his judgment of the Secretary;
"I might have been," he said, "but those eyes of mine
have discovered more truth in men's eyes than their
mouths were willing to acknowledge." Irving accom-
panied him to the offices of Mr. Taney, the Secretary
of the Treasury, who at once gave the naturalist the
privileges of the revenue cutter service on the southern
coast.

At Richmond Audubon met Governor Floyd, who
promised to try to induce the legislature of his State to
subscribe for a copy of the Birds. From that point to
Charleston we shall follow their itinerary as given in
his journal under date of October 16:

24

We left Richmond this morning in a stage well crammed
with Italian musicians and southern merchants, arrived at
Petersburg at a late hour, dined, and were again crammed in
a car drawn by a locomotive, which dragged us twelve miles
an hour, and sent out sparks of fire enough to keep us con-
stantly busy in extinguishing them on our clothes. At Blakely
we were again crammed into a stage, and dragged two miles an
hour. We crossed the Roanoke River by torchlight in a flat-
boat, passed through Halifax, Raleigh, Fayetteville, and
Columbia, where we spent the night. Here I met Dr. Gibbs,
at whose house we passed the evening, and who assisted me
greatly; at his house I met President Thomas Cooper, who
assured me he had seen a rattlesnake climb a five-rail fence on
his land. I received from the treasury of the State four hun-
dred and fifty dollars on account of its subscription for one
copy of the "Birds of America."

Mlbid., p. 379.

54 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

For a number of years Audubon's snake stories had
subjected him to no little ridicule in certain quarters,
and this notice of a climbing rattlesnake pleased him
so much that he asked the venerable president to put
his statement in writing ; he willingly complied, and his
interesting letter on the subject will be given in a later
chapter. 25

When Audubon and his wife reached the Bachman
home on October 24, he was prepared to push on to the
South, but changed his plans, on account, he said, "of
the removal of my good friend Captain Robert Day
from his former station to New York, and I did not
like to launch on the Florida reefs in the care of a young
officer unknown to me." The winter of 1833-4 was
passed under the hospitable rooftree of his friend, in the
usual occupations of painting, writing and hunting
birds. At this time an attachment sprang up between
his younger son, John Woodhouse Audubon, and Maria
Rebecca, the eldest daughter of the Bachman household.
Here Audubon wrote the first drafts of many of the
bird biographies contained in the second volume of his
letterpress, and with Bachman conducted a series of
careful experiments on the power of smell in vultures,
in order to settle a question which had then become acute
among naturalists.26 This subject is referred to in the
following intimate letter,27 which reveals the confidence
which Audubon felt in his sons and in their united abil-
ity to bring his great undertaking to a successful issue,
as well as the infinite pains which he bestowed upon
every part of it. Audubon, who was now in his forty-
ninth year, felt that he was aging very fast, and de-

26 See Chapter XXVIII, p. 78.
28 See ibid., p. 81.

27 Which I am able to reproduce through the kindness of Miss Maria R.
Audubon.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 55

clared that one year then would be equal to three, three
years from that time.

Audubon to his Son, Victor

Charleston, Dc, 2/f, 1833.
My dear beloved Victor : —

Your last letter to us is dated at London, 7 th. Octbr. It
has given us all ample and sincere pleasure. The copy of your
reply28 to Mons. Waterton is excellent; that from Swainson
ought to prove a death-blow to the Demerara Gent ! I hope
that these letters are now before the world, for my mortifica-
tion has been great enough respecting the blackguardism of
G. Ord and others, and yet I am heartily glad that I never paid
personally any attention to them through the press or other-
wise. Here my friends are as much shocked as myself, and
the moment is at hand when these T. . will be glad to find some
hiding place to resort to, and wait for time to obliterate their
obvious jealousy and falsehood.

John Bachman and myself have begun a second series of
experiments, such as I made before, connected with the nose-
smelling of Turkey Buzzards ; as far as we have gone through
them, these experiments have proved perfectly satisfactory to
my good friend and myself, and depend [upon] it, from next
Wednesday, the American World will know that Turkey Buz-
zards are first, Gregarious, as well as the Carrion Crow [Black
Vulture], that they eat fresh meat in preference to putrid
stuff; that they eat birds, fresh killed, either plucked or not,
even of their own species; that they suck birds' eggs, and de-
vour their callow young; that they come to their food by
their sense of sight, and not that of smell, and lastly that
they cannot discover by any sense of smell the most putrid
matter, even when this putrid stuff is within a few feet of them,
out of sight of their eyes. Were Snakes as abundant near

28 The reference is to Victor G. Audubon's second article in defense
of his father, which appeared in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History
(see Bibliography, No. 118). Swainson's paper, under the same title
(see Bibliography, No. 117), was published in the same number.

5Q AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Charleston as Buzzards, that business would soon be also set
at rest, but for this, however, time is required, and the time
I think will come. The experiments we are making will be
repeated in the presence of the faculty of this city,29 and their
Certificates attached to the whole, and immediately published
in the Annals of the Philosophical Society of Phila.30 those
of the Lyceum of New York. A copy will be sent to be read at
the Linnean, or Royal Society of London, and Royal Insti-
tute of France; then let those laugh who win. We have at-
tracted Turkey Buzzards with pieces of fresh beef, not more
than an inch square, and we have seen others pass unnoticed
the body of a hare or fowl within 20 steps. We have now 3 fine
birds of this species to experiment upon, and their olfactory
nerves will be examined by the faculty here, where there are
some highly talented men.

Our friend Bachman has written a very fine paper for
Loudon's Mag.31 which will be forwarded to you in a few days
by duplicate, and which I wish you to give to our friend J. G.
Children, and ask him to have it read at the R. and L. Socie-
ties, and inserted in the above mentioned Mag. afterwards.
We hope all this will be accomplished by the 1 st. March next.

Now to other subjects. We are deeply at work. John has
drawn a few Birds, as good as any I ever made, and in a few
months I hope to give this department of my duty up to him

29 For an account of this discussion see Chapter XXVIII, where the
memorial drawn up and signed by the faculty of the Medical College of
South Carolina is reproduced.

30 When in New York, awaiting the sailing of his vessel, in April,
1834, Audubon referred to Bachman's paper on the Turkey Buzzard in
writing to Miss Maria Martin, as follows: "At Phila., Mr. Lee and Doer.
Hays managed to have it not read at Philosoph. Socy, but the Lyceum
of New York, after reading it, have sent it to Professor Silliman, in whose
Journal it will appear. John Bachman may .consider himself a member
of the Lyceum of New York, and 'mayhap,' a fellow of the Linnean
Society of London." Bachman's paper was actually published in the
Journal of the Boston Society of Natural History for 1834; see Bibliog-
raphy, No. 125.

31 This paper, entitled "Remarks in Defense of [Mr. Audubon] the
author of the Birds of America," was published in volume vii of Loudon's
Magazine of Natural History for 1834, and is dated "Charleston, Dec. 31,
1833"; see Bibliography, No. 124.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 57

altogether; his improvements on other subjects are equally
pleasing. I write a [biography of a] Bird or so every evening,
and our friend grants me all his knowledge of the habits of
those with which he has become well acquainted, belonging to
this part of the Union. I have nearly one 100 drawings of
Water Birds ready for publication & I pronounce them equal
to any previous ones. I am much pleased at the news you give
me respecting Havell ; I hope he will continue with hand and
heart to do all in his power for the fame of our work, and for
himself. We have not seen Nos. 34, 35, tho. from your letter
we suppose them to be in New York. Win. Oakes, I have writ-
ten you, has paid all, up to No. 33 ; Arnold, of New Bedford,
for all he has had ; John Neal has his copy, but I do not know
if he has yet paid Dr. Parkman, who is our kind friend and
agent in that part of the Country. I wish you had forwarded
first volumes bound, as you had those on hand, as several would
have been disposed of and paid for by this time; do send all,
or whatever of them you have ready, as soon as possible. It
will be well for you to have friend Bachm's. paper published
in toto, in some good circulating paper in London & Edinboro.
Brushes ! Brushes ! Brushes ! I am glad to hear of Kidd & Co.'s
publication of Parrots, but I regret that my face should have
been there from Syme's picture, which in my estimation is none
of the best. Push Kidd with the pictures ; have them, and take
care of them. Sell all the Shells you please; write to John
Adamson, of New Castle, about them, but keep smug all the
Bird Skins. I cannot do without them when I write my Synop-
sis, which will be when I am with you. Our voyage round the
Floridas, Gulph Mexico &c. will begin about the 1st. February.
This will be my last journey, after which John and I will hunt
for Subscribers, procure a round number, and join you as soon
as possible. Your dear Mama will in all probability join you
in May or June next. In about a fortnight I shall send you
more land Birds for the end of the 2 d. volume, extra small
plates, and several numbers of Water Birds. I am anxious to
hear something about the little edition. Do not omit to let me
know when you want money, for tho. our expenses are always

58 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

great, the Work must not, and shall not suffer, as long as my
eyes and hands can work.

Dec. 23 d., last evening, we had the pleasure of yours of
the 28 Oct, and one from Havell of the 9 th. Regarding Havell,
we are glad that all is well with him, and hope he will not
trouble us about extra prices, not even for the Water Birds.
The safe arrival of my last drawings has relieved me of that
anxiety. You are quite right on the score of advice. You in
England, will do best to act as you may think proper. We,
in America, are trying to do equally well, and our little
Alliance is as efficient as the Holy one at least. That Sub-
scribers should die is an event we cannot help ; that such fel-
lows as V. should act so cannot be controlled, but depend upon
our industry, our truth, and the regular manner in which we
publish our work ; this will always prove to the world and to
our Patrons that nothing more can be done than what we do ;
nay, I doubt if any family, with our pecuniary means, ever
will raise for themselves such a monument as the "Birds of
America" is, over their tomb.

How comes it that Harlan has not money enough to pay
his expenses in Europe? I shall remember the 20 £, and the
exchange. Chamley, of New Castle, was never prompt pay ;
indeed, my dear Victor, were you fully acquainted with the
great difficulties which I had to surmount and did surmount,
it would give you less fear than you now feel or experience.
We shall be glad to receive the Brushes that are, I hope, now
under way for us. Mr. Miesson resides [at] No. 2 Rue
Pigalle, on the east side of the grand Boulevards. Present my
regards to Mr. Yarrcll, and thank him in my name for his kind
offer of eggs, and add that I shall have it in my power to
present him with many which I think he has not found, that
our two collections will most likely comprise the whole of those
published in my 4 volumes. I fear that to give the eggs in
the 2 d. of Biography would render that volume too large,
and again too costly, and that a few plates of eggs at the end
of the large work will answer better.32 The plates ought to

32 See Note, Vol. I, p. 426.

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 59

be insured for at least 4 or 5 times the cost, for should they by
an accident be destroyed, the amount of their cost would prove
a poor remuneration, when compared with the time it would
require to have them renewed. Attend to this as soon as you
can. Henry Ward has rendered himself very obnoxious here.
a letter came to Mr. B. on last evening from St. Augustine, to
inquire how a certain amount left by him unpaid was to be set-
tled. Mr. Bachman will inform you of the particulars.

Do forward the bound volumes as soon as possible, for with
them I could at once make you a considerable remittance,
which would enable you to prepare the Nos. of the 2d. Vol. for
those who do not wish to have it complete. I am trying to
receive some money on Act. of the 2 d. Vol. through the me-
diums of Dr. Parkman, N. Berthoud, John Bellonis, Wm. Gas-
ton, and will let you know the result. The Flate .... which
you sent me is extremely well engraved, but let us keep to
Havell as long as he behaves with propriety, and does good
work.

I have now replied to your letter fully, except on what you
say about my immediate return. The following are my views,
but if after all, you say — come on, / shall do so. Our country
is becoming more wealthy every day. Science is looked upon
with more congeniality every year. Subscribers in this Dear
Country of ours do not drop off unless they die. They pay
punctually on demand, and to have more of them in this land
than in Europe is a thing that may prove of the greatest
importance to us. When I visited our woods on my first re-
turn from England, I was absent about 12 months. The Rath-
bones and Mr. Children wrote to me many times to return, or
expect the work to fall. I went back to Europe before I was
ready to go, and on my arrival there, to my surprise and joy,
I found everything going on as well as usual ; but I was again
obliged to come to our Country to renew my researches, and
improve my head, as well as my collection of drawings. I had
then left no one like you in England. Now you, my Dear Son,
are there; thank God for it! You prove to be a better man
at carrying on the publication than myself, and to tell you

60 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

more, I doubt if I could procure more subscribers there than
yourself. I am truly desirous for your sake, and that of your
dear Mother and Brother, to do all in my power for the com-
pletion of this great work. I wish to finish here all that is to be
done both in the way of drawing, and increase of knowledge, in
black and white, and also in Patrons, as much as possible, ere
I return to Europe, where, when I do go, I must remain sev-
eral years, if not until the completion of the engraving. I am
growing old very fast ; in 3 or 4 years my career as a travel-
ler will be ended, and should I be obliged to renew my field-
labours, it is doubtful if my constitution could bear it. One
year now is equal to 3, 3 years hence. I receive much assist-
ance from the Government, and have John to accompany me.
I am still able to undergo some fatigue, and, as I have said, I
am anxious, very anxious, to do all that can be done ere I
return to Europe. Now the whole time which I conceive neces-
sary to enable me to perform these desideratums cannot ex-
ceed 12 or 15 months. What pleasure it would be to us all,
when I take your hand and press you to my heart, I should
also have a list of 100 new names from America!; all the draw-
ings and the manuscripts ready for the completion of this our
wonderful undertaking. I would advise you to address a cir-
cular letter to all those who may be concerned in Europe, to
acquaint them with what J call the necessity of my being in
America, for the sole purpose of increasing the value of our
publications, either Illustrative or graphical. This, and the
constant improvement now exhibited to them with each new
number of the work, could not fail, I think, to render them
quiet, if not pleased, that I am now doing all I can for the
advantage of the work. Tell them the facts, that I have greatly
added to the Ornithology of the United States since my absence
from Europe, that the number of species which I now have,
and that are not given by Wilson or Bonaparte, combined,
amounts to nearly one hundred, and that the Water Birds will
be fully equal in point of interest and beauty, to any of the
land Birds that are published. And, not the least part of this,
my remaining in America has already [given], and will con-

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 61

tinue, to give me the power of portraying the habits of the
Water Biro's with more truth and completeness than has ever
yet been done. Next, have extracts of my letter to you, be-
fore the world's eye, through the medium of Papers. Visit
such of our friends, and ask them to say those things to their
acquaintance ; go on yourself, as you have done, and depend
upon it, we shall all be greatly benefitted. In your most kind
letter to John you mention with unexampled modesty what you
are attempting to do in the way of self-improvement, but my
Dear Victor, you cannot convey more thoroughly to us the
march of your improvement than you have done by sending
your lettersj and the result of your actions, so well delineated
as this is, and we all feel deeply gratified and most happy.
Cruickshank is right; by drawing you are enabled to study the
lights and shadows of bodies, again the beautiful mellowness
with which, altho. all powerful in the effect, these blend them-
selves with each other. The reflective power of bodies will
also strike your discerning attention, and when these com-
binations of the true Materia are well understood, the artist
is a Master ! Nature after all, has done all for us ; she groups,
and most beautifully, every thing that is presented to our eye
or mind, so completely also, that if one observes a number of
bodies, no matter what these bodies are, whether horses or apes,
he sees at once the general elegance of their arrangement in
contour, the force of the light and shadows, the mellowness
existing between these, and as the eye passes on to the finish-
ing of that natural picture, it at once pronounces it com-
plete.

Do not forget to take from Kidd whatever pictures of ours
he may have finished, and take good care of them. We have
pretty nearly kilt G. Ord and Waterton with our Buzzard
experiments. You say you wish you could see us at friend
Bachman's ; I assure you my pleasure at such an event would be
equal to yours. We are indeed happy in having such a friend.
Miss Martin, with her superior talents, assists us greatly in
the way of drawing; the insects she has drawn are, perhaps,
the best I've seen; at night we have some music and reading.

62 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

When you receive Bird Skins, perhaps it would be as well to
form a collection of each species in pairs, and variety of age
or color.

24 Dec. We have just received yours of 18 th. October.
You are, my Dear Son, too low spirited respecting my immedi-
ate appearance in England. Cheer up, my beloved Victor!
Believe me, when I repeat that our own Dear Country will
support the efforts of us all, and will grant us more Patrons
than the whole of Europe together; by the way of a nightcap,
let me give you the name of Wm. J. Rees, of Sumpter district,
Statesbury, South Carolina, who put his name to my list this
afternoon at the moment when the Vultures lost their olfactory
powers, for I daubed the imitation of a sheep, and the very
first one that passed over the picture rounded and came to it.

Respecting Kidd, and his prospectus, depend upon it, noth-
ing is to be feared from that quarter; that work is dead at the
moment I write, and as to his publishing the intention of the
pictures, it signifies nothing. All you have to do is to take all
the pictures from him, by goodwill or otherwise , and give him
no more originals to copy.

If I regret anything at this moment, it is that you should
have kept the 20 volumes in London, when, if I had them in
America, I should at once be enabled to make you a valuable
remittance. Ship them, ensured, as fast as possible, and doubt
not my disposing of them. Lewis Atterbury writes me to night
that all the numbers 34, 35, which Havell has shipped, are
injured greatly by salt water. I do not know yet if they were
insured or not. I write to him this evening. Do not ship
anything without insurance ; it is better to lose time in this
case than money. I will write again in a few days, and I shall
forward you Water Birds in good time. God bless you, my
dear fellow; keep up your spirits, and again may God bless

you.

Ever your affectionate father,

J. J. Audubon.

Honest John Bachman, who had lived and worked

IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 63

with Audubon for months at a time, and who probably
knew him better than did any one in America outside of
the naturalist's own family, gave this account of his
habits in 1834, when, at the age of forty-nine, he was
still working at his best:

He rises at the earliest dawn, and devotes the whole of
the day, in intense industry, to his favourite pursuit. The
specimens from which he makes his drawings are all from
nature; carefully noting the colors of the eye, bill, and legs;
measuring, with great accuracy, every part of the bird. When
differences exist, either in the sexes or young, several figures
are given on the same plate ; sparing no labour in retouching
old drawings or in making new ones, in all cases where he
conceives there may be a possibility of making an improve-
ment. In this way, he has already succeeded in figuring nearly
the whole of the birds necessary to complete his splendid and
important work.

He keeps a journal, and regularly notes down every thing
connected with natural history. This journal is always kept
in English : a language which, it must be acknowledged he
writes very correctly, when it is taken into consideration that
he spent nearly the first seventeen years of his life in France.
Besides this, he keeps separate journals, in which he notes
every thing that he learns each day on the habits of every bird.
In all his travels, he carries these journals with him; and he
never suffers business, fatigue, or pleasure to prevent him each
evening from noting down every interesting observation. In
this way, a mass of information has been accumulated from
year to year. When he sits down to write the history of a
bird (which is usually in the evening), he first reads over all
the memoranda which he has made with regard to its habits
and he is generally able to write an interesting paper on the
subject in the course of an evening. At some leisure moment
this is again revised and corrected: the scientific details he
leaves to the last.

64 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Early in March, 1834, Audubon left his friends in
Charleston, and with his wife and son passed northward
to Washington and Baltimore. From the latter city,
on March 9, he wrote to Edward Harris, in part as fol-
lows:

Friends such as you have been, and are still, are the only
recompense such poor individuals such as I am can enjoy in
this world, and the more valued as they are so very rare.

We came from Charleston by land to Norfolk ; thence to
Washington City by steamer in 20 hours, and in 8 to the city
here, well fatigued but safely. ... At Washington, where we
remained only an hour, Col. J. Abert told me something con-
nected with the climbing of Rattlesnakes upon trees &c. that
will make your mouth water, and your generous heart leap with
joy, when you read [about] them, which you shall do ere long,
I give you my word for it.

Audubon was still in Baltimore on March 15, for on
that day he gave Harris a letter of introduction to
Edward Everett. New York was reached in April,
when he wrote to Bachman that they had secured berths
in "that fine packet ship the North America,1' which was
to sail on the tenth of that month.

Toward the close of Audubon's Charleston visit he
had an unpleasant experience; he was sued for an old
debt, which no doubt dated from his Henderson period
and the failure of his mill in 1819.33 Apparently the
case was carried into court, where the naturalist was de-
fended by a lawyer named Dunkin, who, if my infer-
ence is correct, later became a distinguished judge
and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court 3i of South
Carolina. The incident was referred to by Audubon
in letters written from New York at this time; on

33 See Vol. I, p. 260.

34 See Audubon's statement of the case, given in Note 18, Vol. I, p. 2G0.

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IN THE NORTH ATLANTIC 65

April 6, he wrote to Miss Maria Martin as follows:

I told friend Bach, in my letter of yesterday that I knew
nothing of Mr. Pettigrue, connected with my business at
Charleston, and that if that gentleman had presented himself
before the court, it must have been for charity's sake ; indeed,
from the conversations that passed between Friend B. & I re-
specting Mr. Dunker [Dunkin], it would have been absurd in
me to think for a moment of employing any other person
than Mr. D.

In the letter just quoted Audubon said also that
he had spent all of the morning of the previous day
in going from shop to shop with friend Harris to pro-
cure some models for "the dear girls," but in vain; New
York with its two hundred and fifty thousand souls,
possessed but two drawing masters; "these instruct in
3 months" he added, "and starve for the nine of the
vear." In reference to financial matters, he said that
he had managed to collect about £600 sterling, and had
sent 500 to Victor in bills of exchange, so that when they
reached London, they would be tolerably well off, con-
sidering that they were "naturalists from the wilds of
America." "Nothing starts the blues so effectually," he
continued, as "constant unemployment ; for myself who
have done next to nothing since I left you, have had
horrors all around me; dreams of sinking and burning
ships at night, fears of lost drawings, & failures of sub-
scribers by day, have ever and anon been my compan-
ions." "Victor," he added, "has sent 6 boxes of pills,
which will be divided into 3 parts, the largest for G.
Ord."

The Audubons finally sailed from New York on
April 16, 1834. On the preceding day the naturalist
sent his friend, Edward Harris, a parting letter, in
which he said:

66 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

To tell you that I am surprised at your generous conduct
in remitting to me Four hundred, Ninety dollars in advance,
for all the numbers of my book, would be a poor gratification
to me. I feel your generosity, and I cannot say any more.
God bless you.

Nos. 36 & 37 have reached this place ; my drawings shipped
from Charleston are safely in the hands of Victor at London.
I have been able to forward him 650 £, and I have 30 sovereigns
to defray our expenses from Liverpool to the Great Metropolis.
In 1824, poor J. had dreams, but how far was I then from be-
lieving that I should ever have succeeded as I have; who will
believe my story? Only one or two besides yourself, have
an Idea of what I have undergone, but, if God grants me life,
I shall publish that story, and send you the sheets thereof, as
they are struck by the printer.

Audubon took with him to England all the collec-
tions which he had accumulated during nearly three
years of travel and search in different parts of the
United States and the British possessions. During this
eventful period he had renewed one hundred of his
older drawings, executed many new ones, discovered new
birds, extended his acquaintance, and added sixty-two
names to his list of patrons.

After they had reached Liverpool, he wrote to Bach-
man, May 8, 1834, that they had returned on the "su-
perb packet of 650 tons, called the North America, com-
manded by an admirable gentleman, named Dixie of
Philadelphia"; the voyage was made in not quite twenty
days. A little later they joined their son, Victor, in
London.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THORNS ON THE ROSE

Contributions to magazines — Attacked in Philadelphia — Statement to
Sully— The rattlesnake episode— Behavior of a Philadelphia editor-
Mistaken identity in account of the reptile — Lesson of the serpent's
tooth— Audubon's long lost lily rediscovered— "Nosarians and Anti-
Nosarians" — Bachman and Audubon on vultures — Aim of the critics —
Authorship in the Biography — His most persistent heckler — Pitfall of
analogy.

We have seen that John James Audubon had at-
tended the school of adversity many years before he was
known to the public in either America or Europe. The
difficulties inseparable from such colossal undertakings
as those in which he engaged were well nigh insuperable ;
but to these were added others which perhaps might
have been avoided but which could hardly have been
foreseen. From the moment he began to write for pub-
lication, he was bitterly and persistently assailed by a
number of detractors, who seemed bent upon ruining
his reputation and thus undermining the work to which
he was devoting his life and upon which he depended
as a means of support.

Were no worthy purpose to be served, it would be
folly to resurrect the animosities of a past generation,
but since a few "fed fat the ancient grudge they bore
him," and since this hostility, handed down through the
years, is occasionally echoed at the present day, the im-
partial historian is left no choice; he must weigh the
merits of the case to the best of his ability. The reader,
I think, will find that the law of compensation has

67

68 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

worked fairly well in respect to all these matters, for
if Audubon possessed faults, he was not lacking in mer-
its; if he was assailed by a few bitter enemies, he was
supported by a host of judicious friends.

As soon as Audubon became known in England, he
was importuned to contribute to the scientific maga-
zines, and in response to this demand wrote five articles,
which were published in Edinburgh and London in 1827.
Some of these papers, which dealt with the habits of the
Turkey Vulture, the Alligator, the Carrion Crow or
Black Vulture, the Wild Pigeon, and the Rattlesnake,1
were roundly scored in the Philadelphia press, and Au-
dubon was called a romancer of the first order. Thomas
Sully, the artist, who was then living in that city and
who had taken a deep interest in the naturalist since their
meeting in 1824, wrote in November, 1827, and told him
what had occurred. Since Audubon's reply was practi-
cally the only answer which he ever made to attacks of
this sort, and since his friend was given permission to
make such use of it as he saw fit, we shall reproduce
this letter nearly entire.2 In writing to his wife on the
same day Audubon said: "Now my Lucy, I am going
to answer Sully's letter; it is no difficult task, so far as
truth be connected with my answer, but as regards my
feelings it is perhaps the severest one I have had to
encounter for many years."

Audubon to Thomas Sully

Liverpool, Deer 22, 1827.
My dear Mr. Sully : —

1 received from your truly friendly letter of the 7 th. of
November the long wished for intelligence that you and your

'See Bibliography, Nos. 17-21.

2 For this privilege I am indebted to Miss Maria R. Audubon.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 69

family were well. I am not much astonished that in Phila-
delphia, remarks such as you allude to, should have been made
respecting some papers on the habits of objects of Natural
History, read by me to different institutions in this country,
but I am grieved at it.

The greatest portion of my life has been devotedly spent
in the active investigation of Nature, her beauties & her
objects in granting to different individuals, classes, or species,
such privileges as best suit their form, situation, or habits.
This arduous task I have followed with unremitting diligence,
and with a degree of industry that has caused to my family
and to myself more troubles than any person in Philadelphia
can be aware of. For more than 20 years I have been in the
regular habit of writing down every day all the incidents of
which I have been an eye-witness, on the spot, & without con-
fiding to my memory, as many travellers have done and still
do. You have read some portion of this journal, and have also
been an eye-witness of many of the occurrences, and to this I
now owe the gratification of possessing your esteem, but, My
dear Mr. Sully, you are not the only evidence. Mr. Joseph
Mason, who is now, I believe, an artist in your city, accom-
panied me on a hunting excursion, beginning at Cincinati, and
ending in the State of Louisiana, which lasted 18 months. He
drew with me; he was my daily companion, and we both rolled
ourselves together on bufaloe robes at night. James Cum-
mings, Esq., past captain, the author of a treatise on the
navigation of the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, was one of the
party, and he saw me write in my Journal, and read it fre-
quently. Every member of my family has seen the whole of those
Diaries and could readily assert the truth of the whole of their
contents, to many of which they were party, present and acting.

The papers alluded to in your estimable letter, are merely
copies from those journals; they were transcribed in Edin-
burgh, and the style corrected by patrons, who saw the orig-
inals, nearly worn out by time and the casual dampness, which
journals like mine must often be exposed to. I read these
papers to the different societies, of which I have the honor to

70 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

be a member, and read them with a sensation of pleasure that
nothing but a full persuasion of their truth could bestow.

Those persons in Philadelphia that have felt a desire to
contradict my assertions cannot, without lowering themselves
very much indeed affect to conceive that the members of the
Wernerian Society would have listened to my "say so," without
investigating the subject, even if they had not been well versed
in the habits of the objects I treated of. Neither can they
believe that all my acquaintance and particular friends would
permit me to proceed in relating Tales of Wonder, which if
untrue, would load me with disgrace, ruin my family, nay,
prove me devoid of all honor! Could I suffer myself to be so
blinded at the very moment when I am engaged in the publica-
tion of a work of unparalled magnitude, of which the greatest
naturalists and best judges both in America and in Europe have
given the fullest praise and firmest support, & from which my
very means of pecuniary comfort are to be drawn? It would
certainly be highly unfair to conceive & assert that at the time
whilst I was portraying individuals, animal and vegetable, I
should have rambled so wide and so far from facts in a portion
of science so intimately connected with & necessary to the sup-
port of those delineations, as well as to the general standing of
my reputation! Mere interest would suggest a very con-
trary line of conduct, and I hope I am not so devoid of common
sense as to lose sight of all that can render life desirable in
this world or the world hereafter.

No, my dear Mr. Sully, I have written with care what I
have seen, and have felt a great desire to spread the knowledge
I have obtained in the great field of Science for the benefit of
the world at large, and I rest content with this motto: "Le
temps decouvrira la verite." To whom then, my dear Mr.
Sully, can I ascribe the birth of the animadversions expressed
in the papers of Philadelphia! Is their author one [who]
comes avowedly forward with a life spent in the woods, loaded
with facts differing in every respect from mine, one who like
me can bring forth vouchers, and who can by respectable wit-
nesses support what he says? Or, is he one, who, writing at

THORNS ON THE ROSE 71

random and without any knowledge of his subject, merely
wishes to push himself into notice by a blunt denial of my
veracity, and would edify & please some of his friends, at the
price of my reputation. I think, my dear Mr. Sully, the latter
much more applicable, and must belong to the author of the
report current in your city.

I have not read any of the Philadelphia papers since I came
to England, and do not know the tone of the attacks upon me,
but judging from your friendly letter, I feel assured that the
pen that traced them must have been dipped in venom more
noxious than that which flows from the jaws of the rattlesnake!

To you, my dear Friend, I solemly affirm that however
unnatural my observations may appear, they are all facts,
without a word of exaggeration. My fate in this instance
differs not from that of many others, but believe me, will differ
widely from that of the illustrious Bruce; those attacks will
not make me die of sorrow !

With this, my dear Friend, I will close the subject, giving
you meanwhile full liberty to use this letter in any manner
that may best suit your feelings, and I will now pass on to other
things.

My success in the mother country continues to augment
apace. I have many most valuable friends and patrons, and
discovered soon after my landing that Science has no par-
ticular country. The 5 th. number of my work is now pub-
lished, & completes my labor for 1827. During my progress
I have often received letters from highly distinguished char-
acters, expressive of the highest approbation, & I hope by
regular industry to be able to go on with the performance,
with credit to myself & benefit to my family.

I shall leave this town for London in a few days, when I
will convey your wishes to Robert Sully, & [when] there I hope
to see the picture which you have sent to the Marquis of
Wellesley. . . .

The attack referred to in the letter just quoted was
called forth by Audubon's unfortunate paper on the

72 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Rattlesnake,3 which was read before the Wernerian So-
ciety of Edinburgh in the winter of 1827 and published
by Robert Jameson in the New Philosophical Journal
in April of that year. The controversy then started
was long and bitter, while the merits of neither side
were ever fully established ; in the history which follows
we shall see that the naturalist was, on the whole, more
sinned against than sinning.

In July, 1828, Dr. Thomas P. Jones 4 appropriated
Audubon's Rattlesnake article, and published it without
acknowledgment in the Franklin Journal and American
Mechanics' Magazine at Philadelphia. It should be no-
ticed that at the close of 1827 Audubon's famous plate
of the Mocking Birds defending their nest against the
sinister designs of this formidable reptile had also been
published in London. In this remarkable picture the
rattlesnake was represented coiled about the nest, at the
fatal moment when ready to strike its bold defenders,
and in a tree. The anomaly was apparent, for the climb-
ing habits of rattlesnakes were not then generally un-
derstood. This circumstance, together with some of Au-
dubon's notes, repeated in certain cases from stories cur-
rent in rural communities, furnished his detractors with
a powerful lever, which they seized with avidity ; snakes
coiled in trees seemed suddenly to have produced a brood
of another order which lurked in the grass, and it was
many years before Audubon heard the last of his snake
stories. The attack in the American press was laid to
the door of George Ord, and it was not long before it
was renewed with great vigor by his friend and corre-

3 See Bibliography, No. 21.

4 At one time superintendent of the Patent Office at Washington, and
professor in the medical department of Columbia College; he was later
professor of mathematics in the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia and
editor of the Franklin Journal, and American Mechanics' Magazine.

tyccy-^ S^nt,

. -^ '- ■■ " '

( hsi

.1

/) «. 6 > • />

JOHN BACHMAN
SAMUEL LATHAM MITCHELL

GEORGE ORD
CHARLES WATERTON

BACHMAN FROM C. I.. BACHMAN, "jOHS BACHMAX, D.D., LL.D. ; ORD FROM CAS-

STNIA" FOR 1908; MITCHELL AFTER AX ENGRAVING BY CAMBER AND DICK

OF A PORTRAIT BY HENRY INMAN ; WATERTON FROM MOORE'S

EDITION OF WATERTOx's "ESSAYS."

THORNS ON THE ROSE 73

spondent in England, Charles Waterton, who pro-
claimed Audubon as a new and greater Miinehhausen.5
Dr. Jones immediately repudiated the article which
he had unceremoniously appropriated, and under the
title of "The Romance of the Rattlesnake" inserted the
following notice in the August number of his maga-
zine : 6

Just as the Editor was leaving Philadelphia for Washing-
ton, he was pressed for "more copy" by his printer, and has-
tily marked some articles for insertion, among which were
"Notes on the Rattlesnake," by John James Audubon, F.R.S.
E., M.W.S., &c. Time did not admit of reading the article,
but it was seen that the writer professed to offer the "fruits
of many years' observation, in countries where snakes abound."
This with his titles, and the bold and splendid assurances which
we had seen respecting the publication of his works, served as
a password to his tissues of falsehoods, which would have been
expunged from the proof, but for absence from the press.

We had determined to publish a notice like the foregoing,
when we received a note from a scientific friend, whose re-
marks are, at once, so pointed and correct, and so fully ex-
press our own ideas upon the subject, that we gladly adopt
and insert them.

It is a tissue of the grossest falsehoods ever attempted to
be palmed upon the credulity of mankind, and it is a pity that
any thing like countenance should be given to it, by reproduc-
ing it in a respectable Journal. The romances of Audubon
rival those of Munchausen, Mandeville, or even Mendez de
Pinto, in the total want of truth, however short they may fall
of them in the amusement they afford.

This was rather a stiff charge to be made flatly
against the reputation of any one without the most

5 See Bibliography, No. 115.

6 See Bibliography, No. 93.

74 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

careful investigation, even upon the authority of "a
scientific friend." Let us see, then, what basis, if any,
really existed for such sweeping charges. In the paper
which caused the trouble Audubon had described in
great detail how he had seen a large rattlesnake pursue,
capture, kill by constriction, and devour a gray squirrel.
Before quoting his description of this singular encoun-
ter, we shall recall a passage which Audubon wrote in his
journal at the time when it occurred,7 when he was at
"Oakley," the plantation of James Pirrie at St. Fran-
cisville, Bayou Sara, in the summer of 1821 : "August
25. Finished drawing a very fine specimen of a rattle-
snake, which measured five feet and seven inches,
weighed six and a quarter pounds, and had ten rattles.
Anxious to give it a position most interesting to a
naturalist, I put it in that which the reptile commonly
takes when on the point of striking madly with its
fangs." After describing a rough dissection which he
made of the rattlesnake's dental arsenal and poison ap-
paratus, he added: "The heat of the weather was such
that I could devote only sixteen hours to the drawing."
The drawing thus referred to was undoubtedly used in
the composition of his celebrated plate.

To revert now to a mooted passage in Audubon's
published paper:

Rattlesnakes hunt and secure for their prey, with ease,
grey squirrels that abound in our woods ; therefore they must
be possessed of swiftness to obtain them. Having enjoyed the
pleasure of beholding such a chase in full view in the year
1821, I shall detail its circumstances. Whilst lying on the
ground to watch the habits of a bird that was new to me, previ-
ous to shooting it, I heard a smart rustling not far from me,
and turning my head that way, saw, at the same moment, a

7 This episode was referred to in Chapter XX, p. 316.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 75

grey squirrel full grown, issuing from a thicket, and bouncing
off in a straight direction, in leaps of several feet at a time,
and, not more than twenty feet behind, a rattlesnake of ordi-
nary size, pursuing, drawn apparently out to its full length,
and sliding over the ground so rapidly that, as they both moved
away from me, I was at no loss to observe the snake gain upon
the squirrel. The squirrel made for a tree, and ascended to
its topmost branches as nimbly as squirrels are known to do.
The snake performed the same task considerably more slowly,
yet so fast that the squirrel never raised its tail nor barked,
but eyed the enemy attentively as he mounted and approached.
When within a few yards the squirrel leaped to another branch,
and the snake followed by stretching full two-thirds of its body,
whilst the remainder held it securely from falling. Passing
thus from branch to branch, with a rapidity that astonished
me, the squirrel went in and out of several holes, but remained
in none, knowing well that, wherever its head could enter, the
body of its antagonist would follow; and, at last, much ex-
hausted and terrified, took a desperate leap, and came to the
earth with legs and tail spread to the utmost to ease the fall.
That instant the snake dropt also, and was within a few yards
of the squirrel before it began making off*. The chase on land
again took place, and ere the squirrel could reach another
tree, the snake had seized it by the back near the occiput,
and soon rolled itself about it in such a way that, although I
heard the cries of the victim, I scarcely saw any portion of its
body. So full of its ultimate object was the snake, that it paid
no attention to me, and I approached it to see in what manner
it would dispose of its prey. A few minutes elapsed, and I
saw the reptile loosening gradually and opening its folded
coils, until the squirrel was left entirely disengaged, having
been killed by suffocation. The snake then raised a few inches
of its body from the ground, and passed its head over the dead
animal in various ways to assure itself that life had departed ;
it then took the end of the squirrel's tail, swallowed it grad-
ually, bringing first one and then the other of the hind legs
parallel with it, and sucked with difficulty, and for some time,

76 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

at them and the rump of the animal, until its jaws became so
expanded, that, after this, it swallowed the whole remaining
parts with apparent ease.

Audubon then described the appearance that the
snake presently assumed, which suggested "a rouleau
of money, brought from both ends of a purse towards
its centre," and its ineffectual attempts to move off;
"when having cut a twig," he continued, "I went up to
it, and tapped it on the head, which it raised, as well as
its tail, and began for the first time to rattle."

Now every careful reader of this remarkable story,
provided he is at all conversant with the habits of snakes,
will perceive that it could not possibly have been invent-
ed, for it is strictly and minutely in accord with facts,
except in one important particular ; the snake whose be-
havior Audubon watched and so accurately described
was not the rattlesnake, but the blue racer or black snake
(Bascanion constrictor) ; substitute "blue racer," for
"rattlesnake," and this record is photographically cor-
rect.8 The black snake does all the things which are
here so minutely described — pursuing its prey with as-
tounding agility, constricting about it as a prelude to
swallowing it, ascending trees readily, coiling when
brought to bay as if about to strike, and even vibrating
the tip of its tail on the ground or leaves, as if in emu-
lation of the genuine rattler, a kind of behavior which
was looked upon by Darwin as a case of protective mim-
icry. No one could have known the rattlesnake better
than Audubon from his constant encounters with it in
the field; he made drawings of it, dissected its poison
apparatus, and had kept it for months in confinement in

8 This was very clearly pointed out in 1908 in an excellent article by
Mr. George W. Colles, entitled "A Defence of Audubon" (Bibl. No. 160),
in Scientific American, vol. xcviii, p. 311.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 77

order to study its habits; but by some curious twist of
his notes or his memory, or led astray by the record
made of the rattling habit, the species became confused
in his published account. His error was gross and he
paid dearly for it, but it certainly does not prove him to
be the king of nature fakirs.

Audubon's critics were probably right in affirming
that the rattlesnake never ascends trees for the purpose
of destroying birds, but some overshot the mark by deny-
ing that the reptile was able to climb at all. Nor could
it have been said with greater justice that the
brilliant but sluggish coral snake (Elaps fulvius), which
Audubon had also placed in a tree,9 really never aspires
to this distinction. When the snake controversy was
waxing warm in America, a number of Audubon's
friends, including Colonel John J. Abert 10 and Richard
C. Taylor,11 investigated the question and proved that
the rattlesnake was a ready climber at certain times
of the year and under certain conditions, a fact which
is now better known. Mr. Taylor's party in the course
of explorations in the Alleghanies killed forty-one large
rattlesnakes during the month of August on a single
ridge bordering the Lycoming Valley, and in rendering
his report, this geologist said: "I have repeatedly en-
deavored to verify Mr. Audubon's account of the rattle-
snake ascending trees, which has been confirmed."

We have already referred to Audubon's meeting
with Thomas Cooper at Columbia, South Carolina, in
October, 1833. This versatile man, sometime English
lawyer, revolutionist in France, friend of Priestley,
judge in the Court of Common Pleas of Pennsylvania,

9 See Plate Hi, of the Chuck-wilFs-widow.

10 See Vol. II, p. 3; and Bibliography, No. 107.

11 An English geologist, who made a survey of the bituminous coal-
deposits of the Alleghany mountains in 1834. See Bibliography, No. 129.

78 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

professor of chemistry in Dickinson College as well as
in the University of Pennsylvania, and at this time
president of South Carolina College at Columbia, was
able to confirm Audubon's account of the climbing habit
of the rattlesnake, and probably wrote this statement
at his request:

DR. THOMAS COOPER.

After a contemporary silhouette.

Thomas Cooper to Audubon

Columbia S. Carolina

Octr 21. 1833

Mr Audubon
Dear Sir

About three weeks ago, my son and two of my black ser-
vants, observed a very large rattle snake climbing up the fence
that separates my garden from the road, at my country house.
The snake put himself in the attitude of striking; whereupon
one of the men ran for a gun, and shot the snake on the last
rail but one of the fence. The snake was 4.3 long; as thick as
my wrist, and had seven rattles.
I am Dear Sir

Your obedient servant

Thomas Cooper

THORNS ON THE ROSE 79

Waterton maintained that Audubon's drawing of
the rattlesnake, to which we have referred, was a mon-
strosity, "a fabulous Hydra, with its eyes starting out
of their sockets," and a point repeatedly ridiculed was
his representation of the fangs as slightly recurved, or
bent up at their tips. Who had ever heard of such an
anomaly? Certainly not the doughty lord of "Walton
Hall," who declared that the fangs of poisonous snakes
were always curved like a scythe, with their points bent
downwards. Waterton prided himself on his knowledge
of these reptiles, and certainly was not lacking in self-
confidence. According to his own account, he went
eleven months in the forests of Brazil without shoe or
stocking to his foot, and on a certain occasion in London
secured with his hands and removed from its cage a live
rattlesnake; but, like so many sophisticated writers on
natural history, he took to analogy like a duck to water.

Waterton's statement sounds plausible enough, but
obviously could be proved only by extensive observa-
tions and comparisons. When Audubon was proceed-
ing up Galveston Bay to Houston, Texas, in the spring
of 1837, with his son, John, and Edward Harris, they
stopped at the plantation of Colonel James Morgan,
near Red Fish Bar. "There, among other rarities," said
he, "we procured a fine specimen of the climbing rattle-
snake with recurved fangs, which with several others
of the same kind, is now in my possession." 12 In writ-
ing to Thomas M. Brewer, from Charleston, on June
12 of this year, he alluded to this subject as follows : "I
must not forget to say to you that I had the good for-
tune to procure specimens of my 'Climbing Rat-
tlesnake with DOUBLE recurved fangs' which, I
am told, will prove a new genus! and therefore the

12 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. iv, p. xviii.

80 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Messrs. Ord and Waterton — good souls! — will be per-
fectly delighted at the sight of this strange reptile." 13
Unfortunately a large part of Audubon's collections
made upon this expedition were lost. I have seen no
other reference to this extraordinary peculiarity, and
there the matter seems to have rested until the present
time.

Audubon's judgment or memory might play him
false, but his pencil, in such a matter, could be relied
upon to tell the truth. It is therefore a pleasure to be
able to confirm his accuracy in reference to the serpent's
tooth, for the true representation of which he was round-
ly abused during his lifetime. The reader will perceive
the point by examining the accompanying photograph,
which represents the skull of a large diamond-backed
specimen from Florida.14 In the prairie rattlesnake,
and probably in some others, the fangs are sickle-shaped,
as Waterton maintained, but upwards of eleven species
of rattlesnakes have been found on the continent of
North America, and, true to Audubon's disputed draw-
ing and account, in this Florida specimen the fangs are
slightly, but very distinctly, bent upwards at their tips!
Let nature writers, inclined to the easy path of analogy,
remember the rattlesnake's fang, for it teaches a salu-
tary lesson.

As I have not hesitated to speak of Audubon's real
or supposed mistakes, I will give another and more strik-
ing instance of his tardy vindication. In his plate of the
American Swan (No. ccccxi), which was published in

is See Thomas M. Brewer, (Bibl. No. 79), Harper's New Monthly
Magazine, vol. lxi, p. 666 (1880).

14 This specimen, which was presented to me by the late Dr. X. C.
Scott of Cleveland, measured 6 feet, and showed eight rattles and a button;
the skin and skeleton are preserved in the Biological Laboratory of Western
Reserve University. Position of fangs incorrectly shown in the photograph.
By opening the mouth they are directed outward.

VINDICATION OF ATJDTJBON's REPRESENTATION OF THE FANGS OF THE
SOUTHERN RATTLESNAKE: ABOVE, DETAIL OF THE "MOCKING BIRDS,"
PLATE XXI (UNCOLORED) OF "THE BIRDS OF AMERICA";
BELOW, THE SKULL OF A RECENT FLORIDA SPECI-
MEN, SHOWING THE SAME RECURVATURE
OF FANG.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 81

1838, there is represented a yellow water lily, under the
name of Nymphaea lutea. Since this lily was then quite
unknown to botanists, it was ignored and treated as a
fable, or as an extravagant vagary of the naturalist's
imagination, until the summer of 1876, when it was re-
discovered in Florida by Mrs. Mary Treat. Audubon's
long lost lily was then identified and acknowledged by
Professor Asa Gray, the botanist, who, with poetic jus-
tice, proposed to rename it after the discredited enthusi-
ast, in view of the fact that it had been originally dis-
covered and faithfully depicted by him a generation
before.

While the snake controversy was acute in America,
another of a purely academic character, which assumed
even wider proportions, was started on the smelling
powers of the vulture. We have already seen a reference
to this in the naturalist's letter to his son, Victor, written
at Charleston, where he was conducting with Bachman
a new series of experiments to settle the question.15 The
idea, commonly accepted, that the scavengers of the
Southern States were possessed of a keenness of scent
comparable with that of a beagle hound, had been vig-
orously combated by Audubon, who showed by numer-
ous experiments 16 that they were guided to their prey

15 See Vol. II, p. 55.

10 Bachman's account of these experiments is interesting: "A coarse
painting," he said, was made on canvas, "representing a sheep skinned and
cut open. This proved very amusing — no sooner was this picture placed
on the ground than the Vultures observed it, alighted near, walked over
it, and some of them commenced tugging at the painting. They seemed
much disappointed and surprised, and after having satisfied their curiosity,
flew away. This experiment was repeated more than fifty times, with
the same result. The painting was then placed within two feet of the
place where the offal was deposited — they came as usual, walked around
it, but in no instance evinced the slightest symptoms of their having
scented the offal which was so near them.

"The most offensive portions of the offal were now placed on the earth;
these were covered over by a canvass cloth — on this were strewn several
pieces of fresh beef. The Vultures came, ate the flesh that was in sight,

82 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

by the sense of sight only; thus it was found that they
would come readily to the effigy of a calf or sheep painted
on canvas and set up in plain view, or to a skin stuffed
with straw, but failed to detect their quarry when the
dead bodies of these animals were placed on the ground
and screened from their eyes, if only by the thinnest
cover, though the carrion was calling loudly to the nose
but a fraction of an inch away. An attack by Water-
ton,17 who hurried to the fray whenever a statement in
his jealously guarded Wanderings was called in ques-
tion, led to a lively tilt, in which the advocates of the
nose and the eyes were sometimes humorously referred
to as the "Nosarians" and the "Anti-Nosarians," some
of the most eminent anatomists of the day eventually
taking part.

Bachman felt keenly the aspersions which were cast
upon his friend, and in the winter of 1833 he undertook
with Audubon the series of experiments to which we
have referred. The tests which were then made sup-
ported Audubon's statements in every particular, and
the faculty of the Medical College of South Carolina
were invited as a body to witness them; this they did

and although they were standing on a quantity beneath them, and although
their bills were frequently within the eighth of an inch of the putrid
matter, they did not discover it. We made a small rent in the canvass,
and they at once discovered the flesh and began to devour it. We drove
them away, replaced the canvass with a piece that was entire; again they
commenced eating the flesh exhibited to their view, without discovering
the hidden food they were trampling upon.

"As it [the organ of smell] does however exist, (although in an
inferior degree,) I am not disposed to deny to birds the power of smell
altogether, nor would I wish to advance the opinion that the Vulture does
not possess the power of smelling in the slightest degree, (although it has
not been discovered by our experiments). All that I contend for is, that
he is not assisted by this faculty in procuring his food — that he cannot
smell better for instance, than Hawks or Owls, who it is known are
indebted altogether to their sight, in discovering their prey."

"See Bibliography, No. 104, and Vol. II, p. 55; also Ornithological
Biography, vol. ii, p. 46.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 83

willingly, and the following memorial signed by all the
witnesses present was published by Bachman in 1834. 18

We, the subscribers, having witnessed several of the ex-
periments made on the habits of the vultures of South Caro-
lina (Cathartes aura and C. atratus), commonly called the
turkey buzzard and the carrion crow, feel assured that these
species respectively are gregarious, the individuals of each
species associating and feeding together; that they devour
fresh as well as putrid food of any kind, and that they are
guided to their food altogether through their sense of sight,
and not of smell.

In a letter written to Ord, on March 4, 1834, Water-
ton said:

You will see that the Charleston parson [Bachman], Doc-
tors, Surgeons and Professors are up in arms against me and
are determined to cut off the Vulture's nose. But do not be
alarmed for me, I promise you that I will answer them to your
heart's content and tomorrow I shall send up a paper to Lou-
don for his May number which will make your Philosophers
appear very small and put Audubon's claim to literature and
ornithology in so clear a light that no one will be in doubt
hereafter. . . . Audubon's gulled friends and supporters in
London are in the highest spirits and feel sure that I cannot
answer the Charleston letter. By the first of May next their
crowing will cease.

When anatomists came to consider the question and
found that well developed olfactory lobes and nerves
were present in these birds, they favored the theory of
smell,19 and Edinger has more recently expressed the
opinion that this consideration renders the possession of

1S See Bibliography, No. 125, and for the quotation to follow, Samuel N.
Rhoads, "George Ord," Cassinia, No. xii (Philadelphia, 1908).

19 See W. Sells (Bibl. No. 140), Proceedings of the Zoological Society
of London, pt. v, p. 33 (1837),

84 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

an olfactory sense in such birds highly probable. His con-
tention is weakened, however, by the fact that granivo-
rous and insectivorous birds also possess true olfactory
nerves, and yet are proved by experiment to have little
or no effective sense of smell. It is a problem for stu-
dents of behavior to solve, and so far as the American
vultures are concerned, Audubon's and Bachman's ex-
periments, I believe, have never been repeated or ex-
tended with sufficient care to settle the question. The
little that has been done, however, suggests that while
the vulture in its daily and never ending search for food
is mainly guided by its keen eyes, the nose, possibly,
may be a cooperating factor when the wind and other
conditions are favorable.

While critics were driving the pen, Audubon was
hard at work in the field, but his friends did not long
remain silent. Favorable notices of his work, actual or
prospective, had appeared in the scientific and literary
press of England, by David Brewster, Robert Jame-
son, William Swainson, and "Christopher North" of
Blackwood's Magazine. The first American notice ap-
peared in the American Journal of Science for 1829,
and this was followed by G. W. Featherstonhaugh, the
English geologist, in his recently established but short-
lived Monthly American Journal of Geology and Nat-
ural Science, to which we have already referred.20 A
little later the London Athenaeum gave the first of
eleven extended articles on Audubon's work; in review-
ing his second volume of letterpress, which appeared in
1834, the writer said: "There is amply sufficient remain-
ing in Audubon's pages for fully a dozen more notices,
were we disposed to follow the exhausting system. We
have admired Audubon's gorgeous drawings, but our

20 See Vol. II, pp. 4 and 23, and Bibliography, No. 100.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 85

interest in them has been increased a thousand fold,
in knowing that they are the spoils of a life's cam-
paign." 21 Again a series of able articles was started by
a just critic, W. B. O. Peabody, in the North Ameri-
can Review for April, 1832.22 Featherstonhaugh de-
serves credit for having given Audubon a fair hearing
at a critical time, when baiting the American Woods-
man was a popular pastime in certain circles at Phila-
delphia; in reviewing the Ornithological Biography in
i832, this plain spokesman gave what he called "a true
history of a conspiracy, got up to utterly break down
and ruin the reputation of one of the most remarkable
men America ever produced." 23

Audubon's silence under fire of hostile criticism
tempted someone in the capacity of a reporter to call on
him in London to obtain, if possible, a personal state-
ment, but his lips were then sealed and he would only
say: "Had I wished to invent marvels, I need not have
stirred from my garret in New York or London."
However, in writing to Featherstonhaugh from Bulow-
ville, East Florida, December 31, 1831, Audubon made
this comment : 24

If I did not believe the day to be gone by when it was
necessary to defend my snake stories, I could send you many
curious accounts of the habits of those reptiles ; and I should
do it, if it were not that I might be thought to enjoy — too
much that triumph which the feeble hostility of three or four
selfish individuals has forced upon me. I receive so many acts
of real friendship and disinterested kindness, that, I thank
God, there is no room left in my heart to cherish unkind feel-
ings towards any one. Indeed, I am not now so much sur-

21 See Bibliography, No. 136.

22 See Bibliography, No. 105.

23 See Bibliography, No. 106.

24 See Bibliography, No. 35.

86 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

prised at the incredulity of persons who do not leave cities,
for I occasionally hear of things which even stagger me, who
am so often a denizen of woods and swamps. What do you
think of rattlesnakes taking to the water, and swimming across
inlets and rivers? I have not seen this, but I believe it; since
the most respectable individuals assure me they have fre-
quently been eye-witnesses of this feat, I can conceive of in-
ducements which reptiles may have for traversing sheets of
water to gain dry land, especially in a country much inter-
sected by streams, and subject to inundations, which compel
them to be often in the water. In such countries, it is not an
uncommon occurrence to find snakes afloat and at great dis-
tances from the shore. This appears, no doubt, surprising to
those who live where there is almost nothing but dry land;
still they ought to be good natured, and believe what others
have seen. It has now been made notorious, that numerous
respectable individuals, whom duty, or the love of adventure,
have led into the woods of our country, have often seen snakes
—and the rattlesnake too— in trees; the good people, there-
fore, who pass their lives in stores and counting houses, ought
not to contradict these facts, because they do not meet with
rattlesnakes, hissing and snapping at them from the paper
mulberries, as they go home to their dinners. . . .

Audubon's most persistent heckler was Charles
Waterton,25 who during two of his most prolific years,
1833 and 1834, published no less than fourteen lucubra-
tions against the "foreigner," and "stranger" as the
American was called ; all were characterized by quizzing
interrogatories, shallow criticism and personal vitupera-
tion, for the most part unworthy of serious considera-
tion. Long noted for his eccentricities, Waterton had
little or no standing among English zoologists, against
many of whom, from time to time, he issued broadsides
or breezy polemics, whenever their statements cast a

25 See Bibliography, No. 104 et seq.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 87

shadow on his Wanderings. Some of these accusing ar-
ticles were answered by Victor Audubon and other
friends of the naturalist, but they never drew his own
fire; probably they benefited him in the end, for when
it appeared that the charges brought against him were
in large measure the work of envious calumniators, a
strong current set in his favor on both sides of the
Atlantic.

When Audubon's name was first proposed for mem-
bership in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Phila-
delphia, it was rejected, according to report, through
the influence of George Ord and a few of his partisans,
while Waterton, who was Mr. Ord's close friend and
correspondent, affirmed that Audubon was rejected by
the Society on the strength of Alexander Wilson's per-
sonal diary,26 a statement which appears to be utterly
incredible.27

In 1833, two years after the first volume of Audu-
bon's "Biography of Birds" had made its appearance,
Waterton raised another controversy, in this instance
with ammunition supplied by his friend, George Ord
of Philadelphia. He boldly proclaimed 28 that Audu-
bon was not the author of the work which bore his name,
a charge similar to that which had been brought to
the door of the French ornithologist, Le Vaillant, whose
history resembled Audubon's in many ways. "I request
the English reader," said Waterton, "to weigh well in
his own mind what I have stated, and I flatter myself
that he will agree with me, when I affirm that the cor-

26 See Vol. I, p. 224.

27 "I myself, with mine own eyes, have seen Wilson's original diary,
written by him at Louisville, and I have just now on the table before me
the account of the Academy of Sciences indignantly rejecting Mr. Audu-
bon as a member, on that diary having been produced to their view."
See Bibliography, No. 119.

28 See Bibliography, No. 119.

88 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

rect and elegant style of composition which appears
through the whole of the Biography of Birds cannot
possibly be that of him whose name it bears." Water-
ton maintained that, while Audubon's earlier papers
were the work of an illiterate person, his Biography
betrayed the hand of a finished scholar from beginning
to end. In a reply to Victor Audubon, written July 6,
1833,29 Waterton declared, upon the authority of
George Ord, whom he quoted, that William Swainson
had been importuned to write Audubon's work for him,
but declined when Audubon insisted upon his own name
being given to the world as author. This direct accusa-
tion called forth an immediate explanation from Swain-
son, who said : 30

In reply to that gentleman (G. Ord, Esq.), regarding the
assistance it was expected I should have given my friend,
Mr. Audubon, in the scientific details of his work, my reply
was, that the negotiation had been broken off from an un-
willingness that my name should be printed on the title-page.
I was not asked to write the work, nor did Mr. Audubon "in-
sist upon his own name being given to the world as the author"
of such parts as he wished me to undertake. ... I have read
Mr. Audubon's original manuscripts, and I have read Mr.
Waterton's original manuscripts. I think the English of one
is as good as the English of the other— but here the compari-
son ends."

The controversy thus started did not reflect much credit
on Audubon's detractors, but reverberations of the
charge were heard at a much later day.

Robert Bakewell, the geologist, who was a relative
of Mrs. Audubon, then living at Hampstead, entered

29 See Bibliography, No. 115.

30 See Bibliography, No. 117.

THORNS ON THE ROSE 89

this controversy, and in June, 1833, replied 31 to one of
Waterton's fulminations, which he attributed to envy
and jealousy, saying that posterity would regard Au-
dubon as "the most distinguished ornithologist of the
present age."

Charles Waterton began his travels at eighteen, but
early settled down to a life of leisurely independence on
his ancestral estate in Yorkshire, where he studied birds
to little purpose and wrote extensively on natural-his-
tory subjects; he is best known for his Wanderings,32
which has passed through numerous editions and is still
read. From youth Waterton enjoyed exceptional ad-
vantages, and according to one of his biographers, "lived
to extreme old age without having wasted an hour or a
shilling." He was the twenty-seventh "lord of Walton
Hall," the manor house of the family, which stood on
an island in a lake; the estate of 260 acres was mainly
converted into a preserve for wild birds. His young
wife died in 1829, after having given birth to a son, and
he lived on his paternal acres in semi-retirement ever
after. It was said that Waterton would never don
evening clothes or a black coat, but insisted on wearing
a blue frock with gold buttons until an anxious police-
man in the neighboring village of Wakefield persuaded
him to make a change ; he told the Reverend J. G. Wood
in 1863 that he had been bled 160 times, mostly by his
own hand. When, in his sixty-ninth year, he had the
misfortune to fall from a pear tree and break an elbow
joint, the first remedy tried was the extraction of thirty
ounces of blood; shortly after this a careless servant
withdrew a chair as he was seating himself at table, and

81 See Bibliography, No. 114.

32 Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States,
and the Antilles, in the years 1812, 1816, 1820, $ 1824. Originally in 4to.,
London, 1825.

90

AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

thirty more ounces were immediately required. The
wage of one of his laborers is said to have sufficed for
his personal needs, and his sleeping apartment had
neither bed, chair, nor carpet; he lay on bare boards,
wrapped in a blanket, with an oaken block for pillow;
and he is said to have never tasted fermented liquor and
to have eaten but sparingly of meat. His daily habit
was to retire at eight and rise at three o'clock in the
morning, and he was always dressed by four; an ardent
Roman Catholic, he would spend an hour at devotion in
his private chapel; he then read Latin and Spanish au-
thors, wrote his polemics against Audubon or any others
with whom he came in conflict, and received the re-
ports of his bailiff, all before breakfast, which was at
eight o'clock; the remainder of the day was mostly de-
voted to his birds and other animals, to preserve which
he surrounded his entire estate with a high rampart of
stone, said to have cost, all told, $50,000.

Though a devout Romanist, as someone has re-
marked, Waterton never hesitated to adopt the same
mode of reasoning which Hume had employed in his
argument against miracles. Thus he rejected with scorn
Edward Jenner's account of how the young parasitic
Cuckoo, when but a day old and hardly able to stand,
turned out of their nest its rightful occupants. This
account, which was generally accepted then, and has
been repeatedly verified and recorded by the camera
since, "carries," said Waterton, "its own condemnation,
no matter by whom related, or by whom received."
Trusting to analogy again, he maintained that Audu-
bon's description of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird
gluing bits of lichen to the surface of its nest with
saliva was false, because "the saliva of all birds imme-
diately mixes with water," and the first shower of rain

THORNS ON THE ROSE 91

would immediately undo the work of the bird. No ac-
count was taken of the Chimney Swift, which not only
glues together the twigs of its nest but secures the
whole to a support through an abundant salivary secre-
tion, although this habit had long been known. In the
instance of this hummingbird, however, both Audubon
and Waterton were partly right and partly wrong, as
a careful examination of the nests of five species of
hummingbirds, including the Ruby-throat, has clearly
shown.33 It proved that saliva was only casually used
on the surface of the nest, the lichens in the case referred
to being adherent by means of spiders' silk and fine veg-
etable fibers of various sorts; the saliva of the Ruby-
throat, when dry, moreover, was found to be practically
insoluble in cold water, even after an immersion of sev1
eral days ; but more interesting than this is the fact that
the nest itself is glued to its supporting twig by a large
salivary wafer, which represents this hummingbird's first
step in the work of nest construction.

Shortly after his arrival at Edinburgh, and before
he had published anything, Audubon wrote in his jour-
nal on November 5, 1826: "I returned home early and
found a note from Mr. John Gregg, who came himself
later, bringing me a scrubby letter from Charles Water-
ton," so it would appear that the lord of "Walton Hall"
had been warned to keep an eye on the dangerous Amer-
ican, and Waterton's American correspondent was Mr.
Ord, of Philadelphia. Later on Waterton wrote to
Swainson an extraordinary letter of some four thousand
words,34 afterwards published in his Essays on Natural
History, which for petty vanity and personal animosity

33 See "Nests and Nest-Building in Birds," Pt. 2, Journal of Animal Be-
havior, vol. i (1911).

34 See Bibliography, No. 138.

92

AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

has seldom been surpassed, but with this effort his am-
munition seems to have been exhausted.

Charles Waterton, who lived to his eighty-third year,
and who wrote nineteen polemics against Audubon and
his friends, was probably sincere in his attacks upon the
American Woodsman, whom he seems to have regarded
as a dangerous charlatan. Waterton was a curious
compound of fearless independence, kindness, credulity,
pedantry, vanity, and intolerance. He should be given
credit, however, for having done much to spread abroad
a love of natural history and for his attitude towards
an artificial system of classification, then much in vogue,
which, though only an amateur, he had the good sense
to reject.

CHAPTER XXIX

SIDELIGHTS ON AUDUBON AND HIS
CONTEMPORARIES

What was a Quinarian? — Controversy over the authorship of the
Ornithological Biography — Audubon's quaint proposal — Swainson's
reply — Friendship suffers a cheek — Species-mongers — Hitting at one
over the shoulders of another — Swainson as a biographer — His career —
Bonaparte's grievance — A fortune in ornithology — Labors of John
Gould and his relations with Audubon — The freemasonry of naturalists.

Few, probably, ever attain marked success in their
chosen field without exciting jealous rivalry or misrep-
resentation on the part of some of their contemporaries.
Audubon was no exception to the rule, but in this respect
he has been subject to so much misunderstanding that
the reader is entitled to know the truth, whenever it can
be ascertained. An instance of this sort was furnished
by the English naturalist, William Swainson, whose
relations with Audubon have been touched upon in
earlier chapters.

In April, 1828, Swainson published an eulogistic ac-
count of some of Audubon's plates, and shortly after
they became good friends, as their familiar letters al-
ready reproduced amply testify ; l in the autumn of that
year, as we have related, they visited Paris together,
and they kept up a correspondence for a number of
years. At this time Swainson was known as a systematic
zoologist of merit and an excellent draughtsman, hav-

^ee Chapter XXIII.

94 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ing published a series of "Zoological Illustrations" that
seem to have been well received. Moreover, as early as
1824, he had adopted the notorious "Circular System"
of the classification of animals, and at this time was
its most zealous advocate in England. The tenets of
this curious doctrine, often called "Quinarianism" from
the recurrence of the number 5, was confused in a mysti-
cal jargon which conveys little meaning to a reader of
today; it was derived from William Sharp MacLeay,
who had advocated a similar system in his Horae Ento-
mologicae, published in 1821. According to Swainson's
creed, "all things that have life have been created upon
one plan, and this plan is founded on the principle of a
series of affinities returning into themselves ; which can
only be represented by a circle." "This sublime discov-
ery," which, as Swainson thought, was sufficient "to im-
mortalize a name," was duly attributed to his "illustri-
ous countryman." 2

In the summer of 1830, when Audubon was ready
to prepare the letterpress of his mammoth plates and
needed assistance in its technical details, he applied to
his friend Swainson, who, as we have seen, was then
living at a farmstead in the Hertfordshire country, not
far from St. Albans.3 Some of the letters which passed
between the two naturalists after the return of the for-
mer to England, in the spring of that year, will now
be given, without amelioration or change of any sort. It
should be remembered that Swainson at this time was
in an overwrought state, since he was dependent mainly

2 Swainson expounded the Quinarian or Circular System in the Fauna
Boreali-Americana; or the zoology of the northern parts of British
America, published in collaboration with John Richardson, and the
first zoological publication issued by the British Government; but A
Treatise on the Geography and Classification of Animals contained his
most authoritative thesis upon this grotesque concept.

3 See Vol. I, p. 403.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 95

upon his scientific writings for the support of a family
of five children, oppressed by pecuniary difficulties, and,
no doubt, irritated by lack of success and the rebuffs
which a leading part in the Quinarian movement was
certain to entail. Audubon's letter 4 which follows
served to answer that of Swainson, bearing date of
January 30, 1830,5 which had been received in America
but too late for the fulfillment of its commissions.
References to Audubon's "book," which unfortu-
nately proved a stumbling block in the path of friend-
ship, are noticed here and in Swainson's reply for the
first time.

Audubon to William Swainson

London, May 5th 1830.
My dear Mr. Swainson,

You may be assured that nothing but an over [word un-
decipherable] or [another similar word] has stopt me from
writing to you sooner, Yet I would have had the pleasure of
announcing you my return to good old England had I not been
informed by Mr. Havell that you we apraised of it when last
in town & that more over you were quite well.— I hope that
your kind wife and children are equally so and happy. — I
brought my good wife with me to Liverpool where she is for
a while with her sister Mrs. Gordon & the family Rathbourn
We had a rough voyage of 25 days & glad to be back on this
hospitable shore. I am sorry to say that your last letter to
me (I presume) did not reach me in time to enable me to
procure either squirrels or birds for you. — I have indeed
brought about 150 birds and some of them good singers and
beautifull but all are on Double Elephant Paper — they may
and I hope they will please your eyes, when I have the satis-
faction to shake you by the hand the first time you come to

4 For the history of the Audubon-Swainson correspondence, see Note,
Vol. I, p. 400. Swainson's letter which follows was first published by Ruth-
ven Deane (Bibl. No. 218), The Auk, vol. xxii, p. 248 (1905).

8 Reproduced in Vol. I, p. 430.

96 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

town. — I called on Mr. Lea at Philadelphia, but he told me
that you had countermanded your wishes to me & has given
me a memorandum to that effect — Mr. Gilpin on whom I also
called told me that your travelling boxes had forwardd. I
saw Mr Ward at New York he is doing extremely well if what
he told me is true. I saw M. le Comte also. — I have just
taken the Reins of my Mammoth Publication which by the way
I am glad to find in a good way of process or progress. I am
greatly indebted to Mr. Children and grateful to him — Havell
has done his part I think well and now I will set about pro-
curing subscriptions with new ardour. Now in return of this
packet of information I am very desirous to know what you
are engaged at present in the way of science; I feel as if I
had a world of talk for you. — Bonaparte's 4th volume is print-
ing have you seen the third? I have it at Liverpool by this
time. — I wrote to the author this morning. — I am well pleased
with my voyage I think it will be of material advantage to my
work my health & my comfort — We have left our two sons
quite well and doing well at the Falls of the Ohio where I killed
a fine Turkey about forty days since. Those sent to the Zoo-
logical Gardens alive have had ill luck. They received only one
and 3 Oppossums — The blue Jays and Parakets are not yet
arrived, and Mr. Rathbone as well as Mr. Shepherd told me
(to my great sorrow) that the last shipment of 10,000 forest
trees were all dead. How did those sent to you?— I have
commenced the having a complete collection of the Birds of
America in skins & have instituted some agents in the U. S.
to provide for me. So much have I seen of those dear creatures
of the feathered creation that I feel even now as if I heard
their notes and saw their all elegant movements.— I am going to
write a booh! but more of this when we meet.— do you know
that the poor woodsman who now is scribling to you will take
his seat at the Royal Society of London tomorrow— the very
words make my head whirl and I will stand it I do not know— I
will indeed be glad when I am seated.— Mrs A and myself had
the pleasure of being very kindly received and treated by our
President Jackson Congress subscribed, I procured there four

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 97

more and an act will be passed to enter my works Paintings etc
free of the customs. — It is past 5 and I have to pay a penny,
I wish I were allowed to write untill time made it a shilling so
much do I think I could still trouble you with, however as time
and tide wait neither for me or others I must conclude by
begging that you will remember me most kindly to your amiable
wife — kiss your little Folk and believe me

sincerely your friend

John J. Audubon

William Swainson to Audubon

Saturday, 1[10?] May, 1830.

Welcome once more, my good friend to merry England :

I had indeed heard from Havell, with the greatest pleasure,
that you had safely landed at Liverpool ; and I regret very
much that you did not reach London before I had left it ; for
I am now much seldomer in town than formerly, and I know
not when I may have the power to do so again. My old and
most valued friend Mr. Burchell has also, to my great delight,
just returned to England after six years spent in wandering
over the Forests and Andes of South America bringing with
him collections, that will make everything else in this country
sink into utter insignificance, he too, is longing to see me, and
if I possibly can get away for a day next week, with two such
desirable objects I will, but my literary engagements bind me,
hand and foot.

You think that I do not know that you are an F. R. S. —
you are mistaken, furthermore, you will be surprised at know-
ing I have been fighting your battles against a rising opposi-
tion which originated among some of your Ornithological
friends (at least so I strongly suspect) for the purpose of
your name being blackballed. But more of this when we meet,
such matters had better not be committed to paper.

The whole of your bundle of young trees reached me as
withered sticks, not a spark of life in any one of them.

98 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

So you are going to write a book 'tis a thing of little
moment for one who is not known, because they have no repu-
tation to loose, but much will be expected from you, and you
must, therefore, as the saying is, put your best leg foremost.
I am coming fast round to the prejudice, as you may think it,
against the Americans.

Dr. Richardson's and my own volume on the Arctic Birds,
is now in press. Not being able to refer to your plates, I have
not had the power to quote your work, you know how repeatedly
I have applied on this head, both to you and Mr. Havell in
vain.

Prince C. Bonaparte has long promised me his second &
third volume but they have never come. Ward 6 is a regu-
lar Scamp he has taught me a good lesson — fool that he is —
and that is, to steal my heart against distress such as his
was, and to consult, like all the rest of the world, my own
interest only. I am sick of the world and of mankind, and
but for my family would end my days in my beloved forests of
Brazil.

So Mr. Lea7 did not settle my account with you? I have
found him out, also, to be no better than he should be. He
also is one of your friends who would, if he could, cut your
throat. Another friend of yours has been in England, Mr.
Ord and has been doing you all the good he can : if these are
samples of American Naturalists, defend me from ever com-
ing in contact with any of their whole race.

Mrs. Swainson's health I am grieved to say, has suffered
much the last twelve months, she is now at Birmingham with
the children. I have not failed to mention your kind inquiries

8 Possibly Henry Ward, who came to America with Audubon in 1831
as his assistant and taxidermist (see Vol. II, p. 2) ; a Frederick Ward is
also mentioned in Audubon's letters.

7 Isaac Lea, naturalist and Philadelphia publisher; Mr. Lea was a
member of the firm of Messrs. Carey & Lea, at one time the principal
proprietors of Wilson's American Ornithology, and it was thought that
the prejudice which he manifested towards Audubon and his friends was
traceable to his desire to maintain the sales of that work. His attitude
was compared with that of Judge Hall, whose brother, Harrison, was also
%» interested publisher. See Vol. I, pp. 223 and 281.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 99

after both, whenever Havell has a parcel for me, I hope you
will occasionally accompany it with a few lines.

Yours my dear Sir very faith'ly

W. Swainson
John J. Audubon
at Mr. Havell's
79 Newman St.
Oxford St.

As already noticed, Audubon started on a canvass-
ing tour late in July, 1830, as announced in the follow-
ing letter to Swainson, but he changed his plans, and
instead of returning to London, went to Edinburgh, and
again settled there for the winter.

Audubon to William Swainson

July 26th 1830.
My dear Friend,

I was particularly pleased at receiving1 yours of the 22nd
this morning, I cannot well say where it has rambled since it
was dated, but certainly its migration has not been that of a
Swallow for instance. —

Thank you about the Jay — It has been my misfortune to
have been rather misunderstood by you respecting what you
please to call "Poor Nomenclators" had I not some regard for
you all of that nobler breed I would not borrow names in my
work but would have like some others, made new ones right
out. — // you have a new Woodpecker from the visited states, a
new species, I will feel greatly honoured to have it dedicated to
me, and the more so by you who first dared in good faith to
write respecting an unknown woodsman — one of my case [s]
is come to hand, I gave from it to the British Museum thirty
skins several of which are very rare indeed and 3 of which I
[here a word is apparently omitted by the writer] as 3 new
[here another word is omitted] — I have males and females of
the woodpecker you speak of quite at your service for a few

100 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

weeks — and I have also a few duplicates for you altogether as
I promised. — Say how I am to send them — I go to Bristol to-
morrow in search of subscribers for ten days — To Paris on
the 15th of August — have written to queen Adelaide this pleas-
ant morning & am glad to see that you are all well. Mrs. A.
joins in respects to you all & I am as ever

your friend most truly

John J. Audubon

[The following note is written up the side of the page across
the main letter:]

I cannot at present say When we can avail ourselves of
your kind invitation but will let you know in good time should
we but find it convenient to you when we return. —

It should be noticed that the revolution in France
which upset the Bourbon dynasty occurred just as Au-
dubon was leaving London, and that the House of Or-
leans, in the person of Louis Philippe, was seated on the
throne the day the following letter 8 was written ; very
likely Audubon was not reluctant to change his plan of
visiting Paris after hearing of these events, although he
had enjoyed an interview with the new king, who was
his patron.

William Swainson to Audubon

Saturday 7 August 1830.
My dear Mr. Audubon

as you was on the point of leaving London, when you
wrote your last letter, I did not reply to it. This will probably
find you returned from your excursion, and I hope with every
success, on the score of increased subscribers, that you had
anticipated, If you will be so good as send me your specimens
of the Woodpeckers to Havell's, I shall be very glad to see
them, and they shall be returned to you after examination with

8 From the Howland MSS.

Plate exit

' ' !

S"¥IL"VIA Shams,,
Mz/e J.Femal& 2yhu?ur3.
Lea£~ ^Ua/tetn, /i^i^aJcu?ny <^/itz/i<)6j<

Drawn from nature by J.J Audubon F. R.S. f,L,S.

Engrewd,vv:nlC;J4Col>uredbyR.lIdveU London 1

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 101

the Arctic ones. You will assist me very much by any Dupli-
cates you can spare me, I particularly want a pair of the
Ivory billed Woodpecker, the No Am : Parrots. Summer red
birds and the Painted Buntlings also the Pinecreeping Warbler,
m & fem.

I do not expect that these most wonderful events in France
will deter you from going, seeing that everything is now quiet.
The french are certainly a great nation. I never had such an
opinion of them as I now have.

I suppose you will be at the Dinner to Cuvier on Tuesday,
when you will no doubt hear complements passing about, and
a long speech from Mr Vigors. I have neither time nor health
for such things.

Our united true regards to Mrs Audubon In haste

very faithfully yours

W Swainson
J. J. Audubon Esq.
43 Great Russell Street,

Bloomsbury.

From Manchester Audubon sent Swainson this let-
ter, in which he makes a quaint proposal regarding the
text of his projected work, suggesting that they com-
bine their resources and their families, he to provide the
ideas, as well as his own wine or ale, while Swainson
furnished the science.

Audubon to William Swainson

Manchester 22nd August 1830.
My dear Mr. Swainson, —

At the time that I sent you the Woodpeckers skins, I had
not a moment to spare or be assured I would have answered
your note — When I opened my boxes of skins I had the mor-
tification to find most of them touched by insects — I felt a
desire that those nondescribed specimen [s] which I had should
go to a public institution & I therefore presented them to the

102 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

British Museum through my friend Children — I sent others to
New Castle upon Tyne some to this place and some to our
friends Selby & Sir Wm Jardine. — respecting the Woodpeckers
which you look upon as knew I will merely say that if for in-
stance it differs from all others known by having the top of the
head entirely red that it may be a young bird, I say this be-
cause I do not know if you are acquainted with the fact that
almost all the Woodpecker tribe have this in their youth more
or less extended but after the first moult they assume the red
in the form they are to wear it during life. I sent you a young
of the Downy in that state — and if I recollect well also one of
the Golden Winged — had you sent me your specimen, I think
I could assisted you in determining if or no it is a new bird. —
should you become satisfied on that head, and I am honoured
with its being named after me, I will feel gratified and thank-
ful to you. — Mrs. Audubon is with me & we are bound to the
Scotch Lakes & will return in about 2 months. — I am desirous
to hear from you if you can have the time to spare & the in-
clination to Bear a hand in the text of my work. — by my
furnishing you with the ideas & observations which I have and
you to add the science which I have not! — If it would suit you
and Mrs Swainson to take us as borders for few months when
being almost always together I could partake of your obser-
vations & you of mine. — I would like to receive here your ideas
on this subject & if possible what amount you would expect
from us as remuneration. — My first volume will comprise an in-
troduction and one hundred letters addressed to the Reader
referring to the 100 plates forming the first volume of my
illustrations. — I will enter even on local descriptions of the
country. — Adventures and anecdotes, speak of the trees & the
flowers the reptiles or the fishes or insects as far as I know — I
wish if possible to make a pleasing book as well as an instruc-
tion one. — In the event of my living with you we will furnish
our own wines, porter or ale. —

I hope you know me well enough to write to me your ideas
without fearing any offence done us should you find it either
disagreeable or inconvenient, indeed this is simply to know

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 103

from you if such a thing is at all likely to be advantageous to
all parties. — We leave this on Saturday for Leeds and I will
be glad to hear from you then — I have a confounded steel
pen that scratches abominably. — Present Mrs Audubon's kind
regards to your good Lady & accept Yourself our united good
wishes,

your friend

John J. Audubon.
Address to the care of

Thos Fowler Esq.
Bookseller
Aug 22nd 1830 Manchester.

[Superscribed] Wm Swainson Esq.

Tittenhanger Green
Nr
St Albans,
Herts.

In Swainson's clear and candid reply,9 which fol-
lowed at once, all was figured "to a nicety"; he would
supply his share of the matter at the rate of three dollars
and seventy-eight cents per printed page, with an extra
charge for corrections; he would follow his own ideas,
but strive to avoid any conflict of opinion, and would
expect his name to stand on the title.

William Swainson to Audubon

[between August ££ and 28, 1830]
Thursday

My dear Mr. Audubon.

I received your letter yesterday, and hasten to reply to
it. By some mistake or other, of Havell's, he has not sent the
birds to which you allude, and I did not of course know that
you had left them with him, now to your two propositions.

"First published by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 217), The Auk, vol.
xxii, p. 31 (1905).

104 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

First, as to boarding with us, you do not know probably,
that this is never done in England, except as a matter of
necessity or profession, in which case the domestic establish-
ment is framed accordingly. But this consideration would
have no influence with me, in your case did other circumstances
allow of it. It would however be attended with so many
changes in our every-day domestic arrangements, that it be-
comes impossible.

Secondly, as to the proposition I once made to you, I am
fearful you have put it out of my power to do so much as I
might have done, from your having distributed the very birds
which would have been the materials I was to work upon ; and
upon which only, any scientific observations truly original,
(& "therefore worth putting into your book), must be founded.
Fortunately, however, my own collection is not poor in North
American Specimens, and these would still furnish a mass of
interesting information to the Scientific. It would be, how-
ever, highly advisable that all these species which I have not,
but which you have brought home, and given away, should be
borrowed back again, without delay.

Next as to plan. I have always told you that the plan you
mention, so far as your own narrative goes, is the very best
which could possibly be chosen. You have to speak of the
birds as they are alive, / to speak of their outward form, struc-
ture, and their place in the great System of their Creator, for
the true system, if I have, or anybody else, has discovered is
not a Human System. If my views are correct, every observa-
tion you make, plain, unvarnished, and strictly accurate, will
fully and perfectly harmonize. Our parts are totally distinct,
and we have no occasion to consult with each other what we
should say at every page. Where our views may differ, I shall
not, of course, say anything. My own remarks had better be
kept distinct, in the form of "Scientific Notes" to each letter,
at the end, and in this way you will make the work, the stand-
ard authority on American Ornithology, which without Science,
it certainly would not be, however interesting or valuable in
other respects.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 105

As to time, and remuneration, I shall have completed all
my portion of Dr. Richardson's works in two months. I can
then devote a portion of each day to yours. The terms of my
remuneration will be those which I always receive from the
Booksellers, and which are fixed, worth twelve guineas a sheet
of the same size and Type as the Zoological Journal, each sheet
being 16 pages, and each page averages 390 words, the calcu-
lation is there brought to a nicety, and you may spend as
much as you choose. If I have to revise and correct the proofs,
make alterations etc. that will be something additional, I al-
ways charge this by the time each sheet takes me, and would
come to from 5/ to 7/6 a sheet but the booksellers generally
give me a round sum, which I name after trying the three first
sheets of a work, with Dr. Richardson's the case was different,
I there had 300 £ for my assistance and drawings. It would
of course be understood that my name stands in the title page
as responsible for such portion as concerns me.

Should we arrange this matter, it will be time enough to
fix on other minor points. But I should like to know your
decision soon, as I have been applied to in another quarter.
Indeed I am already so full of business, that I have two years
active employment ahead of me. I go for two days to assist
Burchell10 in the arrangement of his African Birds prior to
publication, at the end of the month, I shall bear in mind what
you say on the Woodpecker but I have peculiar notions on
Species, which, as I believe them correct, so I do not suffer to
be influenced by others, you will see more of this in my Book
of American Birds.11 Our kindest remembrance to Mrs. Audu-
bon, and always look upon me as your sincere, but very plain
spoken friend,

W. Swainson.

10 William John Burchell (1782P-1863), an indefatigable collector and
explorer, especially in Africa and Brazil; the zebra, Equus burchelli,
and many animals and plants which he discovered have been dedicated
to him.

11 Referring to the Fauna-Boreali Americana, the second part of which,
on "Birds," published in 1831, was by Swainson; see Vol. I, p. 410.

106 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

P. S. I had a long letter from Chas. Bonaparte the other
day, Vigors is gone to Rome ! !
[Addressed] J. J. Audubon

c/o Mr. Thomas Fowler, Bookseller,
Manchester.
[Endorsed by Audubon:] Answered 29th Aug. 1830. J. J. A.

Audubon's next letter, which was written from Man-
chester on August 29, must have been distinctly pro-
vocative, to judge from the following caustic reply 12
which it drew forth; this is dated, "Tittenhanger Green,
2d October, 1830":

William Swainson to Audubon
My dr Sir

I have refrained from replying to your letter until I
thought you had returned to London.

Either you do not appear to have understood the nature of
my proposition on supplying scientific information for your
work, or you are very erroneously informed on the matter in
which such assistance is usually given. Dr. Richardson, and
a hundred others, similarly situated, might with equal jus-
tice say that no name should appear but their own ; as it would
rob them of their fame, because notes are furnished by one or
two other persons, your friends would tell you, if you enquired
of them, that even my name would add something to the value
of the "The Birds of America" You pay me compliments on
my scientific knowledge, and wished you possessed a portion ;
& you liken the acquisition of such a portion to purchasing the
sketch of an eminent painter — the simile is good, but allow
me to ask you, whether, after procuring the sketch, you would
mix it up with your own, and pass it off to your friends as
your production? I cannot possibly suppose that such would
be your duplicity and I therefore must not suppose that you

"First published by Elliott Coues (Bibl. No. 203), The Auk, vol. xv,
p. 11 (1898); reproduced by Theodore Gill (Bibl. No. 205), The Osprey,
vol. v, p. 23 (1900).

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 107

intended that I should give all the scientific information I
have laboured to acquire during twenty years on ornithology —
conceal my name, — and transfer my fame to your pages &
to your reputation.

Few have enjoyed the opportunity of benefiting by the ad-
vice and assistance of a scientific friend so much as yourself;
and no one, I must be allowed to say, has evinced so little in-
clination to profit by it. When I call to mind the repeated
offers I have made you to correct the nomenclature of your
birds, from the first time of our acquaintance, and recollect
the dislike you appeared to have to receiving any such infor-
mation or correction, I cannot but feel perfect surprize at
you now wishing to profit by that aid, you have hitherto been
so indifferent about.

Let me however urge upon you one advise which, for your
own sake, I should be sorry you despised. It is to characterize
yourself, or get some friend to do so for you, all your new
species. The specimens, you tell me, are now in England, & the
task will be comparatively easy. I urge this, because you may
not be aware that a new species, deposited in a museum, is of no
authority whatsoever, until its name and its character are
published. I have repeatedly set my face against such authori-
ties, so has Mr. Vigors, so has Ch. Bonaparte, and on this head
we are all perfectly unanimous. Unless, therefore, this is done,
you will, I am fearful, loose the credit of discovering nearly
all the new species you possess, and this I again repeat, for
your own sake I should be sorry for. To me, individually, your
not doing so, would rather be advantageous.

The more a book is quoted, the more is its merits admitted,
and its authority established, it was on this account I so
repeatedly requested the use only, of a copy of your book,
that it might have been cited in "Northern Zoology" 13 not
having it — I could not therefore mention it

I shall always be as thankful to you as formerly for any
information on the habits, economy, and manners of birds ;

13 See Note, Vol. II, p. 105.

108 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

but, as to species, I want not, nor do I ever ask, the opinions
of any one. that is quite a different matter, and entertaining
peculiar ideas on that subject, you must not feel surprised at
my differing from you in almost every instance. My reasons
will always be laid before the public. In the present case, we
totally differ about species of Woodpeckers. I shall not, how-
ever propitiate a favourable opinion from you, or any one, by
a compliment and therefore I will wait for some species which
you yourself will admit, which I shall then give your name to,
I am rather glad you did not accept my offer, for I am now
assisting in bringing out an Octavo edition of Wilson, by Sir
W Jardine which will be arranged according to my nomencla-
ture.

Yours my dr Sir

Very faithy

W Swainson

The letter just quoted naturally served as a check
to their intimacy, but Audubon did not withdraw his
friendly hand, as shown by his letters to follow later,
though his answer to this has not been preserved.14

Audubon reached Edinburgh early in October, soon
after receiving Swainson's decisive reply, and immedi-
ately made an arrangement with MacGillivray, as al-
ready related.15 It is evident from Swainson's letter
that when Audubon called upon him for editorial aid,

14 But three other letters of Audubon to Swainson, after this date, are
noted by Albert Gunther (Bibl. No. 204) in the Proceedings of the Linnaan
Society, 112th session (1900): one of "6 June, 1831," announces Audubon's
prospective return to America in August of that year; another, dated
"6 Dec. 1837," asks for the loan of some bird skins; and the last of
"11 Jan. 1838," is reproduced in Chapter XXXII. Swainson is said to have
been negotiating at this time with Charles L. Bonaparte in reference
to a joint compilation for a work on the birds of the world; Bonaparte
estimated that there were then between 7,000 and 8,000 known species
to be characterized, but Swainson's terms were not satisfactory, and
nothing came of the project. To the above list should be added the
letter, evidently misdated, of "April 28 th. 1831," soon to follow.

16 See Vol.* I, p. 438.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 109

he was by no means ready to defer to him wholly in
the matter of naming his birds, a subject in which Swain-
son regarded himself as the first of living authorities.
Swainson's pride was also wounded at Audubon's appar-
ent lack of appreciation of the weight which his name
would carry if allowed to grace the title pages of his
works, and he speaks of Audubon as if he were ready
to bargain for scientific information but determined to
withhold that credit which is every writer's just due.
It is only fair to say that Swainson's vanity seems to
have outrun his candor, for when the controversy over
the authorship of Audubon's Biography of Birds was
started in 1833, he publicly denied that any such pro-
posal had been made.16 According to Swainson's own
statement, quoted earlier, Audubon was ready to grant
him whatever credit was due, but it is evident that he
was not then disposed to adopt Swainson's peculiar
ideas upon the classification of birds or to enter upon
a thoroughgoing arrangement of joint authorship.
Though no philosopher himself, it seems clear that the
American woodsman was by no means disposed to swal-
low all the vagaries of the "Circular System" to which
his friend was committed, and which was later held up
to ridicule.

The craze for describing new species of animals was
all too common in both England and America at the time
of which we write; the chief aim of many naturalists
seems to have been to attach their names to as many
of nature's forms as possible. Swainson, who "never
went to bed without describing a new species," as Audu-
bon said at a later time, had admonished his friend above
all else to hasten to publish descriptions of every new
bird which he had obtained in America, lest he lose

"See Vol. II, p. 88.

110 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

credit for the discovery; but Audubon, who had not
hesitated to poke fun at the species-mongering Rafi-
nesque, was still inclined to look with disdain upon work
of this sort. He not only rejected Swainson's advice
but answered it rather tartly in the first volume of his
letterpress, which appeared in the following year. A pas-
sage which caused the naturalist no little annoyance on
another score was as follows : 17

Since I became acquainted with Mr. Alexander Wilson, the
celebrated author of the well known and duly appreciated
work on American Birds, and subsequently with my excellent
friend, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, I have been aware of the
keenness with which every student of Natural History presses
forward to describe an object of his discovery, or that may
have occurred to travellers in distant countries. There seems
to be a pride, a glory in doing this, that thrusts aside every
other consideration; and I really believe that the ties of friend-
ship itself would not prevent some naturalists from even rob-
bing an old acquaintance of the merit of first describing a
previously unknown object. Although I have certainly felt
very great pleasure, when, on picking up a bird, I discovered
it to be new to me, yet I have never known the desire above
alluded to. This feeling I still cherish; and in spite of the
many injunctions which I have received from naturalists far
more eminent than I can ever expect to be, I have kept, and still
keep, unknown to others, the species, which, not finding por-
trayed in any published work, I look upon as new, having only
given in my Illustrations a number of them proportionate to
the drawings of already known species that have been engraved.
Attached to the descriptions of these, you will find the place
and date of their discovery. I do not, however, intend to claim
any merit for these discoveries, and should have liked as well
that the objects of them had been previously known, as this
would have saved some unbelievers the trouble of searching for

"Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. xvii.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 111

them in books, and the disappointment of finding them actually
new. I assure you, good reader, that, even at this moment, I
should have less pleasure in presenting to the scientific world a
new bird, the knowledge of whose habits I do not possess, than
in describing the peculiarities of one long since discovered.

It is a pity that Audubon did not maintain so admir-
able an attitude towards the description of new species
as was here expressed, but at the close of his career in
England, when he desired to make his work on Ameri-
can ornithology as complete as possible, he appeared as
keen to describe and publish new birds as any of his
contemporaries.

Shortly after his return to London in the spring of
1831, Audubon sent Swainson the following letter with
a copy of the first volume of his Biography of Birds, but
his one-time friend was not the author of an extended
and impartial review of the work, which appeared in the
Edinburgh New Philosojjhical Journal in the same
year.18

18 Signed "Ornithophilus" (see Bibliography, No. 97), and attributed by
Coues (see Bibliography, No. 181), with a question mark, to Swainson,
but the internal evidence shows conclusively that he was not its author.
The writer of this article said that it was not enough to state that
Audubon "has invented a new style in the representation of natural
objects; for so true are his pictures, that he who has once seen and
examined them, can never again look with pleasure on the finest produc-
tions of other artists. To paint like Audubon, will henceforth mean to
represent Nature as she is. . . . To relieve, as Mr. Audubon says, the
tedium of fhose who may have imposed upon themselves the task of
following an author through the mazes of descriptive ornithology, he has
interspersed descriptions of American scenery and manners, gloomy forests,
tangled cane-brakes, dismal swamps, majestic rivers, floods, tornadoes, and
earthquakes; the migration of the white man, the retreat of the red;
the character and pursuits of the backwoodsman. . . . Much, therefore,
is it to be wished that Mr. Audubon would undertake the delineation of
the birds of Great Britain, which, with his matchless talents, aided by
those of Mr. Havell, would eclipse, not only all other representations of
these birds, but even the 'Birds of America,' unrivalled as that work
now is."

112 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon to William Swainson

London April 28th 1830 [1831]
My dear Mr Swainson,

We arrived here last evening & I found your favour of the
17th instant for which I offer you my sincere thanks — I had
began to think that I was erased from your list. — I have now
the pleasure of sending you a copy of my first volume of
ornithological biography which I hope you will accept as a
small memento of the high regard I have for your self & your
talents. — My inserting your name was not a matter merely of
duty but of great pleasure and believe when I say that I
never will be ungrateful to anyone who has been kind to me. —

We are going to Paris on Friday week & will be absent
about a month — on the first day of August next we sail from
Liverpool to America where I intend to beat the bushes once
more — my peregrinations will extend in all probability & God
willing to the Pacific Ocean into California etc — After my
return I wish to settle in England somewhere, but where is yet
undetermined. —

I have felt much grieved at reading the article of yours
respecting French Naturalists. I say grieved, because I am
always so when I see men of superior talents employing their
pen time and mind at sparring instead of peacably giving to
the world those results of their investigations & experience at
all times so desired by everyone bent on studying the wonder-
ful laws & beauties of nature. I do not wish to read a lecture
to you but from my heart I am sorry you should be a la
joute [?] with any one & will conclude by sincerely hoping that
you will have no more of this sort of warfare. —

I am over head in business as you may well suppose after
an absence of 8 months but will be most happy to hear from
you. Have you heard from C. Bonaparte lately? Is he still at
Rome? it is now two months since I heard from him. —

Present our united kind respects to your good Lady, accept
the same yourself & believe me your friend

J. J. Audubon.

77 Oxford Street.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 113

It is interesting to notice that Swainson kept his
promise about the woodpeckers, and in 1831 named one,
which had been obtained from Louisiana, Picus audu-
boni; 19 although Audubon later repudiated it, saying
that he believed it to represent only an immature state
of the common Downy Woodpecker, he returned the
compliment by dedicating to Swainson one of his war-
blers, Sylvia, now Helinaria, swainsonii.

When William Swainson brought to a close his
labors on the Cabinet Cyclopcedia in 1840, a part of the
eleventh volume was devoted to a biography of natural-
ists.20 In this little work Audubon was accorded a page,
Alexander Wilson received eight, while the author de-
voted fourteen pages to himself. The talented Mac-
Gillivray, whose memorable History of British Birds
had then advanced to its third volume, was studiously
ignored, and was referred to only in a footnote as "Mr.
Gilvray"; but he was of necessity a sharer in the follow-

19 See Ornithological Biography, vol. v, p. 194; and Theodore Gill
(Bibl. No. 206), The Osprey, vol. iv and v. It seems that Dr. James
Trudeau, out of ignorance or disregard for Swainson's designation, later
named a woodpecker, obtained near New Orleans in 1837, Picus auduboni,
and by a strange coincidence, as Dr. Gill has noticed, the same name
was given by two different naturalists to the same bird, now regarded
as a variety and known as Dryobates villosns auduboni.

20 The Cabinet Cyclopaedia was published by Messrs. Longman, Orme
& Company, and edited by Rev. Dionysius Lardner. Swainson wrote eleven
of the twelve volumes devoted to natural history. The volume to which
we refer is entitled Taxidermy, Bibliography, and Biography, by William
Swainson, A. C. G. [Assistant Commissary-General], F. R. S. & L. S.,
Hon. F. C. P. S. etc., and of several foreign societies (see Bibliography,
No. 170). The Literary Gazette for August 8, 1840, in noticing this work,
said: "Perhaps the amusing and frequent illustration of his character is
to be found in the autobiographical sketch of himself, which he has
not only included in this portion of his volume, but induced his publishers
to forward on a separate sheet with the subjoined note:

" 'Messrs. Longman, Orme, & Co., will feel particularly obliged if the
Editor of the will permit the above Auto-
biography to appear in his columns at the first suitable opportunity.'

"'39 Paternoster Row. July 29, 1840."'

Quoted by Theodore Gill (Bibl. No. 206), The Osprey, vol. iv, p. 105
(1900).

114 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ing criticism of Audubon's Biography of Birds: "a
want of precision in his descriptions, and a general ig-
norance of modern ornithology sadly disappoint the sci-
entific reader." The technical descriptions in that work
were written, as Swainson must have known, by his
young rival, William MacGillivray, then one of the
ablest exponents of the anatomy of birds in Great Brit-
ain; but anatomy, the master key to relationship, Swain-
son affected to regard with contempt, though over-
zealous friends had compared him with Cuvier, one of
the greatest masters of anatomy of all time. To follow
the comment of a later critic,21 Swainson probably re-
garded the title of "the British Cuvier" as rather de-
rogatory, since he had pronounced Cuvier to have been
"totally unacquainted with the very first principles of
the natural system." To Swainson, however, as the same
commentator explains, "the natural system" implied the
concept of a magical number and a circle, ideas which
Cuvier would have been the first to repudiate or ignore.

The ardent MacGillivray was naturally scornful of
Swainson's unscientific attitude, which he had roundly
scored in the introduction to his History of British Birds
that had begun to appear in 1837; he then said that
Swainson could exclaim: "How superficially do we
study nature," while in anatomy his own studies were
a century behind the times and his opinions on the
subject worthy of the Dark Ages.

In his biographical notice of Audubon, Swainson
refers to their Paris experience in the following words:

It is singular how two minds, possessing the same tastes,
can be so diversified, as to differ m toto respecting the very
same objects. During the whole of Mr. Audubon's residence

21 Theodore Gill, loc. cit.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 115

in Paris, he only visited the Ornithological Gallery twice,
(where I was studying for hours, almost daily), for the pur-
pose of calling upon me ; and even then he merely bestowed that
sort of passing glance at the magnificent cases of birds, which
a careless observer would do while sauntering in the room.

Audubon, to be sure, was never much of a closet nat-
uralist or an admirer of stuffed specimens ; but in read-
ing this criticism of an estranged friend, one wonders
if the writer had really forgotten that while his own
expressed desire in going to Paris in 1828 was to study
in the Museum, Audubon's sole purpose was to extend
his subscription list; that after innumerable interviews
with ministers of state and running from post to pillar
for two months, his friend was obliged to come away
with but thirteen additional names or orders for his
work. Had Swainson also forgotten that during all
that time Audubon acted as his interpreter, assisting
him in all his visits and purchases, and that but shortly
after, when hard pressed for money, he had called on
Audubon for a considerable sum?

As a parting shot to his former friend, Swainson
also said:

He can shoot a bird, and make it live again, as it were,
upon canvass ; but he cannot describe it in scientific, and there-
fore in perfectly intelligible terms. Hence he found it neces-
sary, in this part of his work, to call in the aid of others ; but
being jealous that any other name should appear on the title
page than his own, he was content with the assistance of some
one who, very good naturedly, would fall in with his humour.

What was here said of Audubon might have been
true in 1830, but it was not true in 1840. Swainson
could never understand that his friend was a man who

116 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

never stood still. Audubon drew heavily upon his more
learned associates, and he could give as well as take.
When working under the influence of a powerful motive,
he improved as rapidly in his use of English words as
he had in the finish and composition of his pictures;
he soon came to write not only with fluency but at
times with eloquence, and the technicalities of his sci-
ence did not remain to him a sealed book, though for
the drudgery of detailed description he had confessedly
no stomach.

We have referred to William Swainson's advocacy
of the "Circular" or "Quinarian" system of the classifi-
cation of animals, with him amounting almost to a
monomania, which was one of the most notorious exam-
ples of reasoning in a circle of which zoologists have
ever been guilty. It was a serious attempt to rational-
ize nature in a wholly irrational manner, and must be
regarded as a curious by-product of minds fixed in the
belief of a special creation, — to whom every form of
evolutionary doctrine was sacrilegious and abhorrent.
Its advocates, nevertheless, were sincere, and Swainson
probably regarded himself as a martyr to the cause. As
a later critic remarked, the system served him well by
investing with a cloak of originality his treatises on those
classes of animals with which he had little first-hand
knowledge. His work on fishes is regarded as "a lit-
erary curiosity, the appearance of which was a misfor-
tune to a man who, by his indefatigable industry under
by no means favorable circumstances, had contributed
as much as any of his contemporaries to the advance-
ment of Zoology and its diffusion among the people." 22
This egregious doctrine, which its disciples called "the
natural system" without grasping the true meaning of

22 Albert Gunther, loc. cit.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 117

"affinity," or "homology," to use the more modern word,
vitiated most of their writings ; abler men played with it
for a time, only to cast it aside, and no one but a historian
or a psychologist would now give it a passing thought.

So far as Swainson was concerned, Audubon's con-
duct appears to have been above reproach, and it must
be regarded as fortunate that this ardent "Quinarian"
did not have a hand in the Biography of Birds, for if
it were really true that Audubon could have brought
himself to accept the artificial system then in vogue,
American ornithology, as Elliott Coues remarked, es-
caped a great affliction.

Swainson's early life affords a striking illustration
of nepotism, and his later years reflected some of its dis-
astrous consequences. At fourteen he was appointed as
a junior clerk in the Liverpool Customs House at a
salary of eighty pounds a year, to service under his
father, who had in turn succeeded his grandfather in the
office of Collector. At eighteen he received an appoint-
ment in the commissary department of the English army
and went to Sicily, where he remained eight years, dur-
ing which he worked industriously at natural-history
pursuits. Having attained the rank of Assistant Com-
missary-General, at twenty-six he was retired on half-
pay because of ill health. Upon returning to England
he became a member of the Linnamn Society, in 1816,
before his departure for Brazil, where with Henry Ros-
ter he collected birds for nearly two years. Having
settled again at Liverpool, he entered the Royal Soci-
ety, on the recommendation of Sir Joseph Banks, in
1820, the year in which he began to publish the results
of his studies. Swainson was married in 1825, but upon
the death of his father in the following year, his income
was so much reduced that he resorted to authorship as

118 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

a profession ; of course he found it a poor crutch, though
he worked with indefatigable industry and produced
from one to two illustrated volumes each year. Eventu-
ally he became embittered against Audubon and towards
the world of men and things in general, especially after
1835, when domestic bereavement and trouble of many
kinds pressed hard upon him. He repeatedly applied
to the Zoological Department of the British Museum
for a position which went to others; he tried to sell his
collections to the Museum and failed; he applied for
an appointment on the Civil List but was denied; then
he decided to give up the struggle of authorship in Eng-
land and leave the country.

In 1840 Swainson emigrated with his family to New
Zealand, where he seems to have met with no better suc-
cess, although his scientific activity did not wholly cease.
Being four years younger than Audubon, he outlived
him five years, dying in 1856. His excellent draughts-
manship, tireless industry, and punctilious habits were
deserving of recognition, but he suffered from the lack
of a liberal education, and was rather too vain, too in-
clined to jealousy and to quarrel with his contempo-
raries, to have achieved great success.

In a paragraph already quoted from the Ornitho-
logical Biography, in which Audubon portrayed the
eagerness with which some naturalists pressed forward
to describe new species of birds, too often forgetting
every propriety in their eagerness to outstrip a rival, the
name of his "excellent friend, Charles Lucien Bona-
parte," 23 had been indiscreetly mentioned. Though
there was no evident intention of giving offense, this
reference was keenly resented. Bonaparte, it may be
recalled, was still engaged upon his American Orni-

23 For notice of Bonaparte see Note, Vol. I. p. 329.

WILLIAM SWAINSON
CHARLES L. BOXAPARTE

THOMAS NUTTALL
CONSTANTINE S. RAFINESQUE

SWAINSON FROM HIS "BIOGRAPHY OF ZOOLOGISTS"? NUTTALL FROM AN ENGRAVING

AFTER DERBY, 1825; BONAPARTE FROM A PHOTOGRAPH IN POSSESSION OF MR.

RUTHVEN DEANE, FIRST PUBLISHED IN "CASSINIA" ; AND RAFINESQUE

FROM RICHARD ELLSWORTH CALL, "RAFINESQUE."

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 119

thology, the last volume of which was not published
until 1833, and was therefore, in a degree, a rival of
Audubon in the ornithological field. Audubon did his
best to smooth over the difficulty but with little success.
In writing to his son, Victor, from New York in 1833,24
he referred to the following letter which he was about to
send "by duplicate, to try to correct that error" of his
early friend:

Audubon to Charles Lucien Bonaparte

To Charles Bonaparte,

Prince of Musignano, &c, &c, &c.
My dear Sir: —

I am sadly grieved to hear through our friend, Wm. Cooper,
of this city, that you have taken umbrage to a passage in the
Introduction to my first volume of Ornithological Biographies.

To tell you that not even a thought of disparagement ever
existed in my mind towards you, would not be enough. I have
always repeated to all my Friends, nay, to all persons who
have ever spoken of you, of the superior talents you possess,
and of the Intrinsic value connected with all your ornithologi-
cal or otherwise scientific productions.

I am a plain sailing man. You know full well that I derive
no knowledge from classical education, and that being the
case, connected with my being honest, I always try to say what
I think truth, at once. Could I have praised you at one place,
and attempted to lower you in the estimation of the Scientific
World at another? If so — I would acknowledge myself un-
worthy the good wishes of any one, much less of the good wishes
of Charles Bonaparte ! the very being who brought me forward
into worldly notice by his kind advice. Nay, Nay ; take me for
what I am in truth

Your Friend & ever your well wisher, as well as your
obt. Sert.

John J. Audubon.

24 See Vol. II, p. 40.

120 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Bonaparte was too much of a man of the world to
permit such an incident to cause any sudden break in
their relations. We know that they met in London in
1837, when, as Audubon said in a later letter to Har-
ris 23 he "pumped him sadly too much"; at his request
Bonaparte then drew up a list of American birds, to
the number of 425.26 Although his subscription to The
Birds of America was permitted to lapse, Bonaparte's
name was retained on the list to the end. When the
business was being closed up in London, however, Au-
dubon wrote to Havell, from Edinburgh, under date
of 15 May, 1839: "As respects my old Friend, C. Bona-
parte, unless he pays the long standing balance which he
owes me of <£8.18.6, and also the price of the set of Nos.
81-87, on the nail, he is not to receive the latter." Again
on the thirtieth of June he wrote: "I have no numbers
for Charles Bonaparte, and no 5 th. vol. of Biog. for
Mr. Gould; let the Gentlemen purchase or procure what
they want where they can."

In 1838 Bonaparte published a paper 27 in which
appeared this comment:

Throughout the list I have quoted, as types of the species

25 See Vol. II, p. 184.

26 This manuscript list is preserved with the original drawings of
The Birds of America, in possession of the Historical Society of New
York, where I was permitted to examine it. It bears the following
attests of both naturalists in autograph:

"The above list of the Birds of America was made at London on
the 15 th. of December, 1837, when it was supposed to contain all the
known species.

"John J. Audubon,

of Louisiana."

"The above list of North American Birds was drawn up by myself
to please Mr. J. J. Audubon.

"London, 15 December, 1837.

"Charles L. Bonaparte.
"The total number of good species, 460," has been added in pencil.
"Comparative List of the Birds of Europe and North America,
London, 1838.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 121

under consideration, the figures of the great works of Mr.
John Gould and Mr. Audubon on the Ornithology of the two
regions, as they must be considered the standard works of the
subject. The merit of Mr. Audubon's work yields only to the
size of his book; while Mr. Gould's work on the Birds of
Europe though inferior in size to that of Mr. Audubon — is the
most beautiful work that has ever appeared in this or any
other country.

A reviewer in America,28 who could not repress
his resentment at the last remark, said: "It would be
invidious to make any comment on this — to even in-
sinuate a wonder that a personage bearing this world
renowned name would consent to resign his reputation
as a man of science, through all time, to the doubtful
association of such an expression of mere professional
spite."

John Gould, to whom Bonaparte referred, was per-
haps the only ornithologist who ever grew rich at his
profession. He was the author of forty large, illustrat-
ed folios, produced at the rate of about one a year, on
the birds of Great Britain, Europe, Asia, and Australia,
as well as those of numerous families of the tropical
Orient. Audubon, in response to Bachman, thus re-
ferred to him when writing in London, April 30, 1835:
"Gould is a man of great industry and has the advan-
tage of the Zoological Society, museums, gardens, &c,
and is in correspondence with Temminck, Jardine,
Selby, James Wilson and the rest of the scientific
gentry. His wife makes his drawings on stone. She
is a plain, fine woman, and although their works are
not quite up to nature, both deserve great credit."

Acting no doubt upon this expressed belief, Audu-
bon became a subscriber to Gould's Century of Birds,

28 See Note, Vol. II, p. 122.

122 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

published in 1831, and also to his Birds of Europe
(1832-37). In the preface to the latter work, "J. J.
Audubon, Esq.," and twenty others are thanked "for
the warm interest which they have at all times taken in
the present work"; it was also said that the greater part
of the plates of this series, those of his Century of Birds
from the Himalaya Mountains and his Monograph on
the Trogons, as well as three-quarters of those of the
Monograph on the Toucans, "have been drawn and lith-
ographed by Mrs. Gould, from sketches and designs by
myself always taken from nature." It should be no-
ticed also that Gould appeared as a subscriber to The
Birds of America in 1838, but his name was soon
dropped.

Gould was preeminently a museum naturalist, of
strong commercial instincts, and spent but little time in
the field. His books were mainly composed of illustra-
tions made by artists from stuffed specimens, with a
text of so thin a quality as to possess little scientific
value ; but, as Alfred Newton has remarked, a scientific
character was so adroitly assumed that scientific men
have often been deceived. In his best work, that on
the Humming Birds,29 the plates are enlivened by nu-
merous specimens of tropical flowers and fruits, an ac-
cessory not so noticeable in his early productions. It
has been said that Gould sought and received Audubon's
aid in the composition of some of his plates, and that
thereafter his figures began to show more vitality. The
over-zealous writer quoted above 30 made the charge that
Gould not only received much unacknowledged aid from
Audubon, but copied his drawings; he mentioned five

29 A Monograph of the Trochilidce, or Family of the Humming -Birds;
5 vols., fol., with Supplement by Bowlder Sharpe, London, 1861.

30 Charles Winterfield, see Bibliography, No. 148.

SIDELIGHTS ON CONTEMPORARIES 123

cases of what he called "picking and stealing," in one of
which the Red-headed Pochard is declared to have been
copied from Audubon's Scaup Duck: "here the trick is
so shallow," he adds, "that detection cannot for a mo-
ment be at fault. You see that the Scaup Ducks have
been accurately outlined, then lifted from the original
grounding,' and let down upon a new one, by Gould,
who found it safer for his pencil to adjust earth and
water differently beneath them, than to tamper in the
slightest degree with the proportions of the figures them-
selves." Suffice it to say that there is little or no sub-
stantial basis for such odious charges.

Gould is said to have possessed a kind heart under
a rather gruff exterior. The following anecdote of his
methods comes at second hand from his friend and col-
laborator, Mr. Bowlder Sharpe. Mr. Gould was invited
to dine at a well known country estate, where were gath-
ered numerous representatives of wealth and aristocracy.
The attention of the ornithologist was soon directed
from the guests to a bird on the lawn, which he was
watching intently when dinner was announced ; abruptly
leaving the table with the remark that dinner was of
no consequence to him when he could study a bird, he
returned to the window and stood there munching a roll
or piece of bread. Of course the seated guests began
to inquire who the peculiar individual was, and were
quietly informed by their host that it was "Mr. Gould,
the famous ornithologist." The meal over, Gould se-
lected a promising looking young nobleman and began
to tell him about the habits of the bird which had so
fascinated him; "that species," he said, "I have described
in my Birds of Europe. Of course, you have seen my
Birds of Europe" The nobleman was obliged to admit
that he had not. "Why," said Mr. Gould, "you must

124 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

have seen it; every country gentleman has it in his
library. Won't you let me put you down for a copy?"
Naturally he could not refuse a work which every coun-
try gentleman possessed, and down went his name on
the list; later he received the volumes and also a bill
for fifty pounds. John Gould is said to have left a
fortune of eighty thousand pounds.

Probably no class of men with kindred tastes are
bound together with stronger ties of good fellowship
than the naturalists. Their free-masonry extends to
every clime and race, and knows no distinction of lan-
guage, class or station; but, as with all serious workers,
occasional jealousies or disputes occur to ruffle the seren-
ity of their lives. Though we have been obliged to
touch upon some of these incidents, they are nevertheless
quite exceptional.

CHAPTER XXX

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY

In London once more — MacGillivray's assistance continued — Return to
Edinburgh — MacGillivray's character and accomplishments — Audubon's
acknowledgments— Tributes of "Christopher North"— Results of over-
work— Fusilades from "Walton Hall"— Progress of the large plates.

Audubon's return voyage, begun in mid-April,
lasted twenty days, and was one of the uneventful, "not
unpleasant sort." Liverpool was reached in early May,
and later in the month the Audubons were again settled
in London, where on June 1, 1834, the naturalist wrote
to Edward Harris:

We found Victor at home in the evening of our arrival; I
thought that the very sight of him was a restoration of life to
me, and our happiness was as complete as it may ever be ex-
pected on this Earth.

After all, I long to be in America again, nay, if I can go
home to return no more to Europe, it seems to me that I shall
ever enjoy more peace of mind, & even Physical comfort than
I can meet with in any portion of the world beside.1

While at Charleston in the previous winter, Audu-
bon had worked diligently at his letterpress, and no
doubt, before returning to Europe had his "biographi-
cal" materials well in hand. We have seen that at Edin-
burgh in the autumn of 1830 he entered upon a busi-
nesslike arrangement with William MacGillivray to as-

JFrom letter written at 73 Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, and
sealed with turkey-cock seal. (Jeanes MSS.)

125

126 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

sist him with the technical portions of the Ornithological
Biography. The part which his young assistant played
in this work was long a subject of dispute, until letters
of both which showed the precise character of the rela-
tions between them were finally published.

Immediately upon his return to England Audubon
again applied to his young friend, and received from
him the following letter : 2

William MacGillivray to Audubon

Edinburgh, 11 Gilmore Place.
28 th May 1834.

Dear Sir,

1 am glad to hear of your safe arrival, which I did not
expect so soon, and pleased to find you in good health and
high spirits. As you have the kindness to inquire respecting
myself and family, I am happy to inform you that we are all
very well, contented and busy. My head and hands are quite
full — abundance of work and sufficient pay — time to ramble
now and then for the purpose of hammering rocks, pulling
plants, and shooting birds.

You say you have accumulated a mass of materials which
you are desirous of seeing in print, and propose that I should
revise it as before. I shall be glad to do so, if you please, and
willing that you confer the benefit on another, if you find it
expedient. As to the terms, let them be such as you please
with respect to money ; but as time is valuable to me, I should
like that arrangements be made so as to prevent unnecessary
loss of it, by letting me have manuscripts, books, &c. in due
array.

The skins of which you speak I apprehend cannot be dis-
posed of here to any great extent ; but I believe shells might be
sold to advantage, and bring higher prices than in London.

You ask if I draw Birds yet, with a view to publish. My

2 First published by Elliott Coues (Bibl. No. 43) in the Bulletin of
the Nuttall Ornitholoc/ical Club, vol. v (1880).

AUDUBON

AFTER THE ENGRAVING BY II. B. HALL OI THE
PAINTED BY HENRY INMAX IN 1833.

PORTRAIT

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 127

answer is that I dissect, describe, and draw Birds, Quadrupeds,
whales, reptiles, and fishes, with view of astonishing the world,
and bettering my condition. I have about a hundred drawings,
all the size of life, excepting two dolphins. But I have deter-
mined nothing as yet respecting publication. Some time ago
a friend of mine called on Mr. Havell with a letter in which I
desired that person to engrave for me a few of my drawings,
for the purpose of being exhibited at the meeting of natural-
ists. I had no answer, and so Mr. Havell may go to Jerico,
or elsewhere, as he lists ; but further your correspondent saith
not.

I am decidedly of opinion that, although you should con-
tinue the publication of the Ornithological Biography, you
might bring out various other works which could not fail to
be popular ; for example a biography of yourself, and sketches
of American scenery. But of these matters it is impossible to
speak to purpose unless I had the pleasure of seeing you, a
pleasure which I hope I shall have at the time of the general as-
sembly of the naturalists.

With best respects to Mrs. Audubon, and best wishes for
the prosperity of all that bear that name, I have the honour
to be, Dear Sir, yours in sincerity,

W MacGillivray.
[Superscribed] John J. Audubon, Esqr. Mr. Havell,

77 Oxford St. London.

A satisfactory arrangement was made and MacGil-
livray set to work on Audubon's second volume. On
the 16th of June he wrote from Edinburgh:

If you send me twenty or twenty-five articles, I can revise
them without the books to which you refer, and without your
own presence, provided your descriptions be full, and the draw-
ings or plates sent to me. The skins and books might be con-
sulted afterwards, when we might go over the articles in com-
pany. Should you come here for the purpose, it would not, I

128 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

believe, be necessary for you to stay more than three weeks or
so. . . . To be methodical I should like twenty-five birds, that
is description of birds, by your first parcel ; but I cannot state
precisely at what time they might be revised, only I think were
you to send them, you might make a trip to France and be
back before I should be done.3

By the 9th of July MacGillivray had received the
twenty-five descriptions of birds called for, and on the
18th of that month he wrote to report progress as fol-
lows:

I commenced my operations on the 1 st of July, and have
transcribed and corrected eighteen articles, one for each day,
but not one on each, the work of Sunday being transferred to
Monday. This volume will certainly be much richer and more
interesting. . . . You wish to know my opinion as to the
improvement of your style. It seems to me to be much the
same as before, but the information which you give is more
diversified & more satisfactory.

On more than one occasion MacGillivray urged Au-
dubon to reduce the size of his text, and in the letter
just quoted he said: "Had it been of the post 8 vo size,
in two volumes it would have gone off in style; but
your imperial size and regal price do not answer for
radicals, or republicans either. Could you sacrifice the
first volume, reprint it of a small size and continue the
series to the end?" He remarked that if twenty wood-
cuts or engravings were added to each volume, "it would
spread over the land like a flock of migratory pigeons.
Even without the embellishments it would fly, but were
you to give it those additional wings, it would sweep
along in beautiful curves, like the nighthawk or the

3 For this and extracts in the two following paragraphs, see Ruthven
Deane (Bibl. No. 209), The Auk, vol. xviii (1901).

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 129

purplebreasted swallow." "I have often thought," he
continued, "that your stories would sell very well by
themselves, and I am sure that with your celebrity,
knowledge, and enthusiasm, you have it in your power
to become more popular than your glorious pictures
can ever make you of themselves, they being too aristo-
cratic and exclusive."

Audubon kept MacGillivray supplied with materials,
while he remained in London during the summer of
1834. On the 25th of August he wrote Bachman that
he had sold bird skins to the British Museum to the
amount of fifty-two pounds sterling, and again for
twenty-five pounds, while Havell had disposed of a
goodly number more, so that "he would not be a loser
in that way"; he added: "My own double collection I
have in drawers at home." Acting evidently upon
Swainson's advice, Audubon began to accumulate a
large and valuable collection of the skins of American
birds, which he brought with him to America in 1839.4
Though rightly criticized for not having deposited in
some museum a complete series of the forms which he
described, Elliott Coues certainly was not justified in
remarking that his interest in a bird ceased from the
moment he had made a drawing of it; on the contrary,
he spent no end of time and lavished large sums of
money on collections to illustrate variation of every de-
scription, as well as for anatomical dissection.

A hint thrown out by MacGillivray seems to have
been well taken, for in the letter just quoted Audubon
said: "This coming winter I will spend at writing my
own Biography, to be published as soon as possible, and
to be continued, as God may be pleased to grant me
life." As already noticed,5 this effort resulted only in

4 See Vol. II, p. 264. 6 See Vol. I, p. 16.

130 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

a fragmentary sketch, which was not published for over
half a century.

Audubon started for Edinburgh in September of
1834. He wrote to Edward Harris from Liverpool, on
the 15th of that month, to inquire into the truth of a
report, which had circulated in London, of the failure of
the house in New Orleans "in which our friend N. Ber-
thoud is concerned." "I wish you would have the kind-
ness to inform me," he adds, "if he is a sufferer by this
mishap, and I wish you to keep this quite entre nous."

At a slightly earlier day Audubon had entertained
the idea of illustrating the birds of Great Britain on a
scale commensurate with his work on those of America,
but on May 1, 1828, he wrote Swainson that no one
favored the project, and it was quickly given up. The
subject is referred to by MacGillivray, in a letter writ-
ten from Edinburgh, May 7, 1831: "As I understand
your proposals respecting the Birds of Britain to have
ended in nothing, and as you do not allude to the sub-
ject, I shall suppose all your ideas to have dispersed,
and shall think of the matter myself." The first volume
of MacGillivray's History of British Birds appeared six
years later.6 It is evident that he wished to obtain Au-
dubon's criticism of some of the drawings subsequently
used in this work when he sent the following formal
note7 to his lodgings at Edinburgh:

William MacGillivray to Audubon

Edinburgh, 22d. October, 1834.

Dear Sir,

I take the liberty of sending you a collection of drawings
made by myself, and intended for a work on the vertebrate

6 See Vol. II, p. 135.

7 This, and the letter of MacGillivray soon to follow, are from the

Howland MSS.

*Sfake: far £tte^cjfr 4e*toi*y J***. & £^get^.
«y *«ec*& u^fk- ur&+1& y*n+ Wet**. oUASe+tD et^o&trCt. e£aA tf

.njijru J'rtetee. ftucUpriJ!. fet£ IvcO^fruZ far- ffceT ^/ue^

I 4~kevtee) *Ur* £**»****' &"*- (**4&U.. i^tru. ^n'tt ttJ?- Sent*.

fi/t 4r- &>+t«Uo**. h^Y, ^<ncD A^cnc j^h prea^xnl .

^/^Ot^jLe. WIT fun^ruA. fate, /kin (&r

LETTER OF WILLIAM MACGILLIVRAY TO AUDUBON, OCTOBER 22. 1834.

From the Howland MSS.

131

132 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

animals of Great Britain. The astonishing success with which
jou have depicted a whole class of the productions of your
native land, as evinced in the incomparable delineations of
your "Birds of America," renders your opinions respecting or-
nithological drawings of the very highest authority ; and I
have been anxious to submit my attempts to your decision,
which, if unfavourable, will induce me to remedy my defects,
or, if otherwise, will encourage me to proceed with an under-
taking, which by its arduousness and extent, is precisely suited
to my disposition. I shall therefore feel grateful for the ex-
pression of your ideas respecting the Drawings, and I request
that should you favour me with it, you will not scruple to
censure freely, should you find occasion.
I have the honour to be, Dear Sir,

your most obedient servant,

W. MacGillivray.
[Addressed] To J. J. Audubon, Esqe.

Edinburgh.

Audubon and MacGillivray finished their work in
November, and by the first of December the manuscript
of the second volume of the Ornithological Biography
was in the printer's hands. On the 10th of the latter
month Audubon wrote to Bachman from Edinburgh:
"I am quite sure I never have been half as anxious as I
am at this moment to do all in my power to compleat
my vast enterprise, and sorrowful indeed would be my
dying moments if this book of mine were not finished
ere my eyes are for ever closed." The naturalist was
thinking of materials for new "Episodes" for the work
when he added:

Try to study the habits of the alligator, the time of its
propagation, number of eggs, form of the nest, &c, &c, &c. I
long to possess all respecting this reptile (amphibian) [sic]
for my article of the Wood Ibis and Sand Hill Crane, for it

s&^r *~^ <£. •• s •*. -

tJfc S /T *C — r„ ,0,^ _

«^, <?&?--?', _
yr. a. ?$*„ . __

I

#Ol

>-^

« {Jul *>. \'s;

«i»l

y^rau

/fry* <tI*-*~-'

c& — em*}.-* . -

(I

PART OF THE ORIGINAL DRAFT OF AUDUBOJf's MANUSCRIPT FOR THE INTRODUCTION

TO VOLUME II OF THE "ORNITHOLOGICAL BIOGRAPHY," GIVING NAMES

OF PERSONS TO WHOM HE CARRIED LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION

ON HIS FIRST VISIT TO LONDON IN 1827.

From the Howland MSS.

134 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

will make a fine picture on paper, and I can show Waterton
the bold astride of one's bare back in great style.

By now Doer. Parkman has at least a portion of the let-
ter press and I hope has begun printing the second vol. of
Biog. 750 copies for America, and the same number are print-
ing here. I wish you would cut out from all newspapers the
pros and cons about me.

We thus have from Audubon himself a definite state-
ment in regard to the publication of his Biography
of Birds in America, and as to the number of copies
issued.

MacGillivray immediately agreed to "revise and cor-
rect" Audubon's forthcoming third and fourth volumes,
and that he was quite satisfied with their method of co-
operation is shown by the following definite statement
of his contract:

William MacGillivray to Audubon

Edinburgh 15 th December 1834.
Dear Sir,

Agreeably to your request I hereby bind and oblige myself
to revise and correct the third and fourth volumes of your
work entitled "Ornithological Biography" at the same rate as
the two first volumes, namely at Two Pounds Two Shillings
per sheet ; as well as to revise, for a sum to be subsequently
determined, any other work which you may intend to publish.
I have the honour to be Dear Sir,

your most obedt. Servant

W. MacGillivray.
To John J. Audubon Esq.

When William MacGillivray first met Audubon, in
the autumn of 1830, he was an enthusiastic naturalist
of four and thirty, young, but, as we have seen, a thor-

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 135

ough anatomist, who stood firmly on his own feet and
was destined to advance his favorite study in a notable
degree. Audubon at this time was forty-five, but in
anatomy the older man gladly sat at the feet of the
younger and acknowledged him master; while this
young anatomist was dissecting, Audubon in the role
of student was seated by his side, and we may be sure
that little escaped his penetrating eye and keen intelli-
gence. To MacGillivray, on the other hand, Audubon
was master of his art, and to him he looked for criticism
of his own artistic efforts; after him he named a son,
and to him dedicated a child of his brain.s In short,
MacGillivray looked upon Audubon as his best friend
in the world, and the latter fully appreciated his indebt-
edness to this able assistant. MacGillivray continued to
aid Audubon with his letterpress, revising and probably
contributing most of the technical details ; in the fourth
and concluding volumes, published in 1838 and 1839,
the large store of anatomical matter and many excellent
drawings were duly acknowledged as coming from his
hand. His own writings were varied and numerous,
but were generally characterized by a high degree of
excellence. His History of British Birds, in five vol-
umes (1837-1852), was too extended and too technical
ever to become popular, but in that work, for the first
time in the history of science, classification was place!
on a strictly anatomical basis. MacGillivray even fol-
lowed Audubon to some extent by introducing into this
work "delineations of British scenery and character,"
but under another head. The sixth of his "Lessons in
Practical Ornithology" recounts in dialogue form the

8 The Rapacious Birds of Great Britain, by William MacGillivray, was
dedicated to Audubon "in admiration (if his talents as an ornithologist,
and in gratitude for many acts of friendship."

136 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

experiences of two friends in tramping the Pentland
Hills together; says "Physiophilus" [himself], "You
must have many fine songsters in America"; to which
"Ornithologus" [Audubon] replies:

That we have indeed. The Mocking Bird, of course, stands
first in my opinion, and is unrivalled. Then, perhaps on ac-
count of my own sensitive nature, I would place next the Wood
Thrush, although the Cat Bird is far its superior in many
points, as is also the Turdus rufus. Think of our Rose-breasted
Pine and Blue Grosbeaks, how mellow and sweet their continu-
ous songs are, whether by day or during calm nights. Watch
the varied ditties of the Orchard Oriole, and the loud and more
musical notes of its brother, the Golden Hangnest. You have
never heard the Tawny Thrush or the Hermit Thrush, other-
wise, believe me, you would have enjoyed much delicious
pleasure. . . .

William MacGillivray was a man of the finest char-
acter and an honor to the best traditions of British schol-
arship; in his enthusiasm and indefatigable energy he
was fully a match to Audubon. For nearly twelve years
(1841-1852) he was an honored lecturer and professor
in Marischal College and University, Aberdeen, where
he died, probably as a result of overwork in the field, in
1852, thus outliving his older friend but one year. His
last completed work, Natural History of Deeside and
Braemar, was published under the patronage of Queen
Victoria and by her command privately printed, under
the editorship of E. Lancaster, in 1855. MacGillivray's
surviving son, whose career as a field naturalist was also
cut short by too strenuous work, accompanied Huxley,
then an assistant surgeon in the Royal Navy, on the
memorable voyage of the Rattlesnake under Captain
Owen Stanlev in 1842. MacGillivray was honored when

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 137

alive, and though dead has not been forgotten; in 1890
a beautiful tablet was dedicated to him in Aberdeen,
and at the same time a worthy monument was raised
to his memory at Edinburgh.9

In authorship the public is mainly interested in see-
ing merit duly acknowledged. Said Audubon, in the
introductory address to his first volume :

There are persons whose desire of obtaining celebrity in-
duces them to suppress the knowledge of the assistance which
they have received in the composition of their works. In many
cases, in fact, the real author of the drawings or the descrip-
tions in books on Natural History is not so much as mentioned,
while the pretended author assumes to himself all the merit
which the world is willing to allow him. This want of candour
I could never endure. On the contrary, I feel pleasure in here
acknowledging the assistance which I have received from a
friend, Mr. William MacGillivray, who being possessed of a
liberal education and a strong taste for the study of the Nat-
ural Sciences, has aided me, not in drawing the figures of my
Illustrations, nor in writing the book now in your hand, al-
though fully competent for both tasks, but in completing the
scientific details, and in smoothing down the asperities of my
Ornithological Biographies.

In the introduction to Volume IV he added that the

anatomical descriptions, as well as the sketches by which they
are sometimes illustrated, have been executed by my learned
friend, William MacGillivray, who in the most agreeable manner
consented to undertake the labour, by no means small, of such a
task, and to whom those who are interested in the progress of
Ornithological science, as well as myself, must therefore feel
indebted.

0 For an excellent account of the life of William MacGillivray and of
his labors in natural science, see William MacGillivray, A Memorial Tribute
to William MacGillivray (Bibl. No. 211).

138 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon evidently believed that this printed acknowl-
edgment was just; MacGillivray was as plainly satisfied,
so that complaints which have been made against the
naturalist on this score seem to have been rather ground-
less. It might be noticed that bookmaking at that time
was regarded as more of a trade than at present; as
Sir Walter Besant remarks, a traveler would often give
his notes to a bookseller, who in turn would hand them
over to a literary hack to be cast into suitable form.

/^S^l <£V*^***^ * ~ jtZ^S^z?^ <£>

yrjrsf*^ &*>** ?€W;

"ak^ti^cJ^ s/'Z***A/1

C9 <%e*, ^*'^^^fS£&*yl<*£r+^^

atjdubon's inscription in the copy of the "ornithological biography"
presented to william macgillivray

A fine token of the friendship which existed between
these two men was discovered in the summer of 1903 in
a London bookshop, where it was found reflected in the
pages of a handsomely bound copy of Audubon's Biog-
raphy of Birds; on the title pages were inscribed the
autographs of William MacGillivray, while on the first
page of the introduction to the first volume the hand of
Audubon had written this dedication:

These volumes are presented to
William MacGillivray with sentiments
of the highest esteem and best wishes by
his truly and sincerely attached friend

John J. Audubon
Edinburgh July 1 t 1839.

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 139

Professor John Wilson gave the third volume of the
Ornithological Biography a very handsome notice in
Blackwood's Magazine, and on New Year's Day, 1836,
Audubon acknowledged the compliment in the follow-
ing letter: 10

Audubon to John Wilson {"Christopher North")

My Dear Friend : —

The first hour of this new year was ushered to me sur-
rounded by my dear flock, all comfortably seated around a small
table in middle-sized room, where I sincerely wished you had
been also, to witness the flowing gladness of our senses, as from
one of us "Audubon's Ornithological Biography" was read from
your ever valuable Journal. I wished this because I felt as-
sured that your noble heart would have received our most grate-
ful thanks with pleasure, the instant our simple ideas had con-
veyed to you the grant of happiness we experienced at your
hands. You were not with us, alas ! but to make amends the
best way we could, all of a common accord drank to the health,
prosperity, and long life, of our generous, talented, and ever
kind friend, Professor John Wilson, and all those amiable beings
who cling around his heart ! May those our sincerest wishes
reach you soon, and may they be sealed by Him who granted
us existence, and the joys heaped upon the "American woods-
man" and his family, in your hospitable land, and may we
deserve all the benefits we have received in your ever dear coun-
try, although it may prove impossible to us to do more than
to be ever grateful to her worthy sons.

Accept our respectful united regards, and offer them to
your family, whilst I remain, with highest esteem, your truly
thankful friend and most obedient servant,

John J. Audubon.

Wilson had said in his earlier review:

10 See Mrs. Gordon, "Christopher North:" A Memoir of John Wilson
(BibL No. 44).

140 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

We do not believe that till within these few years, he had
any practice in composition. . . . Yet Genius, if from circum-
stances behindhand in any common accomplishment, soon sup-
plies it — soon makes up its lee-way — or rather, it has only to
try to do what it has never done before, and it succeeds in it
to admiration. Audubon, who had written but little even in
his native tongue — French — under a powerful motive, took to
writing English; and he was not long in learning to write it
well, not only with fluency, but eloquence, as the fine extracts
we have quoted show in unfading colours.

The following comment on Audubon's second vol-
ume of the Biography appeared in the Athenaeum for
1835:

If only considered as evidence that it is in the power of man
to achieve whatever he wills, and that no obstacles are too great
to be overcome by energy and devotion of purpose, it would
claim our good will and best wishes.

He has told what he has seen and undergone, not perhaps
in the smooth nicely balanced periods of a drawing-room writer
. . . but with unstudied freedom, rising at times to eloquence,
nor been ashamed to utter the thousand affectionate and benevo-
lent feelings which a close and enthusiastic communion with
nature must nourish. The work is full of the man.

The winter and spring of 1835 were spent in Lon-
don, and though suffering from the strain of overwork,
Audubon kept doggedly at his tasks. On April 20 he
wrote to Bachman:

Immediately on my arrival in London I set to writing, and
finished in one month, one 4 th. of the Biographies of my 3 d.
vol. This rendering me puffy, I could scarcely breathe — my
appetite was gone — my digestion bad — in other words I was
attacked by Dyspepsia as bad as ever. Then I thought of a
change of work — for in change of labour the body and the mind

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 141

undergo sure and certain relief. I took to Drawing! and what
do you think— I have positively finished 33 drawings of Ameri-
can birds in England. This has enabled me to swell my 3 d. vol.
of Illustrations with 57 species not given by Wilson and there-
fore forestalling my friend Charles Bonaparte.

On the 28th of April Audubon wrote to Edward
Harris, begging him to send specimens of certain birds
which he needed, as well as a circumstantial account of
the shad fisheries of the Delaware River as material for
an "Episode" for the third volume of his Biography ;
the fiftieth number of his illustrations was then in the
hands of the colorist. He continued: n

I thought better to push my publication on account of the
woeful dulling of the times in this country, where political
strife engrosses the mind of every person so much that arts and
sciences are, as it were, put on the shelves. Ministers are beings
of six weeks lives now-a-days. The Reformers are struggling
against the Tories, and vice versa. The Churchmen are aghast
at the prospect of the future, and all this puts a complete stop-
page to business, independent of such matters. Even since my
return to England I have obtained only two or three subscrib-
ers, and have lost more than a dozen ; nay, I may safely say,
two dozen. In America, on the contrary, things appear to go
on more prosperously. May God's will grant a long continua-
tion of this to our only Land of Liberty. France, you will have
heard, has at last passed an order for the payment of her debts
to the citizens of the United States, and I hope that this may
prove amply sufficient to save us from having a war with that
powerful nation. ... I wrote you that Dr. George Parkman,
of Boston, would have my 2 d. volume of Biographies reprinted
in his city. I have seen 100 pages of this reprint here, but do
not know if the Vol. (American Ed.) has appeared before the
Public?

II This and extracts from letters which follow are from the Jeanes MSS.

142 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

My — Friends — erton, Ord & Co. keep up their curious
animadversions against me still — methinks they must be shock-
ingly mortified at my stubborn silence toward them. Some
unknown friends now & then reply to their absurdities.

His persistent heckler, Charles Waterton, was quite
busy at this time, four articles having been directed
against Audubon or his friends in 1835, though this was
not his most prolific year. A similar reference occurs
in a letter written to Baehman from Edinburgh on the
20th of July: "As to the rage of Mr. Waterton, or the
lucubrations of Mr. Neal, who by the bye is a subscriber
to the Birds of America (bona fide), I really care not a
fig — all such stuffs will soon evaporate, being mere
smoke from a Dung Hill."

In the summer of 1835 Audubon was again estab-
lished in Edinburgh and working with unremitting vigor
at his Biography ; some idea of the speed which he main-
tained when able to devote himself unreservedly to this
task can be gathered from the fact that after the issue
of his second volume, of 620 large pages, in December,
1834, the third, of 654 pages, was published in just a
year from that time. He wrote to Edward Harris from
Edinburgh on the 5th of July, when engaged in this
work :

I intend to write a few ["Episodes"] of such extraordinary
men, now deceased, with whom I have been acquainted — Thomas
Bewick, and Baron Cuvier, for example.

We receive no new subscribers in Europe. The taste is
passing for Birds like a flitting shadow — Insects, reptiles and
fishes are now the rage, and these fly, swim or crawl on pages
innumerable in every Bookseller's window. When this is also
passed, naturalists will have to turn over a new leaf and com-
mence afresh, or go to the antipodes in search of materials to

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 143

please the taste for novelty's sake. — However my work will I
hope be finished ere I leave this world, and must be appreciated
in years to come, when perhaps my childrens' children will feel
proud of their gone ancestor, "The American Woodsman."
You see my Dear Friend how far enthusiasm and a portion of
the like for standing fame carries even your humble servant a
man with no other means than his industry and prudence as a
means of support, and one with scarce the motive of education.
There are moments, and they are not far between, when thinking
of my present enormous undertaking, I wonder how I have been
able to support the extraordinary amount of monies paid for
the work alone, without taking cognizance of my family and my
expeditions, which ever and anon travelling as we are from place
to place and country to country are also very great. When
I publish my Life and let the world know that Audubon like
Wilson, was at Phila. without the half of a Dollar, and that
had it not been for benevolent generosity of a certain Gentleman
whose name is Edward Harris, Audubon must have walked off
from one of the fairest of our Cities like a beggar does in poor
Ireland, left destitute of all things save his humble talents, and
his determination to produce something worthy of the soul of
man : I say my dear Harris will not the world stare ! Poor
Wilson was only better off than I on account of his superior
talents over me at driving the goose quill, but much similarity
still seems to have [existed] in both of us, as I could drive the
pencil, the brush, the Fiddle bow and even the "Fleuret"
[better] than he.

Audubon wrote to Harris again from Edinburgh,
on September 5, when he said:

Between you and I the measurements of different Birds given
by Wilson are hardly to be depended upon, as I constantly
discover a great deficiency in this part of his descriptions which
indeed in some cases are otherwise slack, and given as if when
fatigued or vexed. Nay I even think at times that he has
copied Authors and not nature? as in the instance of the Oyster.

144 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Catcher, which I fear he made & figured from a European one
in the Philadelphia museum, took the descriptions from Latham,
and described the Habits of Palliartus which is our own Bird
and it seems the only species to be met with in America, at least
on our Atlantic coast. Wilson committed the same blunder with
the Rallus elegans which he figured and described the habits of
the R. capitans for it ! I could enumerate more instances of
carelessness, but poor Wilson is dead and may God bless his
soul!

The third volume of his letterpress,12 which dealt
with the water birds of America, made its appearance
at the close of 1835; in the introduction he said:

I look forward to the summer of 1838 with an anxious hope
that I may then be able to present you with the last plate of my
Illustrations, and the concluding volume of my Biographies.
To render these volumes as complete as possible, I intend to
undertake a journey to the southern and western limits of the
Union, with the view of obtaining a more accurate knowledge
of the birds of those remote and scarcely inhabited regions. On
this tour I shall be accompanied by my youngest son, while
the rest of*my family will remain in Britain to direct the prog-
ress of my publication.

Audubon returned tp London with his family early
in 1836, visiting Newcastle, York, Leeds, Manchester
and Sheffield by the way, and took a house at Number 4,
Wimpole Street, Cavendish Square. As Mrs. Audu-
bon's health was anything but good, they were fortunate
in having as a neighbor in this street an eminent surgeon,
Benjamin Phillips,13 and this friend was also a sub-
scriber to The Birds of America. "Were I to men-
tion," said Audubon,

12 See Bibliography No. 2.

13 For letter written to Dr. Phillips in 1842, see Vol. II, p. 244.

m

V

^

/*£

EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWINGS OF AMERICAN BIRDS: ABOVE, "CAPRIMULGUS VOCIF-

ERUS. WHIPPOORWIL1 FEMELLE. A. W. MAY 7TH, 1813. PENNSA. NO.

11"; BELOW, "ROBIN A. WILI.SOX. TURDTJS MIGRATORIUS. LITORNE

DU CANADA MALE BII'FON DRAWN BY J. J. AUDUBON

JANY. 4, 1807 NEW YORK. NO. 102."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.

AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 145

the many occasions on which he has aided me by his advice and
superior knowledge of the world, you would be pleased to find
so much disinterestedness in human nature. His professional
aid too, valuable as it has proved to us, and productive of much
inconvenience to him, has been rendered without reward, for I
could never succeed in inducing him to consider us his patients,
although for upwards of two years he never passed a day with-
out seeing my wife.

In the spring of 1836 Audubon's two sons made a
tour of France and Italy; on the 9th of March he wrote
to Harris that they expected to leave England in a week,
be gone three and a half months, visit Paris, Rome
and Messina, and return by way of Marseilles and Paris.
With the passage of 1836 he had completed 70 numbers,
of 350 plates, of his larger work, leaving but 85 plates
yet to be engraved. Though anxious to see this greatest
of his tasks brought to an end, he still looked with long-
ing eyes to the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Coast,
and began preparations for his last journey to obtain
materials and subscribers in the United States.

CHAPTER XXXI

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR, 1836-1337

In New York harbor— Collections from the Far West— Audubon's efforts
to secure thern— Return to Boston— Friendship of Daniel Webster-
Renewed efforts to obtain the Nuttall-Townsend collection— Expedition
to the west coast of Florida— Deferred governmental aid— Another
winter with Bachman— Overland journey to New Orleans — On board
the Crusader— Mistaken for pirates— With Harris and his son explores
the Gulf Coast— The Republic of Texas— Visit to its capital and presi-
dent—Meeting in Charleston— Marriage of his son— Their return to
England.

Audubon left London with his son, John, July 30,
1836, and on the second day of August sailed from
Portsmouth on the packet Gladiator, bound for New
York. Two hundred and sixty live birds had preceded
them to the ship, while three dogs came as a present
from the Earl of Derby, and "a brace of tailless cats
from our friend George Thackeray, D.D., provost of
King's College": all had suffered somewhat from lack
of care, but the dogs, one of which was sent to John
Bachman of Charleston, and some of the birds crossed
the Atlantic in safety. Five weeks were spent at sea;
when the Navesink Highlands at last hove into view
the welcome news spread rapidly over the ship ; rockets
were sent up later to attract a pilot, and when anchor
was grounded on American soil, Audubon confessed
that he cried like a child and devoutly thanked God
for their preservation. He continued :

All was now bustle and mutual congratulations; our com-
mander was praised for his skill by some, and others praised his
whisky, which the waiters handed about, and the night was

146

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 147

nearly spent in revelry ; but John and myself retired at two
o'clock. ... As a gleam of daylight appeared, my eyes
searched through the hazy atmosphere to catch a glimpse of
the land, and gradually Staten Island opened to my view ; then
the boat of the custom-house appeared, and soon he boarded
us, arranged the sailors and passengers on deck, and called
their names. Then followed breakfast, and soon another boat,
with a yellow flag flying, landed the health officer, and there
being no sickness on board, myself and John returned to Staten
Island in the doctor's boat, and were taken by the steamer
Hercules to the city.1

Audubon remained in New York from the 7th to
the 13th of September. On Sunday, the 12th, he wrote
to Edward Harris, in part as follows : 2

Audubon to Edward Harris

My dear Friend —

. . . Whilst running over the interesting list of the Species
of Birds procured by Nuttall & Townsend in the Rocky Moun-
tains, and the shores of the Pacific, I became so completely
wrapt up with the desire to see these as soon as possible that I
have concluded to go to Philadelphia tomorrow by the 10
o'clock boat. I will stay at Harlan's for two or three days and
hope that you will meet me there, that I may have the pleasure
of pressing your hand and talking to you.

You well know how anxious I am to make my work on the
Birds of our Country as compleat as possible within my power :
■ — you know that to reach this end I have spared neither time,
labours or money : you are also aware that although this under-
taking may never remunerate me, I am so enthusiastic as to
indulge in the hope that God will grant me life to effect all this ;
but I am becoming old, and though very willing doubt whether

'Lucy B. Audubon, ed., Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist
(Bibl. No. 73), p. 385.
2 The Jeanes MSS.

148 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

I could support the fatigues connected with a journey of sev-
eral years, and separated from my dear Family. Well the
desiderata has come to Philadelphia at least in part, and if I
could be allowed to pourtray the new species now there as an
appendix to the Birds of America, I should be proud and happy
to do so, but do you think that the Academy is likely to indulge
me in this my wish? Do join me at Harlan's as soon as you
can, and lend me a hand and try to promote my views through
mutual Friends attatched to that Institution.

Audubon also communicated at once with John
Bachman, whom he had planned to visit on his journey
south, but soon learned that the cholera had broken out
in Charleston and that the Seminoles were on the war-
path in Florida. Said Bachman, writing on September
14:

With regard to Florida, nothing will be done by naturalists
for at least two years. Your Indian friends, the cut-throats,
have scalped almost every woman and child south of St. Augus-
tine, save those on Key West. They have burnt and plundered
every plantation ; and although they will probably be, in a
great measure, put down next winter, yet there will, undoubt-
edly, remain many small predatory bands that will make no
bones of scalping an Ornithologist secundum artem; and would
ask no questions whether he were the friend or enemy of William
Penn. Of Texas, I think better, and thither, or along its bor-
ders, you may, I think, venture — for the Texans are our friends.
I suppose Genl. Gaines will keep the Comanches quiet.3

Bachman kept his friends informed of the progress
of the epidemic, which had placed an embargo over his
city; at the same time he sent news of the Anhingas,
Caracara Eagles and Cormorants, which had been suc-
cessfully held in captivity for the naturalist, and added :

SC. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No. 191).

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 149

'These are awful times in money matters, but of this
you will hear enough when we meet. Everyone nearly
has failed, but the Parsons and Ornithologists."

On September 13 Audubon started for Philadelphia,
anxious to see with his own eyes those western collec-
tions which had so stirred his curiosity. It seems that
in 1834, Dr. Thomas Nuttall and Dr. John Kirk Town-
send set out on a journey to the mouth of the Columbia
River; Nuttall was first of all a botanist, and is said to
have carried no gun, but Townsend was an experienced
ornithologist and made extensive collections of birds, a
part of which he sent in care of Nuttall to Philadelphia
in 1835, although he himself did not return east until
the close of 1837. One of Audubon's great ambitions
had been to explore the regions which they had re-
cently visited, and in the circumstances we can sympa-
thize with his desire to acquire so valuable an acquisition
for the work upon which he had been long engaged. The
object of his immediate quest apparently had been en-
trusted to the Academy of Natural Sciences, an institu-
tion which had not always shown itself friendly to his
claims, and which in this instance is said to have assisted
the travelers with funds to prosecute their journey.
The collection, said Audubon, contained "about forty
new species of birds, and its value cannot be described."
Balked in his initial efforts to obtain the coveted prize,
after two days of fruitless efforts on the part of his
Philadelphia friends, he returned to New York; Ed-
ward Harris then came forward with the offer of $500
for the purchase of the collection outright, but nego-
tiations were not immediately successful.

With his hunger still unappeased, Audubon now
visited Boston on a canvassing tour, while his son re-
mained with Nicholas Berthoud at New York. Setting-

150 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

out on the 20th of September, he traveled by the steamer
Massachusetts and the Providence Railroad, paying
seven dollars fare, "which included supper and break-
fast"; the sail up Providence Bay in early morning
was like a "fairy dream," and the locomotive in waiting
then pulled the passengers from "Providence to Boston
at the rate of fifteen miles an hour." We arrived, said
he, at four in the afternoon: "a cart took my trunk,
and placing myself by the side of the owner, we drove
to the house of my friend, Dr. George C. Shattuck."

On the day after his arrival, Audubon visited Thom-
as M. Brewer, then a young ornithologist living at Rox-
bury, to examine his collection of bird skins and eggs,
and upon his return called on David Eckley, "the great
salmon fisher," to whom he later presented a copy of his
folio plates of The Birds of America.* Brewer, who
later became a physician and distinguished ornitholo-
gist, for many years was one of Audubon's valued cor-
respondents and supplied him with much interesting
material. On the following day Audubon met Thomas
Nuttall,5 who at once promised him duplicates of all the
new birds which he had brought from the West. Colonel
Thomas H. Perkins, an early subscriber, Edward Ever-
ett, who had befriended him in Washington, and who in
1836 became Governor of Massachusetts, Josiah Quin-
cy, president of Harvard College, Dr. Bowditch, and

4 See Note, Vol. II, p. 7.

5 Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859), a native of Yorkshire, was brought up
a printer; in 1807 he emigrated to the United States, and became noted for
his wide botanical explorations, for his Journal of Travels in the Arkansas
Territory in 1819, and for his excellent Manual of the Ornithology of the
United 'States and Canada (1833-1834), which has had several editions.
From 1823 to 1834 he was professor of Natural History and curator of
the Botanical Gardens at Harvard University; in 1834 he crossed the
Rocky Mountains along the sources of the Platte, explored Oregon and
Upper California, and visited the Sandwich Islands. He returned to
England, where he had inherited property, in 1842, and died at St. Helen's,
Lancashire, September 10, 1859.

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 151

other prominent characters, all extended a helping
hand. He visited Salem to deliver his letters, and was
successful in obtaining a number of subscribers; upon
invitation of the curator of the Natural History Society
there, he examined "the young collection of that new-
born institution," and had "the good fortune to find one
egg of the American bittern." On the 25th of Septem-
ber he wrote Harris: "Nuttall has arrived — he break-
fasted with me the other day — gave me 6 new species
of Birds and tells me that he will urge both Townsend
and the Society at Philadelphia to allow me to portray
all the species which they have procured within the
limits of our Territories."

In Boston, September 27, 1836, Audubon made this
note in his journal: 6 "The citizens are all excitement;
guns are firing, flags flying, and troops parading and
John Quincy Adams is delivering a eulogy on the late
President Madison. The mayor of Boston did me the
honor to invite me to join in the procession, but I am
no politician and declined." He noted on the same day
also that Dr. Shattuck had completed the subscription
list of the Boston Society of Natural History "by pre-
senting me to his lady, who subscribed for one-tenth,
and the Dr. then put down his son George's name for
one-twentieth, making his own family one-fourth of the
whole, or two hundred and twenty dollars, for which
he gave me his cheque. Without the assistance of this
generous man, it is more than probable that the So-
ciety never would have had a copy of 'The Birds of
America.' ' Two days later he met Daniel Webster at
the rooms of the Historical Society, and on the same
evening at the home of Isaac P. Davis, where, said Au-
dubon, "we took tea, talked on ornithology and orni-

6 See Lucy B. Audubon, ed., op. cit.; and Note, Vol. II, p. 29.

152 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

thologists; he promised to send me some specimens of
birds, and finished by subscribing to my work." Web-
ster also gave him a general note of recommendation,
in which he said: 7 "I take this mode of commending
Mr. Audubon to any friends of mine he may meet in his
journey to the west. I have not only great respect for
Mr. Audubon's scientific pursuits, but entertain for him
personally much esteem and hearty good wishes." Mr.
Davis exerted his influence in other directions, and in
this instance acted as agent for the transmission of
Audubon's plates to their distinguished friend ; on Octo-
ber 7, he wrote:8 "I received the half Nos of the
'Birds of America' for the worthy and sublime Danl.
Webster — they shall be delivered safely on his return."
After urging Audubon to visit Buffalo, where Dr.
Bowditch and his friends thought that a number of new
subscribers might be procured, he appended a list of
twelve likely names of residents of that city, and added:
"Bowdoin College shall be remembered as the oppor-
tunity offers."

Webster, who was an ardent sportsman and well ac-
quainted with the water fowl of the coast, had volun-
teered to procure for Audubon specimens of the Labra-
dor Duck, which was even then extremely rare and has
since become extinct, but was unable to fulfill his prom-
ise. Audubon had already found that many American
birds, like the common crow, which had been regarded
as identical with those of the Old World, were in reality
distinct, and was now anxious, as he wrote to Thomas
Brewer, "to compare the anatomy of all our birds
with those of the same families in Europe." His letters

7 See Lucy B. Audubon, ed., op. cit., p. 391.

8 In a letter signed "I. P. Davis," and superscribed to "John J. Audu-
bon Esqr at Mr. Berthoud's, 106 Broad Street New York." (Howland
MSS.)

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 153

to young Brewer at this time show how eager he was
to secure the promised specimens. On October 23 he
wrote from Philadelphia: "I hope you will not forget to
call on our enlightened statesman D. Webster, and re-
mind him of his kind promise to assist you in the pro-
curing of specimens for me. This winter and next
spring are my only chances, and I beg you to do all you
can for me." He wrote again from Charleston, Janu-
ary 1, 1837: "I am sorry that the Hon. D. Webster
has not attended to his promises, and will write to him;
yet I would beg you, being on the spot, to trouble him a
good deal." 9

After returning to New York, Audubon had a vis-
itor for whom he expressed the greatest admiration,
Washington Irving, who had aided him in 1833; he now
received from his hands letters to Martin Van Buren,
the President-elect, and Benjamin F. Butler, who then
occupied the post of Attorney-General. Irving called
attention in his letter to the national character of Au-
dubon's work, and warmly commended it' to the patron-
age of the country at large. On October 8 Audubon
wrote MacGillivray from New York that he had ob-
tained twelve new subscribers, two at Salem, four at
Boston, and six in New York, but a little later, through
the aid of Nicholas Berthoud, in one week's time
eighteen new names were added to his subscription list
in New York City alone.

Meanwhile NuttalFs and Townsend's birds had not
been forgotten, and on October 15 he started with his
son for Philadelphia, where he was again welcomed by
Dr. Richard Harlan. No sooner, however, were efforts
renewed to gain permission to study the desired objects

8 See Thomas M. Brewer (Bibl. No. 79), Harper's New Monthly
Magazine, vol. lxi, p. 666 (1880).

154 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

than new obstacles were encountered. To quote the nat-
uralist : 10

Having obtained access to the collection sent by Dr. Town-
send, I turned over and over the new and rare species, but he
was absent at Fort Vancouver, on the shores of the Columbia
River ; Thomas Nuttall had not yet come from Boston, and loud
murmurs were uttered by the soi-disant friends of science, who
objected to my seeing, much less portraying and describing,
those valuable relics of birds, many of which had not yet been
introduced into our Fauna.

At length, "it was agreed," to continue his account of
the transaction,

that I might purchase duplicates, provided the specific names
agreed upon by Mr. Nuttall and myself were published in Dr.
Townsend's name. This latter part of the affair was perfectly
agreeable to my feelings, as I have seldom cared much about
priority in the naming of species. I therefore paid for the
skins which I received, and have now published such as proved
to be new, according to my promise. But, let me assure you,
Reader, that seldom, if ever in my life, have I felt more dis-
gusted with the conduct of any opponents of mine, than I was
with the unfriendly boasters of their zeal for the advancement
of ornithological science, who at that time existed in the fair
city of Philadelphia.

While still in Philadelphia, on October 23, Audubon
wrote to Thomas Brewer that Dr. Morton, the corre-
sponding secretary of the Academy, had not only per-
mitted him to portray the new birds but had sold him
"ninety odd of the skins, forming a portion of the col-
lection," and added that with his other acquisitions they
would swell his "catalogue to the number of 475, all of
which must be introduced in my fourth volume."

10 Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. iv, p. xi.

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 155

For many years Audubon had expressed great con-
tempt for all seekers after priority in the naming of
new species of animals, but now he began to find the
pressure from without too strong to be resisted. Rivalry
in this field had become keen on both sides of the At-
lantic, and in the commendable desire to render his work
as complete as possible, he was inevitably drawn into a
struggle in which the higher aspirations of scientific men
are all too apt to be obscured by petty vanities, suspi-
cions and disputes.

While at Philadelphia Audubon paid this fine trib-
ute to the ornithologist whom he had met at Louisville
twenty-six years before, and whose name had long been
a cover for the jealousies and animosities of suppositi-
tious friends : "Passed poor Alexander Wilson's school-
house, and heaved a sigh. Alas, poor Wilson! Would
that I could once more speak to thee, and listen to thy
voice !

Audubon was planning during the coming year to
explore the west coast of Florida, in company with his
son and Edward Harris, and to proceed as far as pos-
sible along the coast of Texas. From Philadelphia he
went to Baltimore, and on November 8 he arrived at
Washington. His steadfast friend and supporter,
Colonel John James Abert, then at the head of the
Topographical Bureau, took him to the White House
to call on President Andrew Jackson and present his
letters. The General, said Audubon, looked well and
was smoking a pipe ; after reading his letters attentively,
he said at once: "Mr. Audubon, I will do all in my
power to serve you, but the Seminole war, will, I fear,
prevent you from having a cutter; however, as we shall
have a committee at twelve o'clock, we will consider
this, and give you an answer tomorrow." Levi Wood-

156 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

bury, Secretary of the Treasury, was as friendly as ever,
and offered the party passage to Charleston on the
Campbell, a vessel of fifty-five tons carrying three guns
and twenty-one men, but Audubon, who was a poor
sailor, preferred to travel by land and await the com-
ing of this boat at the Bachman home. Before leaving
the capital the naturalist and his son were invited to
dine informally at the White House, and he had the
opportunity of studying at close range "a man who had
done much good and much evil to our country." Said
Audubon of this dinner:

I sat close to him ; we spoke of olden times, and touched
slightly on politics, and I found him very averse to the cause of
the Texans. . . . The dinner was what might be called plain
and substantial in England ; I dined from a fine young turkey,
shot within twenty miles of Washington. The general drank
no wine, but his health was drunk by us more than once; and
he ate very moderately, his last dish consisting of bread and
milk.11

Audubon, with his son, John, left Washington on
the 10th of November, and after traveling six days on
one of "the most extraordinary railroads in the world,"
they reached the city of Charleston, where, under the
hospitable roof of John Bachman, the party eventually
passed the winter, though momentarily expecting their
vessel, which did not arrive. During this long interval
of waiting, Audubon made drawings of all the new birds
in the Nuttall-Townsend collection, representing up-
wards of seventy figures, and Miss Maria Martin, Bach-
man's sister-in-law, again assisted him in drawing
plants and insects.

11 Lucy B. Audubon, ed., op. cit., p. 398.

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 157

As spring approached and the long awaited Camp-
bell had not arrived, Audubon, with Harris and John,
started overland for New Orleans. After several days
of hard traveling by coaches they reached Montgom-
ery, and descended the Alabama River by steamboat to
Mobile. When that district had been ransacked for
birds, they went on to Pensacola, where they learned
that the Government cutter would soon be at their
service at New Orleans ; accordingly they retraced their
steps to Mobile, passed through the lakes, and entered
the southern capital, the city in which the naturalist
had nearly starved, a penniless stranger, sixteen years
before, but which, less than three-quarters of a century
later, was to raise a monument to his memory. He
was still destined to a degree of disappointment, when
it was learned that the Campbell could not be put in
readiness before the last of March, but he was delighted
to find that the old pilot of the Marion, Napoleon Coste,
was to command this vessel. At New Orleans Audubon
met for the last time "good M. Le Sueur," artist and
naturalist, who had spent many years at New Har-
mony, Indiana, and whose acquaintance he had first
made at Philadelphia in 1824.

Audubon and his party finally left New Orleans
on the 1st of April and entered the Gulf by the South-
west Pass, where, on the 3rd of the month, they were
joined by the Crusader, a schooner of twelve tons which
was attached to the Revenue Service; on this journey
she carried a crew of four, with as many guns, and
acted as a tender to the larger vessel. The expedition
was provisioned for two months, and aimed to explore
the keys, bayous and shoreline from the Mississippi to
the Bay of Galveston. Some of Audubon's experiences
on this cruise were described in a letter to William Mac-

158 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Gillivray,12 dated "Cote Blanche, 18 April, 1837,"
which we will now reproduce :

Audubon to William M acGillivray

My Dear Friend,- —

Being just now snugly anchored in a bay, the description
of which may prove agreeable to you, I sit down to give you
an account of what I have been doing since I last wrote to you.

After visiting "Rabbit Island," on which, as I have already
told you, not a single Rabbit or Hare is to be seen, we made our
way between it and Frisky Point, by a narrow and somewhat
difficult channel leading to the bay in which I now write. The
shores around us are entirely formed of a bank, from twenty
to thirty feet high, and composed of concrete shells of various
kinds, among which the Common Oyster, however, predominates.
This bank, which at present looks as if bleached by the sunshine
and rain of centuries, is so white that it well might form a
guiding line to the vessels which navigate this bay even in the
darkest nights. The bay, however, is so shallow, that it is
rarely entered by vessels larger than schooners of about seventy
tons burthen, which visit its shores to take in the sugars and
cottons grown in the neighbouring country.

The "Crusader" is a somewhat curious craft, small, snug
withal, and considerably roguish looking. She has not fewer
than four "grunters" on her fore deck, her sails are of pure
white cotton, and although she bears the lively flag of our
country at the peak, her being painted purely black gives her
the aspect, not merely of a smuggler, but of a pirate. But
here she is, at the entrance of a canal of a sugar plantation,
and close to another craft, much the worse for wear, and, for
aught I know to the contrary, belonging to the captain alone,
who, I would almost venture to assert, belongs to no country
at all.

12 Printed in the Edinburgh Journal of Natwal History (Bibl. No. 37),
vol. i, p. 17 (December, 1838).

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 159

It is now four weeks since a razor came in contact with my
chin. All my companions are equally hircine ; or, if you please,
hirsute. As to our clothing, were you to see us at this moment,
you would be ready to exclaim, "What vagabonds these fellows
are !" Coats and trousers plastered with mire, shirts no longer
white, guns exhibiting the appearance of being in constant use,
and all sorts of accoutrements that pertain to determined
hunters, complete our tout ensemble. But, as I have said, here
we are, and on shore must go. "Man the gig," quoth our cap-
tain. In a trice the gig is manned. One after another, for
there are five or six of us, we swing ourselves into the after-
sheets. The word is given, the oars are plied, and now we are
once more on terra firma.

The crossing of large bays, cumbered with shallow bars and
banks of oyster-shells, is always to me extremely disagreeable,
and more especially when all* these bars and banks do not con-
tain a single living specimen of that most delectable shell-fish.
Nay, I am assured by our pilot, who is no youngster, that ever
since he first visited this extensive waste, not an oyster has been
procured in these parts. But now, in single file, like culprits or
hungry travellers, we proceed along the margin of the canal.
Ah, my dear friend, would that you were here just now to see
the Snipes innumerable, the Blackbirds, the Gallinules, and the
Curlews that surround us ; — that you could listen as I now do,
to the delightful notes of the Mocking-bird, pouring forth his
soul in melody as the glorious orb of day is fast descending
towards the western horizon ; — that you could watch the light
gambols of the Night Hawk, or gaze on the Great Herons
which, after spreading their broad wings, croak aloud as if
doubtful regarding the purpose of our visit to these shores !
Ah ! how well do I know you would enjoy all this ; but, alas ! we
are more than four thousand miles apart.

Hark! what's that? Nothing but Li parcel of men coming
to greet us. Here they are, seven or eight Negroes. Who lives
here my good fellows? Major Gordy, massa. Well, now show
us the way to the house. Yes, gentlemen, come along. So we
follow our swarthy guides.

160 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The plantations here are of great value, both on account
of their proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, and the excellence of
the soil, which, as in other parts of Louisiana, is composed of a
fat, black mould. The Indian corn was at least sLx feet high,
and looked most beautiful. As we approached the mansion of
Major Gordy, I observed that it has a pleasant aspect, and was
furnished with a fine garden, and a yard well stocked with cattle,
together with a good number of horses and mules, just let loose
from labour. A mill for grinding corn and making sugar par-
ticularly drew our notice to it, as the Crusader happened just
then to be destitute of both articles ; and as I saw some women
milking the cows, my heart fairly leaped with joy, and the
hope that ere long we might procure a full bowl of the delightful
and salubrious beverage. The short twilight of our southern
latitudes had now almost involved every object in that dim
obscurity so congenial to most living creatures after the toils
of the day, as allowing them to enjoy that placid quiet which
is required to restore their faded energies.

Near the entrance of the mansion stood an elderly man, of
tall stature and firm aspect, leaning on what I would call a
desperate long gun. As I approached this Cote Blanche
planter, I thought that something not so very friendly as I
could have wished was expressed in his countenance. As he
rested his heavy frame on his monstrous rifle, he neither moved
his head, nor held out his hand to me, until I presented mine to
him, saying, "My good sir, how do you do?" His answer was a
rather suspicious look at me and my companions ; but not-
withstanding, and probably because he was on his own ground,
he asked us what was our wish, and then desired us to
walk in.

Cote Blanche Bay, you must be informed, has for a number
of 3^ears been infested by a set of rascally piratical vagabonds,
who have committed extensive depredations, in consequence
of which, a few years ago, a United States' revenue cutter
was sent to protect the coast. I have no doubt that the major
took us, to a man, for members of the gang who had more
than once visited, not his house, but his plantation, on

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THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 161

which they had played many wanton and atrocious freaks.
We now, however, had entered the house. Candles were
lighted, and we at once came face to face, as it were. It curi-
ously happened that our captain was without his uniform, and
fully as rough looking otherwise as any of us. I was, however,
much pleased to see that the major himself was not much supe-
rior to us in respect of apparel; nor had his razor been em-
ployed for many days. I happened to have about me some
unequivocal credentials, from the head departments of the
United States, which, on my observing that some degree of
suspicion still remained, I placed in his hands. He read them,
spoke kindly to us, promised to forward our letters to the near-
est post-town, and invited us to consider his dwelling as our
own. From that moment until we returned to our vessel, we
were all as comfortable and merry as men can be when distant
from their own dear homes.

Next morning we received from Major Gordy a barrel of
sugar, another of corn meal, some pails of milk, and a quantity
of newly made butter, together with potatoes and other needful
articles — and all this without being allowed so much as to offer
him the least recompense. The day after, we returned to break-
fast by invitation, and found in the house several strangers
armed with rifles and double-barrelled guns. After we had
been introduced to all around, we seated ourselves, and made a
vigorous attack upon our host's eggs and bacon, coffee, tea, and
milk. As this important business was proceeding, I was de-
lighted to hear the following anecdotes, which I hope you, my
dear friend, will relish as much as I did.

"Gentlemen," said our host, straightening himself up in his
chair, "I am considerably suspicious as regards the strangers
who happen to anchor within the range of my dominions. In-
deed, gentlemen, I must acknowledge that even after you re-
turned on board last night, I sent off some of my men in various
directions, to let my neighbours know that a strange craft had
anchored near the landing-place ; and here, gentlemen, are those
neighbours of mine; but as it happens that the name of the
gentleman who calls himself a 'Naturalist' is well known to some

162 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

of them, I now feel quite satisfied as respects the purposes you
have in view. But let me tell you what happened to me some
years ago.

"Such a shark-looking craft as the one you call the Cru-
sader happened to drop its anchor abreast of my landing-place,
about dusk one evening, and as I guessed that the fellows on
board were not better than they should be, I watched their
motions for a while from my back piazza. But nothing hap-
pened that night. Next morning, however, I heard the firing
of guns down the meadows where my cattle and hogs were in
the habit of feeding. So I took my rifle, walked towards the
spot, and soon found, sure enough, that the rascals had killed a
fine ox and several hogs, which they were dragging to the shore.
Indeed, gentlemen, I saw the yawl crammed with the spoils of
my plantation. Well, I took as good an aim as I could at the
nearest man, and cracked away, but without hitting. At the
report of my gun the fellows all took to their heels, and get-
ting on board hoisted sail and went off. I have never heard of
them since. Well, gentlemen, about the same hour next morn-
ing, a black-looking barge, hardly as large as your Crusader,
came to, off the very same spot, and although I watched it and
every one on board nearly the whole night, and it was a beau-
tiful moon-shining one, not a soul of them came on shore until
morning. Then, however, I saw some bustle on board. Several
men got off in a very small affair, which was fastened astern
of the large boat. I saw them land, and deliberately walk
towards the meadows. No sooner had they reached the
wettest part, and that is where my hogs generally root for
food, than crack, crack, crack, went off their guns in all direc-
tions. You may well suppose how vexed I was at all this, and
conceive how soon I mustered my men with clubs, and armed
myself with my rifle. On reaching the ground, think, gentlemen,
what were my thoughts, when I saw the fellows all advancing
towards me and my people, as if they were the honestest men
in the world. I was so mad when they came close up, that I
had a mind to shoot the one in front, for he looked for all the
world as if he cared not a pin for any one. However, I did

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 163

not shoot, but asked him why he was shooting my hogs ? 'Hogs !
good man, you are quite mistaken ; we are shooting snipes until
we come in contact with the rascally pirates who infest the
coast, and lay waste your plantations. My name, my good sir,

is Captain , of the United States Navy ; and these are

some of my men. Will you come on board, and breakfast with
us on your own snipes?' " No wonder that the major, having
been subject to the visits of these marauders, should have taken
us in the dusk, armed as we were, and withal not having pre-
cisely the aspect of sober citizens, for persons not quite as
good as we should be. But I must now conclude, and in my
next you shall hear something of the result of my expedition
into the marshes.

After wading through mud for whole days, exposed
to scorching heat, and constantly annoyed by myriads
of insects in the course of their numerous excursions on
shore, they reached Galveston Bay on the 24th of April.
The fort of Galveston returned their salute of "26
fires," given by the big gun on the Campbell, and shortly
after they received a visit from the Secretary of the
Navy of the Republic of Texas, which under Sam Hous-
ton had declared its independence but a few weeks before
their arrival, and were invited to proceed to the seat of
government, at Houston, eighty miles distant, in the
interior. They landed on the 26th of April, and after
three weeks had been spent in exploring Galveston
Island and its adjacent shores for birds and animals
of all sorts, they started for Houston on the 8th of
May. After making about twelve miles, their vessel
grounded on Red Fish Bar, and the party then took to
tender and gig, reaching their destination on the 15th;
wild turkeys, ibises, and ducks of many kinds were seen
in great numbers along their course.

13 See Lucy B. Audubon, ed., op. cit., p. 411.

164 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon has left a graphic account13 of what he
then saw at the capital of this short-lived infant Re-
public, including its picturesque President, the melee of
dejected Mexican prisoners then gathered there, and
its drunken Indians, "halooing and stumbling about in
the mud in every direction." Houston's abode was a
small log house, "consisting of two rooms, with a passage
through, after the Southern fashion."

The moment we stepped over the threshold, on the right
hand of the passage, we found ourselves ushered into what in
other countries would be called the ante-chamber; the ground
floor, however, was muddy and filthy; a large fire was burning;
a small table, covered with paper and writing materials, was in
the centre; camp-beds, trunks, and different materials were
strewn around the room. We were at once presented to several
members of the cabinet, some of whom bore the stamp of intel-
lectual ability, simple though bold, in their general appear-
ance. . . .

The President was engaged in the opposite room on na-
tional business, and we could not see him for some time. Mean-
while we amused ourselves by walking to the capitol, which
was yet without a roof, and the floors, benches and tables of
both houses of Congress were as well saturated with water as
our clothes had been in the morning. Being invited by one of
the great men of the place to enter a booth to take a drink of
grog with him, we did so ; but I was rather surprised that he
offered his name, instead of the cash, to the bar-keeper.

We first caught sight of President Houston as he walked
from one of the grog-shops, where he had been to prevent the
sale of ardent spirits. He was on his way to his house, and
wore a large gray coarse hat, and the bulk of his figure re-
minded me of the appearance of General Hopkins of Virginia,
for like him he is upwards of six feet high, and strong in pro-
portion. But I observed a scowl in the expression of his eyes,
that was forbidding and disagreeable. We reached his abode

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 165

before him, but he soon came, and we were presented to his
excellency. He was dressed in a fancy velvet coat, and trowsers
trimmed with broad gold-lace ; around his neck was tied a cravat
somewhat in the style of seventy-six. He received us kindly,
was desirous of retaining us for awhile, and offered us every
facility within his power. He at once removed us from the
anteroom to his private chamber, which by the way was not
much cleaner than the former. We were severally introduced
by him to the different members of his cabinet and staff, and
at once asked to drink grog with him, which we did, wishing
success to his new republic. Our talk was short ; but the im-
pression which was made on my mind at the time by himself,
his officers, and his place of abode, can never be forgotten.

The party left Texas on the 18th of May, and on
the 27th reached New Orleans, which was then oppres-
sively hot and nearly deserted. Here Audubon's col-
lections and equipment were packed to be sent north;
his dog was given to his brother-in-law, William Bake-
well, and on the last day of the month the party began
to retrace their steps of the previous March. After
more hard traveling by car, coach and railroad, Charles-
ton was reached in eight and a half days, on June 10,
1837. Edward Harris, who ascended the Mississippi
from New Orleans for the purpose of making further
collections, later rejoined the party at Bachman's home
in Charleston. Audubon said that he lost twelve pounds
in weight during this journey, which proved exceedingly
trying, and the hardships encountered were hardly com-
mensurate with the returns in bird and animal lore; yet
Audubon was by no means dissatisfied at the results,
as shown by the following account which he gave Thom-
as Brewer two days after his return:14

The weather during the principal portion of our absence
"Thomas M. Brewer (Bibl. No. 79), loc. cit.

166 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

was unusually cold, even for the season, and this gave us, per-
haps, the very best opportunities ever afforded to any student
of nature to observe the inward migrations of myriads of the
birds that visit us from the south and west when the imperative
laws of nature force them from their winter retreats towards
other countries to multiply. To tell you all regarding this
would be more by a thousand times than can be given in a letter
written in haste, and I will therefore at once touch the spring
with whose sound you are most in harmony. We procured
many eggs for you — ay, a great number^and as soon as we
reach New York I will make up a large box, and take it to you
myself. . . . One thing that will interest you most, as it did
me, is that we found west of the Mississippi many species of
ducks breeding as contented as if in latitude 68° north. There
is, after all, nothing like seeing things or countries to enable one
to judge of their peculiarities, and I now feel satisfied that
through the want of these means many erroneous notions re-
main in scientific works that can not otherwise be eradicated.
We found not one new species, but the mass of observations
that we have gathered connected with the ornithology of our
country, has, I think, never been surpassed. I feel myself now
tolerably competent to give an essay on the geographical dis-
tribution of the feathered tribes of our dear country, and I
promise that I will do so, with naught but facts and notes made
on the very spot, and at the fitting time.

Maria Rebecca Bachman, eldest of the nine Bach-
man children, was married at this time to John Wood-
house Audubon, and the entire party started north
before the end of June. They went by steamer to Nor-
folk, and thence to Washington, where Audubon pre-
sented his letters to President Van Buren and tendered
his thanks in person to the various officers of the Gov-
ernment and friends who had aided his expedition ; they
passed rapidly through Baltimore and Philadelphia, to
New York, where Audubon remained a fortnight, while

THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 167

his son and daughter-in-law were enjoying a honeymoon
at Niagara Falls. All sailed from New York on the
packet England, and landed at Liverpool on the 2d of
August. Five days later the family was united in Lon-
don.

CHAPTER XXXII

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH

Extension of his work — Financial panic and revolt of patrons — New western
collections — His "Book of Nature" completed — Work on the letter-
press in Edinburgh — Vacation in the Highlands — Commissions to
Harris— Parting address to the reader — Dissolution of the Havell en-
graving establishment — The residuum of The Birds of America —
Robert Havell, engraver, and his family — Lizars' first edition and the
Havell reissues of plates — Brief manual for collectors — Appreciations —
Total edition of The Birds of America — Past and present prices — The
Rothschild incident.

After Audubon's return to England in the sum-
mer of 1837, the completion of his magnum opus occu-
pied but two years. Certain now of the ultimate success
which would crown his efforts, he worked with a furious
ardor, determined not only to execute his original plans,
but to extend them, if necessary, to include every bird
which had been discovered in America, or, at least, in
the United States.

Audubon wrote Thomas Brewer in September that,
for some unexplained cause, a large part of his collec-
tions made in Texas had probably been lost; when writ-
ing on October 29, the box containing all the eggs col-
lected on the Gulf of Mexico had not come to hand.
He continued:1

I authorize you to offer and to pay as much as five dollars
for an old raven, in the flesh, and perfect as far as internals

1 For this and the quotations in the following paragraph, see Thomas
M. Brewer (Bibl. No. 79), Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. lxi,
p. 6G6 (1880).

168

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 169

are concerned. European writers who a few years since were
all agog to prove that our apparently analogous species were
identical with those of Europe have suddenly "faced about,"
and pronounce our birds to be quite distinct species, and of
course now say that our raven is indeed our raven ! and all this
because I proved that the Corvus corone of Europe existed not
in America. All this induces the present natural student of na-
ture to have his eyes and all his senses fully open, and to see
into things further than we can into grindstones. . . .

Charles Bonaparte, who has just this moment left me, has
kindly proffered me his new North American species, and I hope
to figure them all, thereby rendering my work the more com-
plete, if not quite perfect, as far as truly well-known species
are now thought to exist in the limits of our country, or indeed
those of North America.

When writing his young friend again, on November
18, he implored him to proceed

with all possible industry, in procuring the birds of my list, in
rum. I hope you will have a pair of pied ducks (Fuligula
labradora) for me. Send me all the drawings of eggs you can
so that they reach me here by the 1st to 10th of March next. If
the birds arrive in London by the middle of April, it will do.
... I send you inclosed the copy of an advertisement of my
work, which I wish you to hand over to our most generous
friend George Parkman, Esq., M. D., and ask him to have it
inserted in one or more of the Boston newspapers as soon as
convenient.

Again, on the 22nd, he admonished his friend not to send
his "drawings of eggs by letter/' but to forward all such
to N. Berthoud, "and ask him to send them by captains
of London packets. The postages are very heavy these
hard times, and I am not a 'prince."

Although Audubon's "Prospectus" called for only

170 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

eighty parts of 400 plates, by 1837 the number of new
discoveries had multiplied to such an extent that he faced
the dilemma of either enlarging his work or issuing it in
an incomplete state. In the summer of that year large
numbers of his British patrons discontinued their sub-
scriptions, a result, no doubt, of the disastrous panic
which had driven many into bankruptcy, and still more
refused to take any plates in excess of the stipulated
number. To alleviate this anticipated difficulty, he had
already begun to admit composite plates, on which from
two to six different kinds of birds were grouped together,
much in the older style which he abhorred; but, in spite
of this concession and omission of the eggs, colored fig-
ures of which he had hoped to give at the end, he was
obliged to add seven parts, thus swelling the total num-
ber of large plates to 435, which represented 489 sup-
posedly distinct species of American birds.

When Audubon was facing such protests in Eng-
land, Dr. J. K. Townsend 2 returned to Philadelphia
with a second great collection from the Far West. How
eager he was, at this psychological moment, to gain ac-
cess to these ornithological treasures is clearly shown in
the following letter3 to Edward Harris:

Audubon to Edward Harris

[Outside address] To Edd Harris Esqr.

Moorestown New Jersey

9 miles from Philadelphia Pennsylvania

U. S. A.

Duplicate

London, Oct. 26 th., 1837.

1 have this moment received your dear letter of the 4. in-
stant, for the contents of which, I do indeed most truly thank

2 See Vol. II, p. 149.

3 See S. N. Rhoads (Bibl. No. 46), The Auk, vol. xx, p. 377 (1903).

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 171

you, but the most important point contained in it, Dr. Spencer
is now at Paris quite well and happy. I have not heard of his
supposed intentions to visit Russia, at least not until you have
shown yourself in Europe for awhile. When will you come?
I have not received one single letter from Dr. Morton since my
return to England, and have been the more surprised at this,
because I look upon him as a worthy good man and as one
whom, since my last visit to him, I cannot but consider as my
friend.

The return of Dr. Townsend to our happy land has filled
me with joy, and trebly so when you tell me that he is as
friendly disposed to me as I ever have been towards him. I
congratulate you my dear friend, in the step which you have
so kindly taken in my favour, by first selecting all such Bird-
skins as you or Townsend have considered as new, and also in
having given freedom to Dr. Morton to pay Dr. Townsend
Fifty Dollars for the skins selected by you, under the prudent
considerations or restrictions talked of in your letter. May I
receive all the Bird skins very soon, for depend upon it, now
or never is for me the period to push on my publication. If
I have any regret to express it is, that Townsend or Dr. Morton
or yourself did not at once forward to me the whole of the Bird
skins brought latterly by Townsend, for I can assure you that
it has become a matter of the greatest niceity to distinguish the
slight though positive species lines of demarkation between our
species of Birds — and if on this reaching you, the least doubt
exists amongst yourselves respecting any one, why send it to
me at once by the very earliest conveyance. If by New York,
with letter to N. Berthoud to lose not a day, provided a packet,
either to Liverpool or London, is ready to sail ! Had Townsend
sent me the whole of his disposible birds, I might now have per-
haps been able to have mad[e] him a remittance in cash, which
the single arrival of the German Naturalists, who are now in
California may hereafter put an end to. Mention this to him,
nay, shew him this letter if you please and assure him that I am
willing to exert myself in his behalf. Indeed, I wish you to
urge him in forwarding me either his own manuscripts or a copy

172 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

of all such parts as appertain to Birds, as soon as possible,
knowing (I think) that he will not undertake to publish them
himself under his present (I am sorry to say) embarrassed
pecuniary circumstances. Tell him that I want all about the
habits of any Birds which he has written upon, especially,
however, those found from the beginning of his journeys until
his return, and appertaining to species belonging to our fauna
or otherwise. Their exact measurements, dates, localities,
migratories or vice versa inclinations, descriptions of nests,
eggs &c. periods of breeding; in a word all that he can, or will
be pleased to send me — and you may assure Townsend, that all
he will confide to me will be published as coming from him, al-
though I may think fit to alter the phraseology in some in-
stances. Tell him to be extremely careful in naming his new
species, and that [if] he thinks of difficulties in this matter, to
leave it to me, as here I am able to see all the late published
works (and they are not a few) and work out the species with
more advantage than any one can at present in Philadelphia.
Do not take this as egotism far from it, it is in friendship and
for his sake that I venture on undertaking such an arduous
task. I am exceedingly [anxious] to receive a letter from him
(for Nuttall, though an excellent friend of mine and a most
worthy man, will not answer me in time on this subject) of all
the birds contained in the plates now at the Academy of Natural
Sciences in Philada., which he saw on the Rocky Mountains,
over those mountains, on the Columbia River and off the coast
of our Western boundaries. This I want much, and if he would
simply dictate to you plate 1, not there, plate 2, there, plate 3
there &c. &c. this would amply answer my purpose, and this I
wish you not to neglect to forward me as soon as possible by
duplicate! Of course I cannot speak upon any one of the new
species of which you speak until I have examined them all. To
talk of new species in London is a matter not now understood
in any part of America, and sorry will you be as well as him-
self, when I assure you that out of the twelve supposed to be,
and published by Dr. Morton, from Townsend's first cargo, not
more than six are actually undescribed, although I have taken

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 173

upon myself the risk of publishing his names to the Birds on
my plate, but which of course I am obliged to correct in my
letter press. The little beautiful owl, I would venture to say
has been described by Vigors at least ten years ago, &c. &c.
Swainson never goes to bed without describing some new species,
and Charles Bonaparte, during his late visit to London, has
published as many as 20 of a night at the Museum of the Zoo-
logical Society Insects &c. &c. Stir, work hard, [be] prompt
in every thing. My work must soon be finished, and unless
all is received here by the month of May next, why I shall have
to abandon to others what I might myself have accomplished.
God bless you, many happy years. We are all well, thank
God, just now. Remember me and us kindly to all around and
every friend and believe me ever your most truly and sincerely
attached friend,

John J. Audubon.

To Edward Harris, Esqre.

Addressed, care "Messrs. Rathbone, Brothers & Co.
When you send to Liverpool. Liverpool."

If Townsend has brought Birds Eggs, ask him to send them
me. I will return all to him that he may want. I greatly
regret that you did not find me the water Birds of which you
speak, as I might have perchance found something new or
curious among them. The Golden Eye Duck especially, if any
be had ?

In reference to the new species of birds which had
come into his hands, Audubon said :

What was I to do? Why, to publish them, to be sure; for
this I should have done, to the best of my power, even if every
subscriber in Europe had refused to take them. What ! said I,
shall the last volume of the "Birds of America" be now closed,
at a time when new species are in my hands? No! And in
spite of threats from this quarter and that, that such and such
persons would discontinue their subscriptions (which indeed

174 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

they have done), and refuse to take the few numbers that would
have rendered their copies complete, my wish to do all that was
in my power has been accomplished.

Doubtless we should hesitate to blame many of Audu-
bon's subscribers for wishing to be relieved from an
obligation which for a period of ten years had cost them
from $50 to $100 per annum, not to speak of any who
had met financial disaster in the panic of that day, but
at this juncture he really had no choice. When his
eightieth Number, originally intended to be the last, ap-
peared in 1837, many important kinds of birds, includ-
ing ducks, swan, tern, and the Flamingo, as well as
grouse, warblers and woodpeckers, were still calling loud
for recognition. So generous of space had he been in the
earlier phase of his undertaking that twenty species were
each shown on two distinct plates, while in the end the
need of compression compelled him to introduce thirty-
five composite plates.

Subscribers to The Birds of America at the begin-
ning had been permitted to take a part or the whole, and
many incomplete sets were circulated, upwards of 120,
as Audubon declared in 1839, having then discontinued
their subscriptions. Towards the end of his undertak-
ing, owing to the great expense and uncertainty in-
volved, he was disinclined to supply any but regular
subscribers, as shown by the following letter written
from London, May 25, 1838, to William A. Colman
of New York: 4

. . . We find that six of the plates you want are not only
largest figs, but some of them extremely full and difficult to
colour, and he [Mr. Havell] says that our Printers and our
Colourers would not undertake to go throu them without charg-

4 From MS. in the Public Library, New York.

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 175

ing a most extravagant price. I have no extra plates whatever
on hand, and in consequence of this must be obliged to decline
furnishing you with them.

If at the conclusion of my publication I find any cf the
plates you want they will be sent to you forthwith, but I wish
you not to calculate upon this until you hear again from me,
or from my sons on this subject.

My work will [be] entirely finished by the end of next
month, when our engraving and Printing establishment will be
broken up, and few will indeed there be copies to be had by any
one, who has not subscribed to the "Birds of America."

Should you see any of my American subscribers who have
not as yet seen any portion of the work, please to assure them
that as soon as the fourth volume is quite finished, and bound
according to their desires, their copies will be forwarded at
once to their respective homes, or to whomsoever they have
directed me to send their copies.

On May 26 Audubon wrote Thomas M. Brewer that
"Edward Harris, one of the best men of this world,"
had reached his house "yesterday at noon, after a pleas-
ant passage of fourteen days and a few hours." "My
illustrations," he said, "will be finished on the 20th of
next month, and the fourth volume of text shortly after-
ward"; at the end he added: "When I return to our
beloved land, I intend to spend a full season about the
lakes in Northern Vermont, for, from what I hear, much
knowledge is to be acquired there and thereabouts."
After returning to New York in September of the
following year, he again alluded to the ramble he would
like to take "along the borders of the famous lakes
of New Hampshire and Vermont," but was unable to
bring it to pass at that time.

To depart but slightly from the chronological se-
quence, the last to be preserved of Audubon's letters to

176 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

William Swainson,5 written at a time when his great
work was drawing to a close, will be given at this point :

Audubon to William Swainson

London 11th Jan 1838
My dear Mr Swainson,

The severe indisposition of my good wife which has con-
tinued almost unabated now since I had the pleasure of seeing
you, is my excuse for not having ere this answered your two
notes, especially the last of the 8th instant. —

Your box & contents came perfectly safe to hand, and I
think will soon again be in your possession in like good order.
I certainly should like to see the Buteo [?] vulgaris to compare
it with mine (that at the mouth of the Columbia) and the one
described by Nuttall before the return from America of D. [Dr.
John] Richardson & of which it seems you were not aware. —
I am glad nevertheless that if differing from the European
bird of that name the Transatlantic bird will be honoured by
your own name.

Charles Bonaparte is at Paris & is to remain there. I am
well informed for about a fortnight. — He left London in great
haste and I assure you has left no parcels or letters for you
or anybody else either with us or with Havell. — I am sorry
that he should have disapointed you & your dear Children
but .

I cannot say just now whether I have a specimen of Mus-
cicapa Trailli "the Prince" having two of my giving, if how-
ever, I have another I will send it to you with great good will &
pleasure — As regards your queries respecting several species
of quiscalus or Crow black birds You are correct for I have
myself discovered two in America one in the Floridas the other
in the Arkansaw River, both of which will be given in my work.
— That more exist I have no doubt especially further South and
West.

You have described a swan in the Fauna Boriali Americana

6 The Linnaean Society's MSS. See Chapter XXIII, Note 13.

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 177

under the name of the Cygnus Bewicki, but as your measure-
ments there and then given are very far from those of the swan
now known under the name of Old Bewick I should feel obliged
to you to let me know whether the specimen you described from
was the identical bird procured by Captain Lyons, and of which
that gentleman described the nest? And again I should like
you to tell me whether you have seen the Clangula vulgaris
of Linn, that in the months of April & May?

Many thanks for all your kind wishes & may you and yours
enjoy the like return of many many new & happy years. — Call
upon us when you come to Town and believe me my dear Mr
Swainson ever sincerily

yours attached friend

John J. Audubon

I have had the jawache for nearly one week & have not been
out of the house

4 Wimpole Street

Audubon's day of greatest triumph came on June
20, 1838, when he had the supreme satisfaction of seeing
the last plate of his "Book of Nature," The Birds of
America, completed. Having been begun virtually in
the autumn of 1826, it was in press nearly twelve years.
The sumptuous character of this work, its commanding
beauty, as well as its surprising accuracy, considering all
the obstacles of time and circumstance, mark it, when
combined with its letterpress, as one of the most remark-
able and interesting undertakings in the history of litera-
ture and science in the nineteenth century. Unique
as it was in every detail of its workmanship, it will
remain for centuries a shining example of the triumph
of human endeavor and of the spirit and will of man.
This is true in spite of any errors it may disclose, and
even if it be conceded that bare bones and plain photo-
graphs are more valuable for elucidating the technicali-

178 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ties of science than the most artistic productions of the
pen, pencil or brush.

Audubon's labors in England, however, did not end
with the completion of his plates, for two volumes of
his "Biographies" still remained to be published. He was
in London during the early summer of 1838, when he
recorded a visit from John Bachman, who had come to
Europe for the recuperation of his health. He was then
obliged to hasten to Edinburgh, where he was soon
joined by both Bachman and Victor Audubon and
later by other members of his family. For the con-
venience of work he took rooms near the museums, on
the south side of the city, not far from Lauriston Place
and within easy reach of "The Meadows," a well known
recreation ground.

The following letter,6 sent to his son John soon after
his arrival at the Scottish capital, and addressed "No. 4
Wimpole Street, London," abounds in interesting per-
sonal details, but the student of birds would find more
significant its clear statement of his relations with Mac-
Gillivray ; it shows us the anatomist at work, and Audu-
bon as his student and "secretary." "Under his kind
tuition," he said, when writing at a little later time, "I
think I have learned something of anatomy, which may
enable me, at some future period, to produce observa-
tions that may prove interesting . . ."

Audubon to his Son, John

Edinburgh, July 1 st, 1838, Sunday.
My dearest friends

Your joint letter of the 27 th Wednesday, did not reach
me until yesterday afternoon, probably because the steamer

6 First published by R. W. Shufeldt (Bibl. No. 45), in The Auk, xi
(1894); see also Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No.
86).

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AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 179

which brought it did not leave London on that evening on a/c
of the coronation etc., Here the festivals were poor beyond
description, and although scarcely anything was to be seen, the
whole population was on foot the entire day, and nearly the
whole night, gazing at each other like lost sheep. — No illumina-
tions except at two shops, Mr. Henderson's and another close
by him. — The fireworks at the castle consisted merely of about
one hundred rockets, not a gun was fired from the batteries.
MacGillivray & I went to see the fireworks at 10 p.m, and soon
returned disgusted. — His museum (College of Surgeons) and
the Edinburgh Museum were thrown open gratis, and were
thronged to excess Upwards of 20000 in the first, and about
25000 in the other; all was however quite orderly. The day
was showery ; cloudy and dismal at times, but the evening was
clear and fine. — Mr. Hill's father died on the morning of the
27th and I have not seen Alexander H., since. Many thanks
to Maria for her bunch of letters, and the few lines of her own
to me, I hope that everything will go on well with you all.

We begin printing tomorrow 2d of July, 1838!! remember
that Mesdames et Messieurs ! and I intend to proceed with all
possible despatch and care. All the birds in rum will be in-
spected as far as internal or digestive organs, trachea &c are
concerned, and as I am constantly present in the dissecting
room, I think I shall know something about the matter anon. —
I am almost in hopes to see Victor tomorrow night but cannot
be sure. There are somewhere at home the nests of the birds
found on the Columbia by Nuttall and Townsend, I believe that
of Bewick's Wren is among them ; send them all, very carefully
packed. I want the journal of my first trip to the Floridas,
which was cut out of my large leather journal, previous to
going to Labrador, also a letter on the habits of the Yellow-
bellied Cuckoo, by a gentleman at Charleston. If it cannot be
found perhaps Maria will recollect his name, being a friend of
John Bachman, if so send me that, in full if possible. It is the
gentleman in whose garden I procured the small and large
cuckoos in the same nest. —

I have written fortyfour articles for my appendix and

180 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

will continue whenever I am not otherwise engaged, so as to
save time at last. — I am sorry for the death of poor Wickliffe
but glad that his brother was with him at New York previously,
and that we, at least, have done all that we could for him.
MacGillivray is quite well, and works very hard, poor fellow —
I am glad of John's repainting the head by VanDyke, two cop-
ies of such heads are valuable to him, besides his improving by
so working — When Victor has left for this place, John must
pay much attention to the colourers and call also at the book-
binder. Havell ought to exert himself in having some 4th vols ;
delivered as soon as possible.

My last letter which was written last Sunday, was put too
late in the office, which closed on that day at two o'clock, and
did not therefore leave this till four o'clock on Monday after-
noon ; this one will have a better chance, for I will take it myself
to the general office. I have seen no one hardly since my last,
I am indeed as busily engaged as ever, and rarely go to bed
before eleven — being with Mr. MacGillivray until generally
past ten, describing etc., I rise at four or earlier, he at ten;
but I go to bed at eleven, he at two. I discovered that he was
adverse to the examination of the intestinal canals etc., because
many of my birds which are common to both countries will be
published before his 2d vol., can now possibly be; but as soon
as I told him that I had already said in my introduction, that
the anatomical structure was declared to be his, he was much
pleased and began on the instant.

Today is very dismal, and it will rain probably until night ;
I wish we had here some of the warm weather of which dearest
Mamma speaks. I have had but one walk to Arthur's Seat, but
now and then I stroll to the meadows which are close to me, and
now look well. — From the window of my sitting room I overlook
the garden of Mr. Frazer our printer, and now and then speak
to him there, I have not yet however visited him. — I will recol-
lect the Queen's farthing when next I see Professor Wilson, but
doubt much if he will recollect the least idea of it. Has Charley
written or said anything to Victor about the review of the
work ; remember me to Healey. —

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 181

I suppose that the crown of England sits very quietly down,
and that all was very superfine. I have not so much as seen a
paper since I left you.

God bless you all, dearest friends, and take good care of
Mamma and Maria,

Ever your firmly attached father and friend

J. J. Audubon.
No. 7 Archibald Place,
Lauriston.

Audubon's fourth volume, the printing of which
was announced in this letter, was published in Novem-
ber, and at the conclusion of the introduction he said:

I believe the time to be fast approaching when much of the
results obtained from the inspection of the exterior alone will
be laid aside; when museums filled with the stuffed skins will
be considered insufficient to afford a knowledge of birds ; and
when the student will go forth not only to observe the habits
and haunts of animals, but to procure specimens of them to be
carefully dissected.

These prophetic remarks, which were no doubt inspired
by the studies of MacGillivray, have found ample justi-
fication in the later history of ornithology; to give a
single illustration, it was through the aid of anatomy
only, in this instance, of the vocal organs, that modern
students have been able to define the true Passerine or
Oscine birds, as distinguished from all others, and as
the highest representatives of the avian class.

In the autumn of 1838, when Mrs. Audubon was still
suffering from impaired health, the naturalist paused
in his work to indulge in a short vacation, the first in
many years. On September 14, he wrote to Edward
Harris, who was then in Scotland: 7

7 See S. N. Rhoads (Bibl. No. 46), loc. cit.

182 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon to Edward Harris

Edikburgh, 14 Sep'., 1838.
My Dear Friend:

Not having her.rd anything from you in answer to my last,
I suppose that you may yet be away from Glasgow, but as we
ourselves are going off tomorrow to the "Highlands," with a
view to be at Glasgow on Thursday next, I write to you now,
with the hope of meeting you then. Nothing of importance has
occurred here since my last, but the book has considerably
swollen in its progress towards completion.

We all unite in best wishes to you and I remain as ever
your most truly attached and sincere friend,

John J. Audubon
We intend being home again on Saturday next.

[Addressed] To Edward Harris Esqr.

Comrie's Royal Hotel,
Glasgow.

With MacGillivray as guide, Audubon and his fam-
ily visited Stirling, Doun and Callander, where they
"marched in a body to the Falls of Bracklin, guided by
a rosy-cheeked Highland lassie, stopping now and then
by the way to pick up a wild flower, — a blue-bell, a
'gowan,' or a dog-rose, or to listen to the magpies and
titmice." From Callander they ascended to Loch Kat-
rine, and explored the Trossachs, "admired by many,
chiefly or entirely on account of Scott's description of
them"; at the tavern there, said Audubon, "with that
most curious innate desire which there is in us of becom-
ing older, for the purpose of enjoying the morrow, I
went to rest, anxious to see the morn, and discover what
existed beyond the crags that had bounded my view."

From the wild and beautiful scenes about Loch
Katrine, which stirred the naturalist's emotions and

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 183

evoked the desire to remain until the curtain of night
had gradually and peacefully closed the landscape from
their view, they proceeded to the rocky shores of Loch
Lomond, where they found "a few small stone cabins,
some fat bairns, abundance of ale, and a sufficiency of
capital whisky." After crossing to Tarbet and exam-
ining both the head and the foot of the lake, they went
on from Balloch to Dumbarton by stage, and thence by
steamer to Glasgow; there they spent a few days, and
returned to Edinburgh by way of Dumbarton and La-
nark. Steamers and coaches, slow as they then were,
were all too fast for Audubon on this journey, and he
declared that if ever again he visited the Highlands,
it should be on foot, "for no man, with nerve and will,
and an admirer of the beauties of nature, can ever truly
enjoy the pleasures of travelling, unless he proceed in
this manner."

Mrs. Audubon's health had not improved by the
journey, for shortly after their return she was again
taken ill ; she was placed in the care of Dr. John Argyle
Robertson, for whose efficient aid and "kind and gentle
treatment," said Audubon, "we can never cease to cher-
ish the most lively feelings of affection." "It is a curious
part of my history," he continues, "that during the
whole of my sojourn in Britain, none of the principal
medical advisers whom we had occasion to employ would
receive any recompense from us."

By the 5th of November, 1838, but a few days after
the issue of the fourth volume of his "Biographies," the
printing of the fifth and last had already begun. The
following letter 8 is interesting for its personal details,
and in showing that his confidence in the existence of
the "bird of Washington"0 had not been shaken:

8 See ibid. "See Vol. I, p. 241.

184 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon to Edward Harris

Edinburgh December 19th., 1838.
My dear Friend :

Your letter of the 13 th. instant to Victor reached us this
morning, and glad were we all to hear from you.

My object in writing to you is, for the purpose of assuring
you that I feel great [pleasure] in preparing a box of bird
skins for you according to your desire. It is true, however,
that I am now on the eve of commencing my synoptical arrange-
ment of our birds, I shall not be able to show you as many of
my specimens [as] I could otherwise have done, but you must
take the will for the deed. The Box will be taken as far as
London by Victor, Avho will leave us on the first of January.
You will find in it a list of the contents, and I trust such bird
skins as may answer your purpose well. Besides these Victor
will also attend to your request as soon as in New York and
will ship to you by way of Havre as you direct.

I am glad that you should have seen what you conceive to
be the great rara avis F. Washingtonii. I am sorry you could
not have pocketed it, but who knows if it is not left yet in store
for you — and I to shoot a pair of these noble birds at The
West, and that, after having satisfactorily examined its habits,
its eggs, or its young! Bonaparte, between you and I, is ex-
ceedingly ignorant as regards our birds, as I found to my cost
when he was in London, and where he pumped me sadly too
much, but it is now over and I forgive him as I do all others who
have or who may try to injure me.

John Bachman wrote to me that he had left in commission
to Trudeau, the purchase for me of a copy of Vieillot's Oiseaux
de l'Amerique Septentrionale, and also a copy of Boie or Boje
work 10 on birds generally, but I have received neither books or

10 Voyage Autour du Monde, execute" par ordre de sa Majesty I'Em-
pereur Nicholas ler, sur la Corvette he Seniavme, 1S26-1S2U. Par Frederic
Lutke, Capitaine de vaisseau. Partie Historique, avec un atlas, lithographie,
d'apres les dessins originaux d'Alexandrie Postels et du Baron Kittlitz.
Traduit du Russe sur le manuscrit original, sur les yeux de l'auteur, par
Le Conseiller D'Etat F. Boye. Text in 3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1835-36. The
first two volumes are historical, and the third, entitled "Travels of the

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 185

promises of them from Trudeau as yet, perhaps you would
undertake the task yourself, and show to Havell as soon as
possible, for I shall be sadly in want of them in a few weeks
more. I should also like you to try to find Mr. Augustus
Thorndike of Boston, to whom Victor wrote a few days ago,
with the view to inquire from that Gentleman when he wished
his copy of the Birds of America to be delivered. Victor ad-
dressed his letter to "his Hotel" or to the care of the "American
Embassy." We are not sure, however, whether he is in Paris
at present, and let me know what discoveries you have made
as regards this. — Victor will remain ten days in London and
wishes you, should you write to him there, to put your letter
under cover to Havell and request him to keep it. Victor will
write you from thence,

I cannot account why Trudeau has not written to me in
answer to my last, now full two months old? Should you per-
chance discover a specimen of the Bird of Washington in Paris
and purchase the same, I should like you to send it to me on
loan to enable me to compare it with mine, and the Immature
of the F. Albicilla of Europe!

I have got twelve sheets of the 5 th. Vol. of Biographies
already printed, and I expect to have quite finished by the 1st.
of April next. I have decided on the Trichas resembling Sylvia
Philadelphia of Wilson. It is a distinct species, but what will
probably surprise you more, the S. Agilis of the same author is
also perfectly distinct from either. All this you will plainly see
when you read their separate descriptions and compare the
three species.

I wish you would ask Trudeau whether he recollects the
specimen of an Eagle send by Townsend in his first collection,
numbering 54 and which the latter has lost, though he con-
sidered it as a new species. It was procured in California.
Townsend speaks sorrowfully of the loss of this specimen. It
never came under my eye, did it come under yours? Ask Tru-

Naturalists," is translated by Alexandre Postels. The expedition traversed
the Behrinp; Sea, touched at some of the Aleutian Islands, and then ex-
plored South America as far as the coast of Chili.

186 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

deau whether he ever saw my Hirundo Serripennis in America.
Bachman wrote to me that Trudeau thought he had in the skins
of Frederick Ward. I think Trudeau will be pleased with the
anatomy of our birds, as it opens misteries hitherto unknown
in connection with the relative affinities of some species toward
others and assists in the formation of groups &c, in what some
day or other, will be called a Natural arrangement!

I wish I could have spent a few weeks in Paris with you
and Trudeau, as I readily imagine that some new species of
North American birds, may yet be found there unknown to the
World of Science. I have written to Mr. Chevalier and to
Townsend, but will not, I dare say, hear anything more of the
former until through Victor, who intends to see him very shortly
after his arrival in America.

My Dear Wife is much better than when you saw her, and
I hope that when once again she has been safely landed on our
shores and enjoyed the warmth of our own Summers, her health
will be quite restored.

The Little Lucy has grown as fat as butter, and the rest of
us are well.

We all unite in kindest best wishes to you and to Trudeau,
and I remain as ever, my Dear Friend,

Yours,

John J. Audubon.
6 Alva Street.

In May, 1839, Audubon's fifth and last volume of
the Ornithological Biography, consisting of 704 pages,
was issued. It was followed almost immediately by A
Synopsis of the Birds of North America, in which the
efficient aid of MacGillivray was again enlisted. On
May 4 Audubon wrote to Havell that this work was
in press and would be ready in about a month's time;
again, on the 30th of June he announced that it was
finished and in the hands of the binder. With this
methodical catalogue of the birds of North America

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 187

then known and described, to the number of 491, fifty-
two of which were new, Audubon's life and labors in
England were brought to a close.

The introduction to the last volume of his "Biog-
raphies" begins as follows:

How often, Good Reader, I have longed to see the day on
which my labours should be brought to an end ! Many times,
when I had laid myself down in the deepest recesses of the
western forests, have I been suddenly awakened by the appari-
tion of dismal prospects that have presented themselves to my
mind. Now, sickness, methought, had seized me with burning
hand, and hurried me away, in spite of all my fond wishes, from
those wild woods in which I had so long lingered, to increase
my knowledge of the objects which they offered to my view.
Poverty, too, at times walked hand in hand with me, and on
more than one occasion urged me to cast away my pencils,
destroy my drawings, abandon my journals, change my ideas,
and return to the world.

Later on he says: "You may well imagine how happy
I am at this moment, when - „ . I find my journeys all
finished, my anxieties vanished, my mission accom-
plished"; and he concludes: "I have pleasure in saying
that my enemies have been few, and my friends numer-
ous. May the God who granted me life, industry, and
perseverance to accomplish my task, forgive the former,
and forever bless the latter!"

Audubon's introductions to the five volumes of his
"Biographies," from which we have frequently quoted,
are characteristic ; in them he cheers his subscribers, calls
all his helpers and correspondents by name, and takes
the public into his confidence by recording the acts which
marked the steady progress of his work. Frequent ap-
peals to the "good" and "gentle reader" have gone out
of fashion, but in this instance they seem in keeping with

188 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the style and character of the man, and they were not
made in vain. Audubon's belief in his mission was so
plainly sincere, his power so manifest and his enthusiasm
so ardent, that there were few who did not gladly ac-
claim the extraordinary success of the man who twelve
years before had landed in Liverpool poor and unknown.
In the winter and spring of 1839, while Audubon
was engaged in Edinburgh and Victor was in America,
the settlement of his business affairs in London was
entrusted mainly to Robert Havell, his engraver. At
that time Havell was also pulling up roots, for he had
caught the spirit of his patron and had decided to emi-
grate with his family to the United States ; this involved
disposing of his stock and breaking up his engraving
and printing establishment at 77 Oxford Street. Havell
had acquired distinction as well as a competence through
his long engagement with Audubon, and being then in
his forty-sixth year, he doubtless looked to America
as a field for the fuller expression of his artistic aspira-
tions and talents. How anxious Audubon was at this
juncture regarding the disposition of the residual stock
of his plates, his drawings, and his books, then in Ha-
vell's hands, is seen by the following letter,11 written at
Edinburgh, in the winter of this year.

Audubon to Robert Havell

Edinburgh, Feb. 20th, Monday, 1839.
My dear Mr. Havell

I perceive by the date of your letter of the 16th instant
that you must have been some days beyond my expectations,

"First published by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 225), in The Auk,
vol. xxv (1908). Mr. Deane writes me that he has a copy of a receipt from
William MacGillivray to Audubon for the final amount due him for work
on the technical parts of Volume V of the Ornithological Biography; a*, the
bottom of this paper Audubon made a memorandum, under date of Novem-
ber 21, 1838, to the effect that the total amount which he had paid MacGil-
livray for his work upon this volume was £47-11-1.

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 189

in the receiving of my parcel to you, and that on that account
my letter of Saturday last crossed yours of the same date. I
thank you for what you say as regards the balance in my favor
at Wright and Co.

Does Henry sail from London Docks or from Portsmouth?
and pray what is the name of the Captain of the "Wellington" ?
I do not precisely understand what you mean by the loose sets
which you desire to know how they should be packed? let me
hear what they are and how many of them by return of mail.
The -five perfect sets I think might all go into one case, tinned
as usual and insured of course to the full amount of their value,
as well as all others and to which I pray you to attend as if
for your own self. It is impossible for me to go to London at
present and indeed I cannot exactly tell when I will, and I trust
to you entirely for the seeing that all the volumes are fair and
good and passed through your own inspection of them before
they are packed. No volumes of Biographies must be put in
the same boxes.

When you have disposed of your business, what will you do
with what you have on hand belonging to us? This requires
an answer from you at once. You have a great number of
volumes of Biographies, Pictures, &c. &c, a regular list of
which you ought to send me. I cannot yet say when the 5th
vol. of Biographies will be finished, but will let you know as
soon as I can. I received yesterday morning a letter from a
gentleman who has procured a copy of the work through Mr.
Eame the bookseller, he says that he has called upon you to say
that he is missing one plate and begs to have a copy of the
plate struck and remitted to Mr. Eame who will pay you what-
ever price the extra trouble on this account may amount to, but
he does not say what plate it is, and I therefor suppose that
you do? If so as he is the brother-in-law of Mr. Walker of
Ravensfield Park, one of our good subscribers I would say do
it for him! My wife begs of you to save all the loose prints
which were returned to you by our son Victor, as well as any
others whatever, perhaps among them you might find one to
send Mr. Eame's subscriber?

190 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

On the 4th of this month the 'Great Western' was nearly
half way across the Atlantic ! ! Sir William Jardine has pub-
lished a capital review of the work ! What a strange world we
do learn in ! Be sure to let me know about the original draw-
ings at Henry's, if he has finished them, where they are &c. &c.
We all remain as usual with kind good wishes to you all,

Your friend

John J. Audubon.

6 Alva St.
[Superscribed]

Robert Havell Esq.
Engraver.

77 Oxford st
London.

How fully Audubon's injunctions in regard to his
residual stock, and particularly to scattered plates of
the Birds, were followed, is not known, but it is certain
that a part of this residuum remained in England, where
it is occasionally turned up even at the present day. In
a considerable number of the original plates which were
found in a bookshop in New Oxford Street in August,
1912, twelve were in the uncolored state, and several
had the appearance of rejects; moreover, in a collection
of these plates received from England in 1910, there
were nine copies of the same subject, the Painted Bunt-
ing (No. 11, Plate 53). Though a complete set of the
plain plates is known,12 and a considerable number were
probably dispersed in America, they are very rare.

Audubon wrote to Havell again on the 13th of
March, when he complained of the gross mistakes made

12 See Note 5, Vol. II, p. 7. Mr. John Hardin (see Vol. II, p. 995)
showed me an uncolored print of the Hen Turkey which John W. Auduhon
had given him, and a correspondent in New Orleans informs me that a rel-
ative possesses a numher in this condition, which were received many years
ago as a gift from Mrs. Auduhon. Mr. Charles E. Goodspeed, of Boston,
was the recipient of the Painted Bunting plates, noticed above.

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 191

by the "idle rascals" who were employed in filling orders
in his shop, and who had so sadly mixed matters that
no less than twelve numbers of his Birds had come back
to him, some of them containing one, three, and five
copies of the same plate, instead of a "Number," and
mixtures of the most incongruous sort; he thought that
"a clever young man as a clerk was worth a hundred
thick heads," and begged Havell again to send him "a
correct list of what he shipped to America on his ac-
count, and that list not made by any other person than
either himself or Mrs. Havell." His next injunction,
on May 4, was to insure his copper-plates of The Birds
of America for £5,000, and to send them to either Vic-
tor Audubon or Mr. N. Berthoud, Number 2 Hanover
Street, New York. At that moment Audubon was
planning to return to America with his family by the
Great Western on July 6. In writing again on June
30, he remarked that he was not at all certain that Ha-
vell, who was then visiting at his native Reading, in
Berkshire, would really sail on the 25th of July, since
he had already postponed the journey so many times;
he added that it would not even surprise him if his work
on the Quadrupeds of America might not be out before
they could fish and shoot together in his "native land."
Havell eventually came to America with his wife
and daughter on the ship Wellington, in September,
1839; they landed at New York after the 15th of that
month, and for a time were the guests of the Audubons
at Number 86 White Street. His brother, Henry,13
who visited the United States in 1829, returned at
about this time and established a print shop in Broad-
way, New York, but according to Robert's biographer,

13 Henry Augustus Havell (1803-1840), painter, engraver, and at one
time assistant to his elder brother, Robert Havell, Junior.

192 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

his enterprise was ruined by a fire, when he went back
to England and he died there about 1840. After a brief
residence in Brooklyn, Robert Havell settled at Sing
Sing, now Ossining, at a beautiful spot on the Hudson,
overlooking the Palisades, which he named "Rocky
Mount." There he devoted himself with characteristic
energy to painting and sketching, but he also engraved
and published a number of excellent views of his favorite
river, the Hudson, as well as of New York and other
American cities. In 1857 he established himself at
Tarry town, where he built a house and studio, and where
in his later years he produced many meritorious works
in oils. "He never tired," says his biographer, "of the
great, broad, sweeping Hudson, and propped up in bed,
that he might gaze at will on this mighty river," he died
at the age of eighty-five, November 11, 1878.14

Havell has been described as quite the opposite of
Audubon in many of his characteristics, calm, deliberate,
not easily discouraged, and fully his equal in industry,
perseverance and determination. Audubon sometimes
complained of his friend's lax business habits, but their
long sustained and cordial relations were never broken
during life, and their mutual debt was great. The en-
graver's first son, who lived but a year, was named
Robert Audubon, and the naturalist, who was his god-
father, held the child at its baptism at old St. James
Church, Oxford Street, in 1827. A descendant of Luke
Havell, who was a drawing master at Reading, uncle of
Robert the second, possesses a silver loving-cup which
Audubon presented to his engraver upon the completion
of the second volume of his illustrations ; it is inscribed
"To Robert Havell, from his friend J. J. A. 1834."

"George Alfred Williams (Bibl. No. 233), Print-Collectors Quarterly,
vol. vi, p. -225 (1916).

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 193

When we consider the size of Audubon's plates,
which required for the portrayal of his largest subjects,
such as the Whooping Crane or Wild Turkey, an area
of no less than five square feet, it will be seen that his
engraver was compelled to adopt the most expeditious
methods. This and kindred difficulties were overcome
by Havell's skillful union of aquatint with etching and
line engraving, but some of his smaller figures, as the
Snow Birds (Plate 13), appear to have been etched
in the usual way, with but slight use of either aquatint,
dry-point or burin. In aquatinting the plate was usual-
ly bitten to the desired depth for the softer shading of
feathers or foliage, or for the entire expression of sky,
water or landscape. Says George Alfred Williams : 15

Aquatint proper consists entirely of gradations of tone
produced by biting with aquafortis into the copper through a
resinous ground broken into a multitude of fine granules, that
render the personal touch practically negligible, and in con-
sideration of this we can appreciate the exceptionally skillful
use Havell, Junior, made of the difficult process. The graining
of the aquatint grounds is produced by allowing fine dust par-
ticles to settle upon the freshly prepared plate. It is to these
grainings of different degrees of fineness that the engraver must
look for the subtlety of the tonal surfaces, but strength is
obtained usually through the use of the etched line. The chief
limitation of the aquatint process lies in the great difficulty of
getting more than a few differences of shade, as the ground
goes to pieces rather rapidly under successive bitings, and the
transitions from one tone to another are very few, so that half
tones are not readily obtainable. It is in the economical use
of these half tones that Havell, Junior, achieved so much and
thereby produced a chiaroscuro seldom, if ever, equaled in
aquatint.

16 hoc. clt.

194 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Artists have sometimes frowned upon this combina-
tion of aquatint with other forms of engraving, especial-
ly when executed with the burin, for "like the perma-
nent misery of a quarrelling married couple, they may
ruin everything with discord"; but any such lack of har-
mony, when not overcome by Havell's skill, was usu-
ally completely subdued by the color which was subse-
quently applied to the printed sheet. This is seen by
a comparison of the plain proof of such an elaborate
plate as that of the rattlesnake attacking the mocking
birds (Plate xxi) with the result attained in the finished
impression. In replying to a criticism of Havell's work
in 1830, Audubon expressed his conviction that "no birds
were ever so beautifully and softly represented on cop-
per," and any hardness, which his plates rarely showed,
was not due to aquatinting, the inherent quality of which
is softness. To quote our authority again:

In Havell's hands aquatint gave the essential structure of
forms by a judicious use of the process called "feathering."
This he often did upon the bare copper plate without a ground,
allowing the acid to bite its own granular surface. In this
way he produced the soft gradations and telling accents so
necessary to the portrayal of birds, but by a further judicious
use of line the accurate forms of both bird and plant life were
given with great force and delicacy.

When Audubon first proposed to present the Congres-
sional Library at Washington with a copy of his Birds,
he asked Havell to do all the coloring himself; Havell

colored his prints in the usual manner by flowing washes of
pure water-color tints over the monochrome proof which was
printed from the copper plate. In this phase of the process
the great charm of his genuine talent for water-color painting

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 195

asserted itself. Aside from the first crude washes, put on by
artists or colorists employed for the purpose, he himself ap-
plied the salient tones and all the more delicate tints.

Much misunderstanding has arisen in regard to the
engraving and publication of Audubon's earlier plates
owing to the complex relations which existed between
Lizars, the two Havells of the same name, and the nat-
uralist himself ; this involved the reissue of the first two
numbers of the work, and a confusing series of legends
upon the plates themselves, occasioned partly by a divi-
sion of labor between father and son, and by the death
of Robert Havell, Senior, in 1832. The errors into
which some commentators have fallen, however, are due
to their examination of but one set of plates. The
account which follows is based upon a collation of com-
plete copies at the British Museum, the Radcliffe Li-
brary, Oxford, the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and the
Boston Society of Natural History, and of numerous
scattered plates. Lizars engraved the first ten plates
only of the large folio, but before the summer of 1827
a considerable number of these early impressions had
been distributed. The Havells, as we have seen, started
the work anew, and Robert, the younger, retouched the
greater part of Lizars' plates, so that their reissue in
London constitutes for the bibliophile a second, and in
some cases a third, edition. Moreover, the plates which
were eventually executed by the younger Havell, to the
number of 425, were repeatedly printed from to meet
the requirements of new subscribers; on such occasions
errors were corrected, minor changes in the artist's or
engraver's name introduced, and the nomenclature of
the birds and plants more or less completely revised.
Frequently the Whatman water-marks, or, indirectly,

196 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon's titles, postdate the year of publication as
printed on the plate itself. Conflicting legends, par-
ticularly on the earlier plates, which have often puzzled
collectors, are mainly due to one or another of the con-
ditions named. Nearly every plate underwent altera-
tions of some sort, but the various legends show con-
clusively whether the print belongs to a first or a subse-
quent impression. In the British Museum copy, the
younger Havell's first independent legend appears on
Plate lxxvi (Virginia Partridge), as "Engraved,
Printed, & Coloured by R. Havell Junr. 1830." The
word "London" was later added, but was eventually dis-
carded. After the senior Havell's death in 1832, the son
naturally dropped the suffix from his own name; there-
after his brief designation of name and date became
gradually stereotyped. It should be noticed, however,
that when Robert Havell needed to reprint from plates
which were executed before his father's death, he would
frequently remove only the "Junior," and let the orig-
inal date stand, so that legends like the following are
not uncommon: "Engraved, Printed, & Coloured by
R. Havell, London — 1831"; to avoid the lacuna,

designation of place and date were, at times, erased also.
The naturalist's name underwent a different evolution
on the plates, but after 1830, the date of his election to
membership in the Royal Society, his designation gradu-
ally settled into the phrase : "Drawn from nature by J. J.
Audubon, F. L. S. F. R. S." (as in Plate lxxxi, 1830) ;
accordingly, all plates which bear these titles, but an
earlier date, are second or later editions. The previous
hints, with examples to be given presently, will enable
collectors to determine whether a given plate is a first
or subsequent impression.

Lizars' first edition of plates, Numbers i to x, bore

<

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 197

no dates, and, so far as known, the first date of the
entire series was "1828," which was added to Plate 31
(the White-headed Eagle), but was erased from later
issues. When Robert Havell, Junior, retouched Lizar's
engraving of the Turkey Hen (No. II, Plate vi), he
added the date "1829," but in a third or later edition the
name was changed and the date removed. This same
date appears also on the retouched Plate ii, of the Yel-
low-billed Cuckoo, and on that of the Purple Grackle
or Crow Blackbird (Plate vii). A curious error crept
into the first impressions of the former plate, which
was mislabeled "Black-billed Cuckoo," a bird then rec-
ognized as quite distinct.16 Plates xxxi to lxxv (1828-
29) were all dated in the first issue, and bore the names
of both Havells; the legends are: "Engraved, Printed &
Coloured by R. Havell & Son, London, 1828," and "En-
graved by Rob*. Havell, Junr. Printed & Coloured by
R. Havell Senr. London, 1828," or "1829" (British
Museum copy), but when later printed by Robert, the
younger, the dates were erased. All subsequent dating
of the plates was somewhat irregular until 1834 (Plate
ccii), but from that point to the end of the series, the
year of issue was consistently added to each plate. Or-
nithologists are specially interested in the time of publi-
cation, since forty-seven new specific names occur on
Audubon's large plates, and should date from them
and not from the letterpress which followed.

To illustrate what has been said of successive edi-
tions of Audubon's plates, we shall give the legends of
two or three of the most famous, taken from copies in

10 In 1914 Dr. Samuel Henshaw showed me an impression of this sup-
pressed plate, and also a large printed label, cut from a board backing,
which bore within an ornamental border the title "Audubon's Birds of
America — Engraved, printed, and colored by Lizars &c. &c." This sug-
gests that Lizars may have issued the first two numbers, which he en-
graved, in portfolio.

198 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the British Museum and Boston Society of Natural His-
tory libraries or from detached plates obtained in Lon-
don, in 1903:

Plate i (1st edit., Lizars ; Brit. Mus.). — "Great American Cock
Male- Vulgo (Wild Turkey) Meleagris Gallopavo. Drawn
by J. J. Audubon, M. W. S. Engraved by W. H. Lizars
Edinr."

Plate i (2nd or later edit., Havell; Boston Soc. Nat. Hist.). —
"Wild Turkey. Meleagris Gallopavo. Linn. Male Ameri-
can Cane. Miegia macrosperma. Drawn from nature by
J. J. Audubon F, R, S. F, L, S. Engraved by W. H.
Lizars Edin1*. Retouched by R. Havell Junr."

Plate vi (1st edit., Lizars; Brit. Mus.). — "Great American
Hen & Young, Vulgo, Female Wild Turkey — Meleagris
Gallopavo. Drawn from Nature by John J. Audubon
F.R.S.E. M.W.S. Engraved by W. H. Lizars Edinr."

Plate vi (2nd or later edit., Havell; detached plate). — The
same with the exception of "F.L.S.," added to Audubon's
name, and "Retouched by R. Havell. Junr. London,
1829."

Plate vi (3rd or later edit., Havell; Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist.). —
"Wild Turkey, Meleagris Gallopavo. Linn Female and
Young." (Artist's name apparently cut off by binder.)
"Engraved by W. H. Lizars. Retouched by R. Havell.
Junr."

Plate 31. (1st edit., Havell. Brit. Mus.).— "White-headed
Eagle, male. Falco Leucocephalus. Fish Vulgo — Yellow
mud Cat. Drawn from Nature & Published by John J.
Audubon, F.R.S.E., F.L.S., M.W.S. Engraved, Printed
& Coloured by R. Havell & Son, London, 1828."

Plate xxxi (2nd or later edit., Havell; Bost. Soc. Nat. Hist).
— "White-headed Eagle, Falco Leucocephalus. Linn, Male.
Yellow Cat-fish. Drawn from Nature and Published by
John J. Audubon. F,R,S. F,L,S. Engraved, Printed &
Coloured, by R. Havell."

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 199

Plates which were wholly the work of Lizars have
naturally become extremely rare; they were evidently
disregarded by Audubon when he recorded on July 2,
1827, that he had given Mr. Children a proof of his
first number, which he called "the first in existence,"
and declared that the two guineas then received was the
first money that had been returned to his hands. Lizars'
initial number had actually been finished in the previous
winter, and a copy of this is recorded as having been
given to the daughter of Sir Walter Scott on the 9th
of March, 1827-

When Audubon had finally closed all his business
affairs in Edinburgh and London, late in the summer
of 1839, he returned to America, with the remaining
members of his family, and settled in New York, where
he purchased a house at Number 84 White Street, then
in the uptown district.

An anonymous writer in the London Ailienceum 17
in giving a final review of Audubon's labors in 1839,
paid this interesting tribute:

It seems but as yesterday that we were walking about with
a transatlantic stranger, picturesque enough in his appearance
and garb, to arrest the eye of every passing gazer; a tall
stalwart man, with hair sufficiently long to qualify him to serve
as a model to Gray's "Bard," and trousers ample almost as
petticoats of "good Harmony cloth," so absorbed in the en-
thusiastic prosecution of his gigantic plan — a life's labour —
as to be heedless of the singularity of those meteoric locks, and
those liberal nether garments. Some dozen of years, however,
have elapsed since that day ; the American Woodsman's hair-
long since cut short — has grown white; his magnificent under-
taking is completed, and he is now on the point of quitting
England, to settle himself for the remainder of his days whether

17 See Bibliography, No. 142.

200 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

by the side of a bayou, in some forest clearing, or as an in-
habitant of one of the American cities which have learned to
know his value, report saith not.

We shake hands with the author, tendering him our hearty
congratulations on the completion of a task almost as arduous
as has ever been proposed to a literary man. . . .

The confidential simplicity of Mr. Audubon's own prefaces
would make yet more personal leave-takings and farewells, on
the critic's part, natural and graceful, — but it must suffice to
say, that few have quitted England, carrying with them a larger
portion of honest regard and sincere good wishes.

Possibly it was the same writer who gave this strik-
ing picture of Audubon in the pages of the same jour-
nal, thirty years later: 18

We can remember when his portfolio excited delight in
Edinburgh, London, and Paris, rivalling in smaller circles a
new Waverley novel. The man also was not a man to be seen
and forgotten, or passed on the pavement without glances of
surprise and scrutiny. The tall and somewhat stooping form,
the clothes not made by a West-end but by a Far West tailor,
the steady, rapid, springing step, the long hair, the aquiline
features, and the glowing angry eyes, — the expression of a
handsome man conscious of ceasing to be young, and an air and
manner which told you that whoever you might be he was John
Audubon, will never be forgotten by anyone who knew or saw
him.

We will add to this the musings of an anonymous
American writer19 in the North American Review for
the following year (1840) :

It must have been with mingled and varied feelings that
Audubon published his concluding volume. He was sure then

18 See Bibliography, No. 152.

19 W. B, O. Peabody; see Bibliography, No. 143.

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 201

that he had raised an imperishable monument to commemorate
his own renown. All anxieties and fears which overshadowed
his work in its beginning had passed away. The prophecies of
kind but overprudent friends, who did not understand his self-
sustaining energy, had proved untrue; the malicious hope of
his enemies, for even the gentle lover of nature has enemies, —
had been disappointed ; he had secured a commanding place
in the respect and gratitude of men ; he had secured a treasure
of rich and glowing recollections, to warm his own heart in his
declining years, and to kindle enthusiasm in his children's chil-
dren. . . .

On the other hand he had lost an employment which for
years had kept all the powers of body and mind in healthy
though intense exertion ; whatever else he might do, the great
work of his intellectual life was finished. . . . His trumpet of
victory at the result must have given an uncertain sound,
partly exulting in his success, and partly lamenting that his
great work was finished.

It has often been asked, how many complete sets
of Audubon's folio of The Birds of America were dis-
tributed, and how many are in existence today. No
definite answer can be given to either question. His
final lists, appended to the last volume of his "Biog-
raphies" in 1839, and reproduced in Appendix III to
the present work, gave the number of standing names
as 161 (calling for 166 copies), of which 79 (with 84
copies) pertained to Europe, and 82 were American;
inasmuch as 118 subscribers had dropped off, with in-
completed sets on their hands, this brought the total
number of original patrons at that time to 279, and the
number of copies which had been originally ordered to
284. On the other hand, the following advertisement,
evidently from the hand of Audubon himself, appeared
in The Athenceum, under date of "London, November

202 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

1, 1837," and was reprinted in America a few weeks
later:20

The number of perfect copies at present subscribed for does
not exceed 190, of which upwards of 80 are subscribed for in
America ; and the expense of getting them up is so great, that
not more than ten or fifteen copies, above the number sub-
scribed for, will be prepared.

The Establishment necessary for its publication will be
broken up when the last Number is coloured ; and any applica-
cation for the Work must be made to the Author, 4, Wimpole
— street, London ; or Mr. R. Havell, Engraver, 77 Oxford —
street, before the first of May next, as after that time no sub-
scription can be received.

Assuming that Audubon's final published lists, call-
ing for 166 copies, were correct, and that ten additional
sets were prepared, this would bring the total original
number known to have been complete to 176, which
agrees with an estimate attributed to Victor Audubon,
who once expressed the belief that "about 175 copies"
were in existence, of which about 80 were in America.21
It is probable, however, that of the 118 persons who
allowed their subscriptions to lapse, a number completed
their sets from the residual stock, which must have been
great, though the later plates would be the hardest to
obtain; in this event the number of perfect sets of Au-
dubon's Birds probably never exceeded 190 or 200.

20 See Samuel N. Rhoads (Bibl. No. 231) The Auk, vol. xxxiii, p. 130
(1916); transcript of a clipping which apparently had been taken from
a New York newspaper of January, 1838; the reading of the American
notice is the same, excepting the statement that applications in this
country should be made to "N. Berthoud, Esq., New York; Dr. George
Parkman, Boston; Rev. Jno. Bachman, Charleston, S. C; James Grimshaw,
Esq., New Orleans, or W. G. Bakewell, Esq., Louisville." It is dated "New
York, 11 Jan, 1838."

"Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
p. 71.

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 203

The proprietor of a well known Philadelphia book-
shop 22 has stated that during his experience as an anti-
quary, he has had personal knowledge of forty or fifty
copies of the folio edition of Audubon's Birds in Amer-
ica, and he thought it probable that a single New Eng-
land print dealer, in the course of twenty years, had
broken up thirty or forty volumes for the purpose of
selling the plates. This is not surprising, since from
the sale of a single volume upwards of $1,500 might be
realized in this way, but no reputable dealer would now
think of breaking up an unimpaired set.

Mr. Ruthven Deane, who has compiled a careful rec-
ord of copies of The Birds of America known to exist
in the United States, recorded in 1908 that he had ascer-
tained the resting-place of seventy-five sets which, with
few exceptions, were complete and in good condition.
"A set in the library of the Mechanics-Mercantile Insti-
tute, San Francisco, California, which had been there
for some thirty years, and another set in the San Fran-
cisco Art Association, presented in 1894 by Mr. Edward
F. Searles, Methuen, Massachusetts, were both de-
stroyed by the disastrous earthquake and fire which vis-
ited that city April 18, 1906." 23

Audubon's own copy of his Birds, the plates of which
were naturally selected with the greatest care, was sold by
Mrs. Audubon after the death of her last surviving son,
in 1862, to John T. Johnson, of New York, for $1,200;
the subsequent history of these volumes has not been
traced. Havell brought with him to America a copy,
every plate of which is said to have been selected by
himself, and it is undoubtedly one of the finest sets in
existence. It passed from the family's possession to the

22 See Rhoads (Bibl. No. 231), loc. cit.

23 Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 225), The Auk, vol. xxv, p. 401 (1908).

204 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

hands of the publishers and booksellers, Messrs. C. S.
Francis & Company, of 554 Broadway, New York, who
in 1856 had charge of the sale of all of Audubon's
works,24 and was later purchased by Dr. W. Gurdon
Russell, of Hartford, Connecticut, who presented it to
Trinity College, July 10, 1900.25

After recording the facts of the case, so far as they
have been ascertained, the following extract from the
minutes of a meeting of the New York Historical So-
ciety, held October 3, 1865, will be read with interest: 26

The Librarian presented the following copy of a manu-
script memorandum preserved in the first volume of Audu-
bon's Ornithological Biography, formerly belonging to the late
J. Prescott Hall,27 and now in possession of David G. Francis,
Esq. :

24 Eight in number, the aggregate cost of which was then $1,624: The
Birds of America, with its letterpress, was offered at $1,000; library, or
octavo edition, with reduced plates, in 100 Parts, at $100; The Quadrupeds
of North America, 2 vols., folio, with 3 vols, text, in 8vo., $300; text of the
same, according to binding, from $31 (paper) to $40 (full Turkey mor.) ;
Birds and Quadrupeds, library ed., 10 vols., 650 plates, $150 to $160, accord-
ing to style; Synopsis of Birds of America, $4; The Viviparous Quadrupeds
of North America, 3 vols., text only, $9. See Mrs. Horace St. John,
Life of Audubon (Bibl. No. 71), in advertisement inserted in volume.
These prices were similar to those that prevailed during the lifetime of
the naturalist.

According to Mr. Ruthven Deane, Audubon's account books show
that on January 8, 1840, a box was sent to Dr. George Parkman, of Boston,
containing a set of The Birds of America, in full binding, at $1,075; a
set of the same, half bound, at $950; and the "Biographies" at $37.

The highest recorded price of The Birds of America is believed to be
$4,350, which the Kemble set brought at auction at Philadelphia, in 1906
(See Prices Current for 1906); the highest price paid for a single plate,
that of the Turkey Cock (Plate No. 1) upwards of $140; and the highest
price asked for the octavo edition of the Birds (in original parts), $750.
The Quadrupeds in 2 vols., original folio, now brings about $500.

25 Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 225), loc. cit.

26 For a copy of this minute, the substance of which was published
in 1877 (See Bibliography, No. 179), I am indebted to the present
librarian, Mr. Kelby.

"Jonathan Prescott Hall (1796-1862), eminent lawyer and jurist, was
at one time district attorney for the southern district of New York, and
author of Reports of Cases in the Supreme Court of City of New York —

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 205

"This work is presented to J. Prescott Hall by his
poor Friend and sincerely attached servant

John J. Audubon"
"New York April 4, 1844."

"Mr Audubon told me in the year 184 — that he did
not sell more than 40 copies of his great work in England,
Ireland, Scotland, and France, of which Louis Phillippe
took 10.

"The following received their copies but never paid
for them: George IV., Dutchess of Clarence, Marquis of
Londonderry, Princess of Hesse Homburg.

"An Irish lord whose name he would not give, took
two copies and paid for neither. Rothschild paid for his
copy, but with great reluctance.

"He further said that he sold 75 copies in America, 26
in New York and 24 in Boston ; that the work cost him
£27,000 and that he lost $25,000 by it.

"He said that Louis Phillippe off erred to subscribe for
100 copies if he would publish the work in Paris. This
he found could not be done, as it would have required 40
years to finish it as things were then in Paris. Of this
conversation I made a memorandum at the time which I
read over to Mr. Audubon and he pronounced it correct.

"J. Prescott Hall."

As regards the subscription of Rothschild the follow-
ing account of his interview with the famous banker has
been recorded by Audubon himself.2S The naturalist, it
appears, received a letter to Baron Rothschild from the
American banking-house of Prime, Ward & King, and
presented it in the summer of 1834. The banker was

1828-29 (2 vols., New York, 1831-33). Mr. Hall was a subscriber to the
octavo editions of Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds.

2S According to Lucy B. Audubon, ed., The Life of John James Audu-
bon (Bibl. No. 73), from which we have drawn numerous extracts from
his journals; see p. 381, under date of May 12, 1834.

206 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

not in when Audubon and his son, Victor, called upon
him, but "soon a corpulent man appeared, hitching up
his trousers, and a face red with the exertion of walk-
ing, and without noticing any one present, dropped his
fat body into a comfortable chair, as if caring for no one
else in this wide world but himself." When Audubon
presented his credentials, the banker asked: "Is this a
letter of business, or is it a mere letter of introduction V
As Audubon had not read the letter, he was obliged to
answer rather awkwardly that he could not tell. "The
banker then opened the letter, read it with the manner
of one who was looking only at the temporal side of
things, and after reading it said, 'This is only a letter of
introduction, and I expect from its contents that you are
the publisher of some book or other and need my sub-
scription.' " Audubon continues:

Had a man the size of a mountain spoken to me in that
arrogant style in America I should have indignantly resented
it ; but where I then was it seemed best to swallow and digest
it as well as I could. So in reply ... I said I should be
honored by his subscription to the "Birds of America." "Sir,"
he said, "I never sign my name to any subscription list, but
you may send in your work and I will pay for a copy of it.
Gentlemen, I am busy, I wish you good morning." We were
busy men, too, and so bowing respectfully, we retired, pretty
well satisfied with the small slice of his opulence which our
labor was likely to obtain.

A few days afterwards I sent the first volume of my work
half bound, and all the numbers besides, then published. On
seeing them we were told that he ordered the bearer to take
them to his house, which was done directly. Number after
number was sent and delivered to the Baron, and after eight
or ten months my son made out his account and sent it by
Mr. Havell, my engraver, to his banking-house. The Baron
looked at it with amazement, and cried out, "What, a hundred

AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 207

pounds for birds ! Why, sir, I will give you five pounds, and
not a farthing more!" Representations were made to him of
the magnificence and expense of the work, and how pleased his
Baroness and wealthy children would be to have a copy; but
the great financier was unrelenting. The copy of the work
was actually sent back to Mr. HavelPs shop, and as I found
that instituting legal proceedings against him would cost more
than it would come to, I kept the work, and afterwards sold
it to a man with less money but a nobler heart, What a dis-
tance there is between two such men as Baron Rothschild of
London and the merchant of Savannah!

CHAPTER XXXIII

NEW ENTERPRISES AND LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND"

Settlement in New York — The Birds in miniature, and work on the
Quadrupeds — Marriage of Victor Audubon — Cooperation of Baehman
in the Quadrupeds secured — Prospectuses — History of the octavo edi-
tion of the Birds — Baird's enthusiasm and efficient aid — Parkman's
wren — Baird's visit to Audubon in New York — "Look out for Martens !"
and wildcats — New home on the Hudson — Godwin's pilgrimage to
"Minnie's Land" in 1842.

After thirteen years of unmitigated labor, Audubon
could have basked in a fame already secure, and could
have enjoyed, for a time at least, a leisure handsomely
earned. But no sooner had he settled in New York
than he entered upon two formidable tasks: one of
these was the complete revision of his Birds of America,
to be issued with its text in "miniature," as its reduced
form was sometimes described; the other, which he did
not live to see brought to completion, was an elaborate
work on the Quadrupeds of North America, eventually
carried forward in collaboration with the Reverend John
Baehman.

In his confident and characteristic manner, Audubon
at once issued a "Prospectus" of both these undertak-
ings. The more cautious Baehman, in writing on Sep-
tember 13, 1839, to congratulate him upon their safe
return, "in spite of storms, calms, and hurricane," said:

I am glad that you are about to do something with regard
to the "Small Edition of Birds." But are you not too fast in
issuing your prospectus of The Birds and Quadrupeds, with-

208

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 209

out having numbers of both works, by which the public can
judge of their merits? My idea, in regard to the latter, is
that you should carefully get up, in your best style, a volume
about the size of "Holbrook's Reptiles." This would enable
you to decide on the terms of the book, I think that two thou-
sand subscribers at $1.00 for each number, might be obtained.
But it must be no half-way affair.

The animals have never been carefully described, and you
will find difficulties at every step. Books cannot aid you much.
Long journeys will have to be undertaken. Several species re-
main to be added and their habits ascertained. The drawings
you can easily make, if you can procure the specimens. I wish
I had you here, if only for two days. I think that I have
studied the subject more than you have. You will be bothered
with the Wolves and the Foxes, to begin with. I have two new
species of Bats and Shrews to add. The Western Deer are no
joke, and the ever varying Squirrels seem sent by Satan him-
self, to puzzle the Naturalists.

It is evident from this letter that Audubon was then
intending to proceed with the work on the Quadrupeds
alone and that Bachman's active cooperation was se-
cured later. On September 15, shortly after his return
to America, he wrote to Thomas M. Brewer on this sub-
ject as follows: *

Now that I am about to commence the publication of the
Quadrupeds of North America, I will expect your assistance in
the procuring for me of all such subjects as may easily be
obtained around you. John Bachman is about to give the
whole of his collections and his notes to me ; and as I intend
to open a pretty general correspondence in different parts of
the Union, I trust to be enabled to proceed roundly on this
fresh undertaking.

*See Thomas M. Brewer (Bibl. No. 79), Harper's New Monthly
Magazine, vol. lxi, p. 666 (1880).

210 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Victor Gifford Audubon, who had preceded his
father to America early in 1839, was married in that
year to Mary Eliza, second daughter of John and Har-
riet Bachman. This double union of the two naturalists'
families called forth mutual congratulations, but Bach-
man, who was inconsolable at the departure of his chil-
dren, preferred to talk of birds: "By that time," said he,
"four or five numbers [of the 'Small Edition of the
Birds'] are published, you may turn over the work to
your sons; but, till then, you should carefully review
every page and plate. The next thing will be to get
subscribers. This would be purgatory to me; but it is
necessary to success. While drumming up subscribers,
you may obtain specimens for the Quadrupeds." When
writing again January 13, 1840, Bachman, whose co-
operation in the proposed work had been sought, con-
tinued :

The descriptions in the "Small Edition of Birds" will have
to be abridged — your "worthy friend" and other humbugs may
be left out to advantage. I am not at all surprised at your
success at getting subscribers ; but let me say, cities are not
the only places to obtain them. Birds sing and nestle among
the groves of the country — The planters and farmers are the
men to become subscribers. An intelligent planter from the up
country said, a few days ago, that if the right person would
thoroughly canvass the whole State of South Carolina, he
would insure three hundred subscribers to the "Small Work."
Old Jostle would be the man, and when his legs failed, the
Young Jostle should go forward. Get the Editors to notice
your work — this is a puffing world — from the porpoise to the
steamboat.

When we meet, we shall talk about the partnership in the
quadrupeds. I am willing to have my name stand with yours,
if it will help the sale of the book. The expenses and the profits

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LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND" 211

shall be yours or the boys'. I am anxious to do something
for the benefit of Victor and John, in addition to the treasures
I have given them — and this is all I can do. . . . Employ
yourself now in drawing every quadruped you can lay your
hands upon. If you can find me a live Ermine, buy it in New
York. I must once more examine and study its change of
pilage.

Don't flatter yourself that the quadrupeds will be child's
play. I have studied them all my life. We have much, both in
Europe and America, to learn on this subject. The skulls
and the teeth must be studied, and color is as variable as the
wind ; down, down in the earth they grovel, while we, in digging
and studying, may grow old and cross. Our work must be
thorough. I would as soon stick my name to a forged Bank-
Not e as to a mess of soupmaigre.

The "Prospectus" of Audubon's "miniature" edition
of the Birds was as follows: 2

2 From last page of paper covers, in which parts of the work were
originally issued.

Below are the following notices:

"Persons desirous of subscribing to the above work are respectfully re-
quested to apply to /. J. Audubon, 86 White street, Henderson Greene,
377 Broadway, or W. A. Colman, Broadway, New York; to J. B. Chevalier,
70 Dock street, or Orrln Rogers, 67 South Second street, Philadelphia;
C. C. Little or James Brown, Boston; /. P. Belle, or Geo. Oates, Charleston,
S. C; Gideon B. Smith, Baltimore; David RidyeUj, Annapolis, Md.; J. S.
Kellogg % Co., Mobile, Ala."

"S. H. Stevenson, Travelling Agent for Kentucky and Virginia; and
William A. Pierce for Pennsylvania."

This first octavo edition of Audubon's Birds was issued by J. J. Audu-
bon, and J. B. Chevalier, Philadelphia, in 100 parts, of five plates each,
to be bound in 7 volumes, 1840-44. Complete sets in parts are now very
rare; previous to 1907 a set is said to have been sold for $500; in 1914
one was offered in Philadelphia for $750. The introduction to No 1,
is dated "New York, Nov. 1839," and the fifteenth number, beginning
volume ii, "N. Y., Aug., 1840." The first five volumes (1840-42) were
issued with the cooperation of J. B. Chevalier, lithographer, 70 Dock
Street, Philadelphia, but, according to Mr. Ruthven Deane, he was an
agent who received a commission on sales, and, for a time, a share in
the profits, but not a co-publisher with Audubon; it is also stated that
when misfortune visited Chevalier in later life, he was cared for by
Audubon or his sons, up to the time of his death. For fuller details,
see Bibliography, No. 4.

212 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

To those who have not seen any portion of Mr. Audubon's
Original Drawings, it may be proper to state, that their supe-
riority consists in the accuracy as to proportion and outline,
and the variety and truth of the attitudes and positions of the
figures, resulting from peculiar means discovered and employed
by him, and his attentive examination of the objects portrayed,
during a long series of years. Mr. Audubon has not contented
himself with single profile views, but in many instances has
grouped his figures, so as to represent the originals in their
natural avocations, and has placed them on branches of trees
decorated with foliage, blossoms and fruits, or amidst plants
of numerous species — some are seen pursuing their prey in the
air, searching for food amongst the leaves and herbage, sitting
on their nests, or feeding their young; whilst others, of a dif-
ferent nature, swim, wade, or glide in or over their allotted ele-
ment. The insects, reptiles and fishes that form the food of
some of the birds, have now and then been introduced in the
drawings. In nearly every instance where a difference of plum-
age exists between the sexes, both male and female have been
represented, and the extraordinary changes which some species
undergo in their progress from youth to maturity, have been
depicted.

The plants are all copied from nature, and as many are
remarkable for their beauty, their usefulness, or their rarity,
the Botanist cannot fail to look upon them with delight.

The particulars of the plan of the work can be reduced to
the following heads :

1. The size of the work is royal octavo, the paper being
of the finest quality.

2. The Plates representing the Birds are correctly reduced
from the original drawings, and are coloured in the most care-
ful manner.

3. The work will appear in numbers, on the first and fif-
teenth of every month.

4. Each number will consist of Five Plates, accompanied
with full descriptions of the habits and localities of the birds,
their anatomy and digestive organs, (with occasionally wood

THE

BIRDS OF AMERICA,

FROM

DRAWINGS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES

AND THEIR TERRITORIES.

BY JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, F. R. SS.'L. & E.

Fellow ofihe Linnean and Zoological Societies of I/>ndon; Member ol ilie Lyceum of .New Yuri*, of the

Natural History Society of Pani, the Wcnicnan Natural History Society of Edinburgh; Hmwrary

Member of the Society of Natural History of Manchester, and of iho Royal Srotlidi

Academy of Painting. Sculpture, and Architecture; Member of the American

Philosophical Society, of the Academy of Natural Science* at Philadelphia,

of the Natural History Societies of Boston, of Charleston in South

Carolina, the Quebec Literary and Historical Society,

the Ornithological Society in London, tho Sock to

Francaise de Statin(k)ue Univeraelle ttc Paris.

Ac 4c

NEW YORK:
J. J. AUDUBON, 8G WHITE STREET

PHILADELPHIA:

J. B. CHEVALIER, 70 DOCK STREET.

COPYRIGHT SECURED.

E.G.Dcnir,rtMA

TITLE PAGE OF PAPER COVERS IN WHICH PARTS OF THE FIRST AMERICAN (OCTAVO)
EDITION OF "THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" WERE ORIGINALLY ISSUED.

213

214 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

cuts representing the latter,) and will be furnished to sub-
scribers for one dollar, payable on delivery.

5. The work will be published in accordance with a scientific
arrangement of the genera and species, and will complete the
Ornithology of our country, it is believed, in the most perfect
manner.

The octavo edition of Audubon's Birds began to
appear, in parts, late in 1839, and was in press four
years. It was illustrated with 500 lithographic plates,
which were reduced by John Woodhouse Audubon from
his father's old or new originals, with such changes as
the breaking up of composite plates and other consid-
erations rendered necessary. Many new flowers and
trees made their appearance in these plates, and sev-
enteen new birds were added to the last volume ; the text
was also greatly improved by the process of addition and
subtraction, as well as by the correction of many errors
which it was then possible to effect: as twelve species
were noticed without figures, this brought the total
number of American birds finally recognized by Audu-
bon to 507.3 The first considerable list of American
birds with any pretense to accuracy appeared in Notes
on Virginia, published in 1782, by Thomas Jefferson,
who then named 109 species peculiar to the United
States; William Bartram, in 1791, gave 191 ; Alexander
Wilson, 278; Wilson and Ord, in 1808-14, 320, and
Charles Bonaparte, in 1825-33, is said to have extended

sOf these, according to Mr. Witmer Stone (see Bibliography, No. 221),
474 are sanctioned in the present "Check List" of the American
Ornithologists' Union; seventeen have proved to be identical with others;
ten are extra-limital; two are hybrids; and five have never been found
since; of Audubon's suppressed species, two have been resuscitated. Audu-
bon is thought to have been personally acquainted with 385 American
species, others being known to him only through specimens sent by col-
lectors, or discovered in museums.

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 215

the number to 382. The present number of North
American birds, omitting sub-species, admitted to the
third revised edition of the "Check-List," prepared by a
Committee of the American Ornithologists' Union and
published in New York in 1910, is 768. To this is added
a hypothetical list of 26 names, the validity of which is
still in doubt; these embrace Townsend's Bunting —
Sjnza townsendi (Audubon) ; Carbonated Warbler —
Dendroica carbonata (Audubon) , Blue Mountain War-
bler— Dendroica montana (Wilson) , known only in the
works of Wilson and Audubon; the mysterious Small-
headed "Flycatcher," or Warbler — Musicapa minuta
(Wilson) or Wilsonia (?) microcephala (Ridgway), an
account of which is given in Chapter XIV and which
is known only in Wilson's and Audubon's works; and
Cuvier's Regulus — Regulus cuvieri (Audubon), which
has never been seen beyond the covers of The Birds of
America, and its descriptive text: "I shot this bird,"
said Audubon, "on my father-in-law's plantation of Fat-
land Ford, on the Skuylkill River in Pennsylvania, on
the 8th June 1812, while on a visit to my honoured rela-
tive Mr. William Bakewell ... I have not seen an-
other since."

Audubon was soon canvassing the principal cities for
this work, with what success is shown by the following
letter 4 to his family :

Audubon to his Family

Baltimore, Feb. 21. 1840.
11 o'clock at night.

My dear friends

So far so good, but alas ! I am now out of numbers to de-
liver to my subscribers here. Here ! where I expected to pro-

4 First published by Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 48b), The Auk, vol.
xxv (1908).

216 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

cure a good number more. This list is composed of excellent
men and all good pay. I have in my pocket upwards of one
hundred names, whom I am assured are likely to subscribe.
Therefor I will not leave Baltimore for some days to come at
least. I forward a copy of this list to Chevalier by the same
mail and yet you may as well inquire if he has received it. More
numbers I must have as soon as possible as all my subscribers
here are anxious about receiving their copies, unfortunately I
had only 90 No. 2. I look upon this list as a capital list. I
have sent Mr. Ridgley of Annapolis a No. 1 and a prospectus,
and expect some names tomorrow evening from that quarter.

I will remit money to Phila. and let you know how much
as soon as I can. The box has arrived here safely and to-
morrow or Monday I will deliver Biographies &c. D. Potter
is very ill and poor and yet I hope to get his note before I
leave here.

I received a note from dear Jonny dated at Norfolk, all
well and going on. I expect they are at this moment at John
Bachman's. I am fatigued beyond description and had the
misfortune last evening of skinning my shin bones, they bled
profusely however, and I hope will soon get well, though feel
rather sore at this very moment, but I will take care of them.

The amount of attention which I have received here is quite
bewildering, the very streets resound with my name, and I
feel quite alarmed and queer as I trudge along. Mess. Meckle,
Oldfield and the Brune family have all assisted me in the most
kind and brotherly manner, indeed I may say that my success
is mostly derived from these excellent persons.

I have written to Mr. Mifflins. I feel that Theodore An-
derson will not live long. Mr. Morris has not yet returned
from Annapolis. See that the notice in the Baltimore Patriot
which I sent you yesterday is inserted in the Albion, the New
York Gazette and if possible in the Courrier and Enquirer.

I have sent one to Chevalier and another to Dr. Parkman.
I ought to have at this moment 300 copies Nos. 1, 2, S, 4, for
Washington City and really I think it would be better to stop
the publication of the work for one month to effect this. There-

LIFE AT "MINNIES LAND" 217

for loose no time in urging Mr. Bowen (write to him) and
Chevalier also on this all important subject.

If ever I was in want of assistance it is at this moment and
you my dear Victor must be on the alert and second my en-
deavors to render you all Happy ! I would be delighted to have
a few lines from Mamma and Eliza at the end of your next
letter, which I hope to receive in immediate answer to this, Here.
I have marked all your items in your last letter. Call from time
to time at the Mercantile Library. I am glad you have re-
mitted to the Rathbone's. Do write to Mr. Hoppenstall and
see the daughter of Capt. Brittan. I was invited last evening
to a great ball, and should have gone had not my accident of
shin bones prevented me. I am told that I would have had some
20 names there.

Recollect that our agents name is Gideon B. Smith and a
most worthy man he is, highly recommended by Robert Gilmor

and others.

[No signature]

To the gratification of Audubon and his friends, the
octavo edition of his Birds of America was an imme-
diate and great success. Only 300 copies of the plates
of the first number, which was ready on December 3,
1839, were printed, but in little more than a month
300 more were demanded, and the number of plates re-
quired rose steadily until January 9, 1841, when it stood
at 1,475 copies.5 The total number of subscribers given

°See "Original Account Book of J. J. Audubon" (Bibl. No. 223), The
Nation, vol. lxxxiv, from which the following data regarding issues and
sales of this work are drawn. The total edition of the plates for No. 2
was 1,345, and of No. 3, 1,339. No. 11 of the plates was the first to run
to 1,000 copies in the first printing, and this issue was continued to No.
50, inclusive, excepting Nos. 3, 28, 29, and 30, of which 1,500 seem to have
been printed; the plates of these numbers were done at the lithographic
establishment of Endicotts, New York, all others being the work of J. T.
Bowen, Philadelphia. When subscriptions began to fall off with No. 51,
the edition was reduced to 1,150, and again with No. 57, to 1,050, which
remained constant to No. 84, or as far as this record goes. Of the text,
printed by E. G. Dorsey, 1,200 copies formed the first edition of No. 1,

218 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

in Audubon's published lists was 1,198, of which 198
are credited to Boston, 164 to Baltimore, 141 to New
York, sixty-five to Philadelphia, and forty-three to for-
eign countries, ten of which went to England; Mr.
George Oates of Charleston subscribed for seven copies.
Such a reception for an expensive work on natural his-
tory was unprecedented in the United States, and has
had few parallels in any country.

At the very beginning of this new undertaking, the
hand of disease and bereavement rested heavily on the
Audubon and Bachman families; they were obliged to
see first one and then another of their daughters
swept by the same terrible malady, tuberculosis, to an
early grave. Mrs. John Woodhouse Audubon died at
her old home in Charleston, whither she had gone for
the benefit of her health in the previous winter, on
September 15, 1840, at the age of twenty-three; and
Mrs. Victor Audubon, after a long sojourn in Cuba, and
shortly after returning to her home in New York, died
there on May 25, 1841, at the age of twenty-two. Au-
dubon was very fond of his daughters-in-law, and his
"beloved Rosy," as Victor's wife was familiarly called,
is said to have been a particular favorite and the life
of "his family circle. If work at this time brought no
pleasure, it at least afforded him relief from painful
thoughts.

In June, 1840, a boy who lived in Carlisle, Pennsyl-
vania, mustered up courage to write to the naturalist
and give him an account of a new bird, the Yellow-
bellied Flycatcher, which he and his brother had dis-

1,000 copies that of No. 2, and of successive numbers to No. 23. With
No. 24, the edition was increased to 2,000, and in February, 1841, the
earlier numbers were reprinted, thus forming a second edition of these
parts, and affording a chance for correction of errors. (See Audubon's
letter quoted above.)

LIFE AT "MINNIES LAND 219

covered, under the very noses, as it were, of all the orni-
thologists in America. With that fine sense of modesty
which characterized the man in after life, for his name
was Spencer Fullerton Baird, he wrote:0 'You see
Sir that I have taken (after much hesitation) the liberty
of writing you. I am but a boy, and very inexperienced,
as you no doubt will observe from my description of
the Flycatcher."

Audubon, who had just returned from the sick-bed
of his daughter-in-law, replied promptly as follows:

Audubon to Spencer Fullerton Baird

New York, June 18, 1840.
Dear Sir,

On my return home from Charleston S. C. yesterday, I
found your kind favor of the 4th inst. in which you have the
goodness to inform me that you have discovered a new species
of fly-catcher, and which, if the bird corresponds to your de-
scription, is, indeed, likely to prove itself hitherto undescribed,
for although you speak of yourself as being a youth, your
style and the descriptions you have sent me prove that an old
head may from time to time be found on young shoulders !

I wish you would send me one of the stuffed specimens as
well as the one preserved in spirits, and wish you also to rest
assured that if the little Muscicapa stands as a nondescript
that I shall feel pleased to name it after your friend.

I have never seen a male of the Cape May warbler with
the upper part of the head pure black. Have you compared
the Regulus with the description of Regidus Cuvierif Could
you not send me your bird to look at? Being on the eve of
publishing the Quadrupeds of our Country, I have thought
that you might have it in your power to procure several of the

"See Ruthven Deane (Bibl. Nos. 47 and 49-51), The Auk, vols, xxi,
xxiii, and xxiv (1904-7), Passim; and William H. Dall, Spencer Fullerton
Baird, a Biography (Bibl. No. 52) (1915); to these admirable accounts
I am indebted for such abstracts of this correspondence as are here
reproduced.

220 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

smaller species for me, and thereby assist me considerably.
Please write to me again soon, as I must resume my travels in
8 or 10 days. Have you seen a copy of the small edition of
The Birds of America which I am now publishing? Believe
me, dear sir,

With good wishes, your obt. sert.,

John J. Audubon

Thus began a correspondence between the youth of
fifteen and the veteran of fifty-five, which led to an
intimate friendship that lasted during Audubon's active
career, and was an undoubted stimulus to young Baird,
whose talents, enthusiasm and industry were quickly ap-
preciated by the older naturalist. Baird answered Au-
dubon's letter on June 20, and proffered his services
in collecting mammals, saying that while they were more
difficult to find than birds, he hoped "by increased exer-
tion to make up the difference"; he also added: "I have
seen some numbers of your work now publishing, and
admire them very much. I have no doubt that it will do
more to spread a love of Natural history, than any work
ever published. For my part I read the description of
birds and the episodes in your Ornithological Biography
with the same motive of pleasure as I used to read a
favorite novel." In Audubon's immediate reply of the
22nd, he said:

It is impossible at present for me to give you any precise
idea of the work on our quadrupeds which I have in con-
templation to publish, any further than to say to you, that it
is my intention, as well as that of my friend, the Revd John
Bachman, of Charleston, S. C, assisted by several others of
our best naturalists, to issue a work on the Mammalia of North
America worthy of the naturalist's attention, both at home and
abroad. — Through our joint efforts, and assisted as we hope
and trust to be, by numerous friends and acquaintances in

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND" 221

different portions of our Wide Union, we expect to collect,
not only new species, but much of valuable matter connected
with their geographical range, and particular habits. For
instance, in your assistance in this department as well as in
ornithology, you may be able to send us valuable intelligence
respecting the Shrews, Mice, Rats, Squirrels, etc., found in
your immediate vicinity &c. — and by saving and forwarding
specimens to us, be able also, in all probability, to place into
our hands, objects never before known to the World of Science.
Whatever information we thus receive is sacredly published
under the name of the friend from whom we receive the infor-
mation, etc. I have sent you the Zoological report of Docr.
De Kay. His Corvus cocolotle [cacolotl] is really our Raven.
Supposed by some inexperienced European naturalists to be
distinct from the Raven of Europe, which, however, is a gross
error.7 . . .

The thrush which you have described, and which you kindly
offer to send me, may be new, but perhaps you are not ac-
quainted with the Turdus Nanus of my work, to which it ap-
pears, if not the same, probably a new variety ! Nous ver-
rons. . . .

Please to collect all the Shrews, Mice, (field or wood), rats,
bats, Squirrels, etc., and put them in a jar in common Rum,
not whiskey, brandy or alcohol. All of the latter spirits are
sure to injure the subjects.

Audubon, who was now "killing two birds with one
stone" — collecting subscribers for one work and mam-
mals for another, had found a strong and willing helper
in the young naturalist of Carlisle. On December 10 of
the same year Baird wrote that he had discovered an-
other Flycatcher, as well as a small Woodpecker, which
was apparently new, and had shot a "Bay Lynx or Wild
Cat a mile & a quarter from Carlisle; the cat . . . was
2l/> feet long & weighed 121/2 pounds. ... It was a

'See Vol. II, p. 169.

222 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

source of great regret," said Baird, "that I was not able
to meet you in Philadelphia when I was there during
the latter part of September. I saw Mr. Chevalier 8
several times, and found him a very agreeable gentle-
man." Audubon replied to this letter on Christmas
Day, as follows:

Audubon to Spencer Fullerton Baird

New York, December 25, 1840.
My dear sir,

On my return yesterday from a tour of a month, I found
your kind favor of the 10th inst. at my house. I regret ex-
ceedingly that you and I should not have met at Philadelphia,
as I feel sure by the style and contents of your letters to me
that you are fond of the study of natural objects, as much
as I am.

I have no doubt that your journey during the last sum-
mer and autumn was a pleasing one to you, as I can well con-
ceive from the fresh recollections of my many rambles.

You would oblige me much by sending me (through Mr.
Chevelier) the Muscicapa you obtained Oct. 12th, and also the
small woodpecker "with the very broad bill" I am anxious to
see those birds, and will take especial care of them, and also
return them to you, free of all expense.

I cannot at this moment return to the specimens you have
already sent me, but in my next letter, I will assure you of the
names of the subjects. I wish I could see your Bay Lynx, as I
feel somewhat confident that we have more than two species
within our limits.

Your anecdote connected with the sagacity of the Weasel
is quite pleasing to me, and will appear in my biographies of
quadrupeds bye and bye. I cannot, as yet, give you any esti-
mate of my work on the Quadrupeds of our Country but will
do so as soon as possible. With my best wishes, for your health

8 See Note, Vol. II, p. 211.

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 223

and prosperity, I pray you to consider me as your friend and
obt. servant,

John J. Audubon.

In the following letter by William Yarrell,9 English
naturalist and sportsman, are interesting references to
Audubon's smaller edition of The Birds of America as
well as to the writer's History of British Birds, which
later became the standard work on the ornithology of
Great Britain:

William Yarrell to Audubon

[Addressed] J. J. Audubon Esqr

N°- 86 White Street
New York.

[Superscribed by Audubon]
March 10. 1841.
[English postmark] D

Paid
4 MR 4
1841
My dear Sir,

Your letter, and also that of your son, are now before me,
both received so long ago as the middle of last year — how
time flies with those who are fully occupied — I reproach my-
self for having allowed them to remain so long unanswered —
and hope my numerous avocations, which absorb my whole time,
will be admitted as my excuse. I see Mr- B. Phillips every
now and then, we meet only to talk about you — I have received
from his hands the first 17 Nos of your smaller American Birds
and like them much — as I could not afford to have the large

■William Yarrell (1784-1856) was the author of A History of British
Fishes (1835-36), and A History of British Birds (1839-43) in three
volumes; the latter has passed through several editions, the fourth and
best being by Alfred Newton in four volumes (1871-85). For the favor
of reproducing this letter, and another by Yarrell given in Chapter XXXIV,
I am indebted to Mr. Ruthven Deane.

224 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

work I make myself content with the small one, and shall be
happy to receive the continuation — pray tell me to whom shall
I make payment for them, shall it be to Mr- Phillips if so, let
me or him know, and it shall be done immediately — I am quite
of your opinion that there would be some sale for it here — if
it was advertised and made known, but a commission of 10.
p cent will not tempt any London Bookseller who is sufficiently
known and influential to be of any service to you — I exhibited
my numbers at the meetings of the Linnean and Zoological
Socities and gave the loose plates between them to lay on the
table, but without the name of a London Bookseller on the
cover no one knows where to get the work if Desirous of buy-
ing it.

I will now answer your inquiries for English Friends. Earl
Derby remains much the same — very well in health, but de-
prived of the use of one side entirely, limbs as well as body —
unable to attend to other things, he appears to devote him-
self almost entirely to Zoology — Thomson his Superintendent
of the Aviary is at this time in London buying some new or rare
pheasants lately arrived here from China — and will have a
valuable addition to the stock to take back with him — Lord
Derby came to London by the Rail Road last March (1840)
and Thomson tells me, his Lordship means to come up again
this Spring. The Prince of Musignano now P. of Canino I
hear of by report from others — He is quite well, continually
publishing, and we hear that he means to visit London in the
course of the present year — of Mr- Lear we hear the most
satisfactory accounts — generally through Mr- Hullmandill — he
is greatly improved in health and finances — a favorite with
every body, patronized by all who go there — and he too, we
hear, means to visit England in the course of the present year.
Mr- Gould returned safe to England in August last, after an
absence of two years and 8 months — Two years of the time were
passed on Van Diemans land and various parts of New Holland
— he did not go to New Zealand — He has brought home a very
large collection of Birds, with, in many cases, the eggs and
nests — He has commenced the publication of the Birds on the

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 225

same scale as his Birds of Europe, but improved in execution
— two parts are out : it is to be published every three months.
I sent off a letter this day to your Edinburgh friend Mr- Mac-
Gillivray — he is a candidate for the Professorship of Natural
History in the Marischall College of Aberdeen and wrote to
ask me for a testimonial of recommendation — this was the
object of my letter to him. — My second volume of the British
Birds will be complete in July next, I will send it to you in
one lump. Pray remember me to your good lady and thank
your son Victoire for me for his letter. I hope you are all well,
and with best wishes for a continuance to you of all that is
good — I remain very sincerely yours

Wm- Yarrell.
J. J. Audubon Esq1"

New York —

Spencer Baird and his brother, William, were soon
able to announce another discovery, now well known
the country over as the Least Flycatcher, and in some
sections by the onomatopoeic name of Chebec. In refer-
ring to it in his letter of June 21, 1841, Baird wrote:

There is one flycatcher respecting which we are in doubt,
and which was very abundant this spring. It is the one we had
considered M. Pusilla but a thorough examination of the Biog-
raphy, has thrown doubt on this supposition, it agrees pretty
well with the M. Acadica of Nuttall, but not with the Acadica,
of the Synopsis. I will send you one as soon as possible, as
there is no set of Plates in Carlisle to which we might refer.

In conclusion Baird added: "May we not expect to
see you in Carlisle before a great while? It would give
us very great pleasure indeed."

Though Audubon gladly admitted this new-found
species of bird at a later day, he was not at first dis-

226 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

posed to accept its validity, as will appear in the follow-
ing interesting letter which he sent to his young friend :

Audubon to Spencer Fullerton Baird

New York, July 29, 1841.
My dear Sir, —

I have not had time to answer your interesting favor of
the 21st until this morning, being now constantly engaged in
the figuring, &c, of the Quadrupeds of Our Country; by which
I mean that I actually work from daylight every day until
I retire to my necessary repose at night.

Your observations upon the birds of passage the last
spring are what they have been almost throughout the U. S.
The very backward spring which we have experienced this year
did no doubt retard the coming into the States the millions of
passenger birds that come to us from beyond our limits. The
Fly-catcher of which you are in doubt is nevertheless the
M. Pusilla, and you must not be surprised to find perhaps
some discrepancy between the specimens you have procured and
the descriptions you may have read, as among mine these
differences are quite obvious and belonging to either sex or age,
as is indeed the case with most of our birds as well as among
many of our quadrupeds. . . .

I cannot at present tell you when I may have the pleasure
of meeting you at your own domicile, and yet this may happen
quite unexpectedly.

Do you pay attention to the quadrupeds around you? If
not, I wish you would! — and moreover I should be highly
pleased to hear of your procuring for us all such as may be
found in your vicinity. You have Bats, Wood Bats, # Mice,
Weasels, fyc, fyc, all of which I should like to possess speci-
mens at your hands. Could you not save all that you come
across with in this way, place them in common good Bum, and
forward them to me at once or as soon as you have some 2
or three species. I will most cheerfully pay all expenses to
Philadelphia addressed to J. B. Chevalier, No. 70 Dock Street.

AUDUBOX

AFTER A PORTRAIT PAINTED BY JOHN WOODHOUSE AND VICTOR GIFFORD AUDUBON

ABOUT 1841, NOW IN POSSESSION OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL

HISTORY, NEW YORK. PUBLISHED BY COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN

MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND" 227

I am now as anxious about the publication of the Quad-
rupeds as I ever was in the procuring of our Birds, indeed my
present interest in Zoology is altogether bent toward the Com-
pletion of this department of Natural Science.

Do please write to me often as I am always glad to hear
from you, and when I am somewhat slow in answering your let-
ters, be assured that it is altogether on a/c of the excess of
Labour that I have to go through.

Believe me with sincere good wishes
Your friend and servant,

John J. Audubon.

Although Audubon never went to Carlisle, young
Baird, as we shall see, repeatedly visited him in New
York and became a favorite with his family. A de-
scription of the new Flycatchers was published by the
Baird brothers in 1843, and represented Spencer's first
contribution to his favorite science; Audubon included
their discovery in the Appendix to the seventh and last
volume of The Birds of America in 1844.

Audubon's occupations in the summer of this year
are clearly reflected in the following letter: 9

Audubon to Dr. George Parkman

New York, June 20th 1841
My Dear Friend. —

I intended having written to you yesterday by Miss
Shatuck, who was good enough to spend the day with us, but
1 was so deeply engaged on a drawing of Rocky Mountain
Flying Squirrels, that the time of her departure came suddenly
and I could merely ask of her to say to you, that your last
letter and remittance had reached us in safety, and with the

"See John E. Thayer (Bibl. No. 53), The Auk, vol. xxxiii (1916).
Mr. Thayer's Ornithological Museum now contains the original specimen of
Parkman's Wren, to which Audubon refers; it is "mounted on a twig,
in a paper box with a glass front," and is "in excellent condition."

228 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

unexampled promptness shewn by you on the three occasions
you have been troubled with the delivery of 46 parts of our
work to 46 of our Boston subscribers ; and for which as I
have said before I am very sorry to have nought but our sin-
cerest thanks and gratitude to you for this, so remarkable pro-
ceeding. May God reward you and yours for all your gener-
ous actions.

I thank you also for your memorandums about the quad-
rupeds in the Boston Museum as I see that our animal there
may save me the trouble of going to the State of Maine for it.
When I was last under the hospitable roof of our Friend Docr
Shattuck, I saw in George's room a N°- of the "Penny Maga-
zine" in which there is a plate representing a family of Beavers
at work, that reminded me greatly of what I have seen in the
ponds of Indiana some thirty years ago, and which I should like
to have for a few days to assist in part in the making of the
background to my Drawing of these animals, drawn from the
Individual you procured for me. I will take good care of the
N°- and will return it safely very soon.

Should George Shattuck have forwarded that N°- to Mr-
B. of Baltimore, pray ask him to write to the later to
send it to me as soon as convenient. If per chance you
could procure for me a live Hare in the Summer dress (It is
pure white in winter) pray do so and do not mind the price or
the cost of its conveyance to me. This animal is abundant in
the northern portions of your State and is fully double the
size of the common Hare called the "Rabbit."

With sincerest regards and kindest remembrances to all
around you and our mutual Friends,

believe [me] yours always

John J. Audubon.
. The "Parkman Wren"
well mounted will soon be
on your chimney mantle !

The unique specimen of the little Wren, referred to
in the postscript of this letter, had been discovered on

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 229

the Columbia River by Dr. Townsend some years be-
fore, and though Audubon had described it in 1839, his
figure of it had but just appeared; this was doubtless
included, as Mr. Thayer remarks, in the parts of the
octavo edition of The Birds of America, which Dr.
Parkman distributed at Boston in the summer of this
year.

As an indication of the zeal and energy with which
Audubon undertook his work on the quadrupeds, the
following letter (dated "New York, August 15, 1841,"
and addressed to "W. O. Ayres,10 Esq., Miller's Place,
Suffolk county, Long Island, New York") will be read
with interest:

Audubon to W. 0. Ayres

I am now closely engaged in conjunction with my friend the
Revd. John Bachman — of Charleston, S. C, in the preparing
of a work on the viviparous quadrupeds of North America,
and I have already drawn about one hundred figures of these,
including thirty-six species.

Now knowing the interest you feel towards the advance-
ment of Natural Science, in every department, I have thought
that should you assist us in the procuring specimens, whether
in the flesh or skin, dead or alive ; that we would be much bene-
fitted by such aid. — Long Island possesses rare and valuable
species, and although many of them are plentiful they are
rarely procured unless accidentally as it were. In your Ram-
bles after the feathered Tribe, you surely come across at times
with quadrupeds, and if you were good enough to shoot them
or to catch them and send them to me in the manner mentioned
below, I personally would feel extremely obliged to you.

Bats, Wood Rats and Wood Mice, Shrews, Shrew Moles

10 Baird wrote to Audubon, November 4, 1846: "Please tell me the
address of your friend Ayres. I have been collecting fishes for some
weeks, and wish to correspond & exchange with him on this subject." A
woodpecker, Colaptes ayresii, was named after this friend by Audubon,
in The Birds of America, vol. vii, in 1843.

230 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and all the smaller animals can be forwarded in an earthern
jar immersed in good Yankee Rum. — The larger kinds can be
skinned, preserving the skull entire, and also the legbone and
the clavicles. One fore & one hind foot ought to be pinned
on a board or cork until perfectly dried, and actual measure-
ments and weights forwarded with the specimens. Nos. accord-
ingly with the notes of localities and dates. Young and old
are wanted. The Cat Squirrel is now and then procured about
you of a very large size — the Woodchuck &c. but it is unneces-
sary for me to give you a list as we are anxious to procure
every thing we can from every portion of the Union with the
view to ascertain their geographical range.

The expense involved in producing the early num-
bers of the small edition of his Birds must have been
great, and Audubon was feeling the strain, when the
letter,11 dated "New York— April 29, 1841," from which
the following extract is taken, was sent to his Boston
agent: "I doubt much if you are actually aware that
we have at this moment in this city and at Philadelphia
upwards of Seventy persons employed upon the present
work, and that all these . . . are to be paid regularly
each Saturday evening, and that when we are out of
temper it is not without cause."

When Baird visited the Audubons, in New York, in
January, 1842, he was fascinated by the masterly draw-
ings of birds and quadrupeds which were then being
produced, and was determined to pay more attention
himself to an art for which presumably he had little
natural aptitude; he seems also to have received a hint
for the improvement of his somewhat loose chirography.
Upon leaving, Audubon presented his pupil with a
copy of the Biography of Birds. After returning to his

11 Addressed to Messrs. Little & Brown, booksellers, acknowledging the
receipt of a check for $214.20.

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 231

iome, Baird wrote from Carlisle, on February 8 of
that year:

Spencer Fullerton Baird to Audubon

After a trial of two weeks I begin to find that I am getting
over the shock caused by the sudden transition from the bustle
of Broadway to the lifelessness of Carlisle, and hope that by
the application of the proper means I may in time perfectly
recover. Philadelphia seemed dull but Carlisle was death it-
self. My visit now however seems but as a dream, and I have
settled down into my old regular monotonous life as if I had
never been absent a day. When I arrived my friends had a
great many questions to ask of course, but almost the first ones
on every lip were about Mr. Audubon, — how he looked? What
was his age, whether the idea they had formed of him from
his writings was correct, many queries also were respecting
Mrs. A. and her sons ; and they all said that they would
be ever grateful to them for their kindness, to one away from
home. . . .

For want of other objects I have commenced to draw the
sternal and shoulder apparatus of our birds, a pretty large
collection of which I have been making for a year past. . . .
Have you heard from Mr. Lyon of Bedford yet about the
money he owes you? I was asking about him the other day,
of an acquaintance of his, who told me that he was as good as
gold in all his debts, & expressed some surprise at his not having
paid, as he generaly is very punctual. . . . Last week I walked
up to Pinegrove an iron works about sixteen miles in the moun-
tains where resides the Mr. Ege I have so often spoken about
as the mighty Nimrod of our county. On my arrival I found
a fine wild cat hanging in the stable which had been killed a
few days before. On returning the next day I took the cat
with me slung across my shoulders, and on reaching home
after measuring & weighing it skinned it. I am in hopes of
getting some more from here, as they promised to catch all
they could for me.

232 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Baird signed himself 'Your affectionate pupil," and
added in a postscript: "I forgot to say that I had a
fine steak of the wild cat broiled and it tasted like a
tender piece of fresh pork. I will certainly eat the whole
of the next one obtained. I intend to taste all the Quad-
rupeds inhabiting this part of the country."

Audubon's interesting reply was in part as follows:

Audubon to Spencer Fullerton Baird

New York, Feby. 10, 1842.
My dear young Friend.

It is about half an hour since I had the real pleasure of
receiving your letter of the 8th inst. and my earnest thanks
to you for it and its contents ; to all of which I will try to
answer at your request.

That beautiful Carlisle, its surrounding hills bordering its
valleys, all within the bosom of quiet nature should appear to
you as a small affair when compared to our largest city in the
Union, is not at all remarkable, but let me ask you the fol-
lowing questions. Did you meet all your dear Parents and
Friends quite well? Did they not receive you with the kindest
of welcomes? Were not their hearts and feelings towards you
the same as ever? Surely all this was fact, and being so, would
you not after all prefer Little Carlisle than Great New York
with all its humbug, rascality, and immorality? Surely or do
I mistake your nature sadly, you do ! It is now a good long
time since I was young, and resided near Norristown in Penn-
sylvania. It was then and is now a very indifferent place as
compared with New York; but still my heart and mind often-
time dwell in the pleasure that I felt there, and it always re-
minds me that within a few miles of that village, my Mother12
did live, and it was there also that my good fortune led me to
know and to marry the excellent Wife I have yet, at whose
hands yourself have tried to be rendered comfortable. Say

"See Vol. I, p. 103.

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND" 233

what you will, "there is nothing like home" ... I wish I could
be with you, if only for one week, for then I imagine that
between your friends of the mountains, yourself, and myself,
we could Tree a "Catamount" and soon untree him. The tug-
ging part of that far-famed animal, I would cheerfully give
up to your youthful shoulders, but not so with the figuring of
it, yet for a while. Is there such a Beast in existence? Do let
me know as soon as you can. I am heartily glad that you have
procured a wild cat from the mountainous part of Pennsyl-
vania, and that you have preserved its skin, which I beg you to
forward as soon as you please, along with whatever other
quadrupeds you may have in hand, that we may say more on
those Beasts of the Central States, than has ever been before
told. . . .

Look out for Martens, and try to find me some youself !
I am glad that you find wild cat meat pretty good, as it
corroborates the sayings of many others, who pronounce it
equal to young veal.

Let me say to you ("en passant") that your handwriting
is considerably improved, and depend upon it that your at-
tention to Drawing will soon enable you as of "copper plate."
Go ahead !

I now wish you earnestly to offer our joint respects, re-
gards, and best wishes to all your family and friends, and to
believe me always,

Yours most truly,

John J. Audubon.

86 White Street.

P. S. Thank you for what you say of the Bedford gentleman.
When I write next, I will mention him at greater length. I
wish you could let me know whether we could procure first rate
peach trees from your vicinity, and how much 50 of them would
cost. I should like to have them assorted, soft, and clings
yellow, or red, or blood-red. We wish to plant these as early
in March as possible, if young trees, two years old could be
had, we might, perhaps, have fruit on some of them during the

234 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

next summer? Try what you can do for your New York
friend. [The following on outside of letter-sheet] I will make
up a box for you in a few days, and send it to you through
Mr. Chevalier.

Audubon, who ever found city life irksome, as early
as 1841 had begun to look about for a farm, or some
retired spot within easy access to New York, where he
could establish the families of himself, of his two sons,
and have about him many of the animals which he then
wished to study and depict for his new work. Edward
Harris would have been glad to have had him for a
neighbor, and wrote from Moorestown, New Jersey, on
July 5, 1841, suggesting that he examine "a small farm
close to his village, containing about 25 acres of very
good land," which the owner was then willing to sell
for $3,500, though, added Harris, "when Mr. Havell
was here, he asked $5,000 for it." A spot more to his
liking, however, was found on the Hudson River, in
Carmansville, later known as Washington Heights,
where he purchased from thirty to forty acres of land
which had a river frontage of a thousand feet, from the
present One Hundred and Fifty-fifth to One Hundred
and Fifty-eighth Streets, and extended to the easterly
limits of the village at the old Bloomingdale Road, near
the present Amsterdam Avenue. This tract was well
wooded, and among the grand forest trees on the
place a large tulip or white wood attracted general
attention from its great girth and commanding height.
Audubon decided to place his house at the foot of the
river bluff, amid a cluster of fine oaks, chestnuts and
evergreens, and a clearing had to be made before the site
could be laid off; it was some years before the railroad
came to mar his river view and interrupt access to the

LIFE AT "MINNIE'S LAND'' 235

beach. Audubon began to build in 1841, and on Febru-
ary 24, 1842, Victor wrote to Edward Harris: "Our
house in the country is going on well, and will probably
be ready for us in about two months. John is at work
out there every day"; they were planning, he said, to
raise pigs and poultry, and he inquired after "draining
tiles, such as are made near Philadelphia."

Audubon named his new estate "Minnie's Land,"
in honor of his wife, Lucy, to whom he deeded the prop-
erty, the Scotch form of her name having no doubt come
into familiar use during their residence abroad. In
April, 1842, they turned their backs on the city and oc-
cupied their new home. Spencer Baird, when writing
on May 3 of that year, said :

I have been in some doubt where this letter should be ad-
dressed, since "86 White St." will not reach you, and you
must by this time be snugly fixed I hope in your beautiful
place up the River. Do not laugh therefore if I prefix "For-
merly" to the old superscription. . . .

I suppose that the First Number of the "Quadrupeds of
North America" is out by this time, I hope that it will be
hailed by a large list of subscribers, and will do what I can
for this desirable end.

Submerged as Audubon was, with painting the
Quadrupeds, keeping the small edition of his Birds in
motion, and canvassing for subscribers to both works,
which he published himself, he nevertheless found time
for an extraordinary number of letters, which were
written with an elegance of chirography that diverts
our attention from their orthographic defects. In the
labor of drawing and in all his business affairs he was
constantly aided by his sons.

In Audubon's time the center of Carmansville was

236 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

a quarter of a mile to the east of his house, while at a
short distance below, on the river, lay Manhattanville,
at the present One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street,
from which men frequently came on summer evenings
to help handle the seine, fish then being plentiful in that
part of the Hudson. The place came to possess a good
garden and orchard, with stable, dairy, and poultry
yards; enclosures also were made for deer, elk, wolves,
foxes and other wild animals. The old barn of the Au-
dubon place stood higher on the slope where the natu-
ralist built his studio or painting house, but no traces of
either now exist. Though standing low, the house com-
manded a wide sweep of the river with the Palisades
on its opposite shore, and such attractive surroundings
were a never failing source of delight and inspiration to
the naturalist to his dying day.

In describing Audubon's activities, Parke Godwin
made this note in the spring of 1842:

13

During the last winter, which he spent in this city, he has
worked on an average fourteen hours a day, preparing a work
on the Quadrupeds of America, similar to his work on the
Birds. The drawings already finished, of the size of life, are
master-pieces in their way, surpassing if that be possible, in
fidelity and brilliancy, all that he has done before. Early in
the summer he will depart to continue his labors in the woods.

Before we glance at the half -submerged relic of
Audubon's old house as it stands today in upper New
York,14 we shall follow the same writer in a visit which
he made to "Minnie's Land" in the summer of 1842 but
did not describe until eleven years later; 15 we will only

13 See Bibliography, No. 60.
"See Chapter XXXVI.

15 Parke Godwin, The Homes of American Authors (Bibl. No. 68)
(1853).

"minnie's land" as it appeared in 1865.

After a lithograph published in D. T. Valentine's Manual of the Council of

the City of New York.

"minnie's land" as it appeared in 1917 from the river front, pocketed
by the retaining wall of riverside drive.

LIFE AT "MINNIES LAND" 237

add that at this time Audubon was in his fifty-eighth
year, and not over sixty, as this writer surmised. After
passing beyond the outposts of the city of that day, and
turning into a rustic road which led directly to the river,
his walk

soon brought a secluded country house into view, — a house not
entirely adapted to the nature of the scenery, yet simple and
unpretending in its architecture, and beautifully embowered
amid elms and oaks. Several graceful fawns and noble elk
were stalking in the shade of the trees, apparently unconscious
of the presence of a few dogs, and not caring for the numerous
turkeys, geese, and other domestic animals that gabbled and
screamed among them. . . .

"Is the master at home?" I asked of the pretty maid-ser-
vant who answered my tap at the door, and who after inform-
ing me that he was, led me into a room on the left side of the
broad hall. It was not, however, a parlor, or any ordinary re-
ception-room that I entered, but evidently a room for work. In
one corner stood a painter's easel, with a half-finished sketch of
a beaver on paper ; in the other lay the skin of an American
panther. The antlers of elks hung upon the walls, stuffed
birds of every description of gay plumage ornamented the man-
tle-piece; and exquisite drawings of field-mice, orioles, and
woodpeckers were scattered promiscuously in other parts of
the room, across one end of which a long rude table was
stretched to hold artist materials, scraps of drawing paper and
immense folio volumes filled with the delicious paintings of
birds taken in their haunts.

The master, who soon appeared,

was a tall, thin man, with a high arched and serene forehead,
and a bright penetrating gray eye ; his white locks fell in clus-
ters upon his shoulders, but were the only signs of age, for
his form was erect, and his step as light as that of a deer. The
expression of his face was sharp, but noble and commanding,

238 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and there was something in it, partly derived from the aquiline
nose and partly from the shutting of the mouth, which made
you think of the imperial eagle.

His greeting, as he entered, was at once frank and cordial,
and showed you the sincere and true man. "How kind it is,"
he said with a slight French accent, and in a pensive tone, "to
come and see me ; and how wise, too, to leave that crazy city !"
He then shook me warmly by the hand. "Do you know," he
continued, "how I wonder that men can consent to swelter and
fret their lives away amid those hot bricks and pestilent vapors,
when the woods and fields are all so near?"

When writing in 1845, Godwin gave further inti-
mations of the naturalist's appearance: "His forehead
[was] high, arched, and unclouded ;■. the hairs of the
brow prominent, particularly at the root of the nose,
which was long and aquiline ; chin prominent, and mouth
characterized by energy and determination. The eyes
were deep-gray, set deeply in the head, and as restless
as the glance of an eagle."

CHAPTER XXXIV

EXPEDITION TO THE UPPER MISSOURI

Ambitions at fifty-seven — Plans his last expedition in the role of natural-
ist— Credentials from public men — Canvassing tour in Canada de-
scribed— Baird's plans to accompany Audubon west frustrated —
Western expedition begun — Ascent of the Missouri and Yellowstone —
Discoveries of new birds — A wilderness that howls — Buffalo hunting —
Passing of the great herds — Return from Fort Union — Incident on the
canal boat — Completion of the octavo edition of the Birds.

In the summer of 1842, when his two new undertak-
ings were well in hand, Audubon was planning a jour-
ney which he felt would help them both, his long cher-
ished but ever deferred expedition to the Far West; in
the dim perspective his mind's eye could trace the snowy
summits of the Rocky Mountains, a promised land he
was never destined to see, though, with true poetic jus-
tice, one of those grand peaks now bears his name. At
this time he was in his fifty-eighth year, and although
his family thought him too old for so arduous a journey,
he would not be thwarted, for his eye was undimmed
and his natural force unabated.

The letters which passed between Audubon and
Baird at this time show how eager was his young friend
to attach himself to the party. While in Washington,
July 27, 1842, Baird wrote:

After making several unsuccessful efforts to get a second
sight of you day before yesterday, I was obliged to give up
the attempt in despair. I went to the Capitol at half past
twelve and wandered over the whole building, Library, Senate

239

240 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Chamber and House, without being able to see or hear any-
thing of your excellency. In the evening as in the morning I
was again at Fuller's without avail, went up the street, lis-
tened awhile to the Circus music, came back, you were in bed.

One thing I wanted to ask you about, was respecting your
proposed trip next spring. . . . Nothing would delight me
more than to go, if I can afford it. Next what preparation
would I have to make to fit myself to accompany you. The
journey ought to be a sort of "Humboldt & Bonpland" one, for
the purpose of increasing the general sum of knowledge in
every department of science, physical as well as natural. . . .
If there is anything I can do for you here, do not hesitate to
command me.

Audubon's interesting reply to this letter will be
given in full:

Audubon to Spencer Fullerton Baird

New York, July SO, 1842.
My Dear Young Friend, —

Your letter of the 27th Inst, reached me yesterday. I am
truly vexed that I should have missed you at the Library or
the Congress Chambers, where I went (perhaps too late) be-
tween 3 and 4 o'clock of the afternoon, having been detained
at the different Departments of State where it Was my duty to
call, preparatory to the next coming Great Western Journey.

Now it proves by your letter that you feel favorably dis-
posed to accompany me on this long thought-of and contem-
plated Tour, and wish me to give you some idea of the expenses,
attached to such an undertaking; but to this question I am
quite unable to reply at present, although I may do so in a
few weeks, and which I shall do, provided you write to me
again on the subject.

I have no very particular desire to embark as deep in the
Cause of Science as the great Humboldt has done, and that,
simply because I am too poor in pecuniary means and too in-

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 241

competent ; but I wish nevertheless to attempt to open the
Eyes of naturalists to Riches untold, and facts hitherto untold.
The portions of the country through which it is my intention
to pass, never having been trodden by white Man previously.

I have some very strong doubts whether the results of the
Antarctic Expedition will be published for some time yet ; for,
alas, our Government has not the means, at present, of pay-
ing some half a Million of Dollars to produce publications such
as they should publish, and connected with the vast stores of
Information, collected by so many Scientific Men in no less
than Four Years of Constant Toil and privation, and which
ought to come to the World of Science at least as brightly as
the brightest rays of the Orb of Day during the Mid-summer
Solstice. Oh, my dear young friend, that I did possess the
wealth of the Emperor of Russia, or of the King of the French ;
then, indeed, I would address the Congress of our Country, ask
of them to throw open these stores of Natural Curiosities, and
Comply with mine every wish to publish, and to Give away Cop-
ies of the invaluable Works thus produced to every Scientific
Institution throughout our Country, and throughout the
World.

As you however appear desirous to present my thoughts
of your capabilities as one of the assistants in that Stupendous
undertaking, I send you enclosed what I hope most sincerely
may prove beneficial for such purposes.

Now as you have been kind enough to offer me your services
at Washington, I ask you to call upon Mr. Cushing, M. C, of
Mass.tts, and to ask him to have the goodness to forward me
the Letter promised me by the President of the U. S., for, as
I have not yet had it, I somewhat fear that it has been mis-
sent.

Write me at once, and believe me,

Your friend, John J. Audubon.

Audubon enclosed with this letter a warm recom-
mendation of his friend for the position of curator of

242 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the rich collections made by the United States Explor-
ing Expedition to the Antarctic, under command of
Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, then stored at the Patent
Office and National Institute, but nothing came of it
and Baird went away disappointed.

During the summer, in accordance with his usual
custom, Audubon had taken pains to fortify himself
with credentials from the Government, and had obtained
excellent letters from President John Tyler, Daniel
Webster, Secretary of State, General Winfield Scott,
who then held the highest commission in the Army, John
C. Spencer, Secretary of War, and Lord Ashburton, a
member of a special commission to settle the disputed
boundary between Maine and the British provinces. The
letters given him by Daniel Webster and President
Tyler were as follows : x

Daniel Webster to Whom it May Concern

United States of America,

Department of State.

To ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME GREETING.

Know Ye, that the bearer hereof, John James Audubon, a
distinguished naturalist and native citizen of the United States,
has made known to me his intention of travelling on the con-
tinent with the view principally of aiding the cause of science
by extending his researches and explorations in natural history,
and as he is known to me to be a man of character and honor
and worthy of all friendly offices and of all personal regard,
these are therefore to request all whom it may concern, to
permit him to pass freely, without let or molestation, and to
extend to him all such aid and protection as he may need, and
which becomes the hospitality of civilized and friendly nations.

In testimony whereof I, Daniel Webster, Secretary of State
of the United States, have hereunto set my hand and caused

*See Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 224)? The Auk, vol. xxv (1908).

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 243

the seal of this department to be affixed at the City of Wash-
ington, this the 24 th day of July, A. D. 1842.

[Signed] Daniel Webster

President John Tyler to Whom it May Concern

United States of America,

Washington, 28 th July 1842.

The bearer of this, John James Audubon, is a native citizen
of the United States, who has informed me of his intention of
travelling on the continent of America, chiefly to promote the
cause of science by researches in natural history. He is
known to me to be a naturalist of eminent acquirements and
estimation, a man of character and honor and worthy of all
personal respect and regard. I recommend him to my country-
men abroad and to the authorities and inhabitants of other
countries that he may receive the friendly offices, aid and coun-
tenance which are due to the interests of science and the rites
of hospitality among civilized nations.

John Tyler,
President of the U. States.

John Bachman, who had agreed to be responsible
for the letterpress of the Quadrupeds, was already at
work, as shown by the following note 2 sent to Audubon
at this time :

John Bachman to Audubon

Charleston, August, 1842.
My Dear Friend:

1 have just returned from a visit to the country, where I
left Mrs. Bachman for the benefit of her health. I have a
season ticket on the railroad, and, on my weekly visits, I do
much of my writing on Natural History. The moment the

2 See C. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No.
191), p. 199.

244 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

clock strikes four I am up, and soon at work. From this hour
until seven, I have no interruptions. I hope in this way to
steal time to write about Quadrupeds. When I get fairly under
way, as I am now, I am not easily diverted from the object
before me, and nothing but ill health or domestic affliction
will keep me back.

J. B.

On September 12 Audubon set out on a canvassing
tour of Canada, on which he went as far north as Que-
bec; as he passed his home, he hailed his sons, who were
sailing on the river, and the sight of them at this moment
brought tears to his eyes. Whitehall, New York, was
reached on September 13, St. Johns, Canada, on the
following day, and on the 15th he was in Montreal;
three days were spent at Quebec (September 16-18),
where, as at other points, he met with the most gratify-
ing success. After reaching home in October, the fol-
lowing glowing account of this tour and of the attrac-
tions of his new estate on the Hudson was given in a
letter to Dr. Benjamin Phillips of London,3 dated
from "New York, 7th Nov., 1842":

Audubon to Dr. Benjamin Phillips

I went on a tramp to the Canadas, leaving our comfortable
abode on the 12th of Sepr. last and was absent for a whole
month. My Journey extended to something like 1500 miles:
during which I visited for the first time, the North-American
Gibralter [Quebec], the sight of which was as new to me as
it was wonderful in the days of old. The views (for I must
speak in the plural) from the Citadel, are as far as I have seen
the grandest and the most sublime I ever gazed upon. The
St. Laurence River, is noble indeed, and when we know that
that stream carried forth to the Atlantic the congregating

3 See Vol. II, p. 144.

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EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 245

waters of all our sea-lakes, we must not be astonished at her
great breadth, depth, and strength of current to about 60
miles below Montreal. About the latter city that noble stream
is intercepted by many rapids and a vast number of Islands,
the latter of which so intersect the view that in some instances
it would prove quite out of the question to discover with cer-
tainty either of the main shores. I visited the falls of Mont-
morency, those of the Rivierre Serria and of La Chan[u]diere.
I besides made many an acquaintance and a few very valuable
friends. At Quebec I sold a copy of our large Work to the
Earl of Caledon who also subscribed to our quadrupeds. At
Montreal I sold several Copies of our Small Edition of the
Birds of America and procured several good names to the
quadrupeds. At Kingston where I had the pleasure of becom-
ing acquainted with Sir Charles Bagot and family (all delight-
ful persons) I sold two copies of the large work to both Houses
of Parliament, and also procured their double subscriptions to
the Animals. Thus I returned home highly pleased with all that
I had done and seen. The more perhaps because I procured in
the meantime most valuable specimens of rare quadrupeds and
a fund of information that can never be met with unless on
the ground of action. . . .

Our dear "Minnie's Land" is improving as fast as our poor
pecuniary means will allow. We have done a good deal since
our purchase of it, in a wild state as it was, and next spring
we will have a good garden and probably some fruit from our
own young trees, of which we have planted nearly 200 of the
very best description, including pears, aples, quinces, apricote,
plumbs, vines, nectarines, apricotes, etc., etc. . . . We have
fish whenever we draw the seine, and this summer we have caught
one sturgeon that measured upwards of 8 feet . . . weight
more than 200 pounds . . . The "Boys" take a sailing pretty
frequently in their sail boat, but I never join them in that, for
attempts I have crossed the Atlantic pretty frequently I have
an inward dislike to the water, after it is more than 2 or 3
fathoms deep! We have now been enjoying that delightful
season, which our Americans call the "Indian Summer" and not

246 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

a drop of rain have we had for several weeks. . . . Would that
you all were here at this moment, at my elbow, from which
by a peep at the window, I gaze on the "Pallisades" and the
breath of the Hudson, between the trunks of the many trees
that stand at rest at present awaiting the return of spring for
a renewal of fragrant verdure, and fruits innumerable. . . .

We would be glad if you would ascertain whether a good
agent can be had to procure subscribers in England for it
[the Quadrupeds], or whether a responsible bookseller would
buy the copyright, & a certain number of plates either col-
oured or plain.

A few weeks later Audubon wrote also to William
Yarrell, hoping to interest him in the foreign sale of
his new publication, but as will be seen by his friend's
reply, now to be given, with indifferent success:

William Yarrell to Audubon

[Superscribed by Audubon]

Recd <28 J any

1843

[Addressed] J. J. Audubon Esqr-

77 William Street

New York

[Superscribed by Yarrell]

single letter.

P. Paid, W.Y.

Ryder Street St James

London 17** Deer. 1842.

My dear Mr- Audubon,

I have this morning received your letter of the 28th- Novr-
last, and as it is strictly a letter of business, I reply to its
various parts immediately.

About a month ago I received a note from Mr- Phillips to
say'that he had received the Plates of the first number of your
work on the Quadrupeds of America — would I come and look
at them, and would I exhibit them at the meetings of the

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 247

Societies I belonged to for the promotion of Natural History.
I went to see them, and have with pleasure exhibited them at
the Linnean Society on the third Tuesday in Novr- and at the
Scientific evening, as well as the monthly general, meeting of
the Zoological Society, both of which occurred early in Dem-
and I then returned the 5 Plates to Mr- Phillips — They were
very much admired but I did not obtain any request for a
supply.

In reference to your next request, I must decline any con-
nection with the sale or publication of this, or indeed any other
foreign work, in this country. The truth is, that having now
been in the business nearly forty years, I begin to be tired of
work; the last part of my History of British Birds will be pub-
lished on the 1st of June 1843; with that part I shall give up
my pen, and write for money no more.

You are kind enough to give me some credit for experi-
ence as a publisher, and some knowledge of the persons who
are likely to be purchasers of works on Natural History here —
My conviction is that you would gain more by paying full com-
mission to an established Bookseller in London who would by
advertising make your works known, and where they might be
obtained — than you will by the best efforts of any private
friend, even though his kindness should induce him to take all
the trouble for nothing.

You say nothing about your family. I hope they are all
well.

I remain, Dear Sir,

Yours very truly

Wm Yarrell.
J. J. Audubon Esqr*

77 William Street.
New York.

In the following letter to Spencer Baird Audubon
was able to outline more fully his final plans for the
western journey:

248 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Audubon to Spencer Fuller ton Baird

New York, Nov. 29, 1842.

My dear Young Friend,

It seems to me as if an age had already elapsed since I
have heard from you or your whereabouts. Neither do I know
clearly whether in the way of correspondence, you are in my
debt, or I am in yours. Nevertheless I now write to you, and
request you to read this letter more than once, and think deeply
on the purport of its contents that you may be the [more]
able to form a true Idea of what I intend to say [to] you, and
for yourself to give me a true answer, on which I can depend,
no matter whether it is to my liking or not.

It is now determined that I shall go towards the Rocky
Mountains at least to the Yellowstone River, and up the latter
Stream four hundred miles, and perhaps go across the Rocky
Mountains. I have it in my power to proceed to the Yellow-
stone by Steamer from St. Louis on the 1st day of April next;
or to go to the "Mountains of the Wind" in the very heart and
bosom of the Rocky Mountains in the company of Sir William
Drommond Stewart, Baronet who will leave on the 1st of May
next also from St. Louis.

It has occurred to me that perchance you would like to
spare a few months of your life, to visit the great Western
Wilderness, and perhaps again prefer going in my Company
in preference to that of any other person? Of this of course
I cannot Judge without your answer to this. I thought that
you would have been in New York long ere this, but not a Word
of you has reached any friend of yours here for several months.
I have had an abundance of applications from different sec-
tions of the country, from Young Gents who proffer much
efficiency, etc., but I do not know them as I know you, and if
the terms which I am about to propose to you will answer
your own views, I wish you to write to me at once so that
I may know how to prepare myself for such a Journey, and
under such circumstances.

Would you like to go with me at any rate? By which I

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 249

mean, whether by Land, or by Water, and undertake, besides
acting towards me as a friend, to prepare whatever skins of
Birds or Quadrupeds, I may think fit for us to bring home.
The Birds, you might have one half as your own, the Quad-
rupeds, (should you wish it) you might have a 4th or every
4th specimen of the same species, reserving to myself all that
is new or exceedingly rare.

I will procure and furnish all the materials for skinning,
preparing, and saving whatever we may find in Ornithology and
in Mammalia, and in all probability (if you think it absolutely
necessary) pay one half your expenses from the time we leave
St. Louis until our return to that city. You will have to work
hard, of course, but then I trust to that the knowledge alone
which you must acquire would prove a sufficient compensation,
and as you already know me pretty well, I need not say to you
that I am not "hard on the trigger."

It will be necessary for }7ou to provide a good double
barrelled Gun, and an excellent Rifle, Shot bag, powder flask,
&c, a good hatchet, and a sufficiency of clothes for something
like a 12 month's Campaign. But if you will write me at once
upon the subject, I can give you a more and a better a/c of all
my intentions, than is at present necessary.

If all goes on as I trust it will go on, we may be back home
by Octr- or Novr- next, 1843.

Do not lose a moment in writing to me in answer to this
after you have thought deeply upon the matter.

Remember me kindly to all your friends, and believe me,

Yours Always,

John J. Audubon.
77 Williams Street, New York.

Baird was unable to reach a decision in the matter,
and Audubon actually wrote five more letters on the
subject and kept a place open for his young friend for
nearly three months. On January 2, 1843, he said that
while it was impossible to determine with any degree of

250 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

accuracy the amount of money the journey might re-
quire, he could "safely say that the sum of $500. would
prove all sufficient, as our passages to the Yellow Stone
will be granted us free; and the expenses from here or
from Carlisle cannot exceed 50$ to St. Louis, and may
be less." "I have given up," he added, "all Idea of
going South this season, being determined to draw
quadrupeds until a few days of my leaving home for this
grand and Last Journey, I intend to make as a Natural-
ist." Again, on January 31, he wrote:

It appears from the whole tenure of your letter, that that
rascally article cash is the cause which prevents you from go-
ing along with me to the Yellowstone River and back. Now,
it happens that although we are far from being rich, we are
all desirous that you should go along with me, because we all
know you, and I particularly so. Therefore, if you will go
with me, and assist me all you can, in the way of hunting,
measuring and dissecting Specimens when I am otherwise en-
gaged, etc. etc. I will furnish you with all that may be neces-
sary for your expenses, excepting your clothing and your gun
or guns, as you may have them.

In still another letter, of February 10, Audubon said:

That your kind mother should feel great reluctance in the
premises, does not astonish me, as my own good Wife was
much against my going on so long a Journey ; but her Strong
Sense of what is best for us all, and as well as in myself, the
perfect confidence that our Maker's Will will be done, she has
now no Scruples of any kind, and as for myself I rely as much
as I ever have done in the Support of the Almighty Being who
has supported and secured me against evils of all sorts in my
Various undertakings, and with this Idea at my heart, I feel
confident that although an Old Man, I could undertake any
Journey whatever, and no matter of their lengths or difficulties.

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LETTER OF EDWARD HARRIS TO AUDUBON, REGARDING HIS INTENTION OF JOINING
THE EXPEDITION TO THE UPPER MISSOURI, JANUARY 31, 1843.

From the Deane MSS.

251

252 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

But I wish you would assure your good mother that to go to
Yellow Stone River, in a good Steamer, as passengers by the
courteous offers of the President of the American Fur Com-
pany who himself will go along with us, that the difficulties that
existed some 30 years ago in such undertakings are now rend-
ered as Smooth and easy as it is to go to Carlisle and return to
N. Y. as many times as would make up the Sum in Miles of
about 3000: Our difficulties (if any there are) will be felt on
our return ; when we must come back to St. Louis in one or 2
open boats in Sep1" and part of Octr next. The passage being
longer or shorter accordingly with the state of the Missouri at
that Season.4

Young Baird would gladly have accompanied Au-
dubon, but the fears of his friends for his health and
safety interposed, and the party as eventually made up
comprised, beside the naturalist, John G. Bell, as tax-
idermist, Isaac Sprague, artist, Lewis Squires, general
assistant and secretary, and his old friend Edward Har-
ris.

Audubon left his home on March 11, 1843, with Vic-
tor, who accompanied him as far as Philadelphia, where
a rendezvous was made before starting west. The party
went first to Baltimore, and by steam cars to Cumber-
land, then by coach through the Gap, and across the
Alleghanies to Wheeling, where a steamer took them
down river to Cincinnati. On March 19 they reached
Louisville, where Audubon spent four days with his
brother-in-law, William G. Bakewell, and on the 28th
they arrived at St. Louis, where the party completed
their outfit. On April 25 they began their ascent to the
Missouri, in the steamer Magnet, a small vessel belong-

4 See William H. Dall, Spencer Fullerton Baird, a Biography (Bibl.
No. 52), pp. 88-91, for the complete letters from which the preceding
extracts have been taken.

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 253

ing to the American Fur Company, with a motley crowd
of trappers, employed by the Company, representing
French Creoles, Canadian French, Indians, and other
nationalities.

During this journey, which lasted eight months, Au-
dubon kept a voluminous journal, which was written in
a fine hand on large sheets of linen paper that could be
easily rolled and carried in his pocket; this was after-
wards sent to Bachman, was returned, and was lost for
fifty years, or until 1896, when it was recovered from an
old secretary by Audubon's granddaughters, one of
whom published it in 1898.5 It is a highly interesting
and spirited narrative from beginning to end, and
abounds in graphic pictures of the Indians and trappers,
the military posts and pioneer settlements, the abundant
bird life and big game, the biggest of which, the buffalo,
was then seen by Audubon in a state of nature for
the first time, the grand and turbulent rivers, and the
smiling or frowning face of the great wilderness so
soon to be changed by the devastating hands of civilized
man.

What Audubon thought to be a new finch, discov-
ered near the Snake Hills in Missouri, was named for
Edward Harris, and though it proved to have been pre-
viously described, the bird is still known as "Harris'
Finch"; a few days later a new vireo, Vireo bellii, re-
ceived the name of John G. Bell, his taxidermist, and
similar honors were passed to artist Isaac Sprague, to
whom was dedicated the little titlark, Aland a spragueii,
now Anthus spragueL

In those days of river navigation, the frequent tying
up for fuel or necessary repairs, not to speak of ground-

5 See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86),
vol. i, pp. 453-532, and vol. ii, pp. 1-196.

254 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ing in a treacherous channel, gave almost daily oppor-
tunities for the hunters to go ashore, and these occa-
sions seldom failed to produce something interesting,
new, or rare. In the Indian country, at Bellevue,
Nebraska, where they touched to land a part of their
cargo, Audubon "saw a trick of the trade, which made
him laugh. Eight cords of wood were paid for with
five tin cups of sugar and three of coffee — value at St.
Louis about twenty-five cents."

They began to meet with buffalo about the mouth
of the James River, in South Dakota, on May 20; the
ground, said Audubon, was literally covered with their
tracks, and the bushes with their hair. On the same day
they discovered "Meadow Larks whose songs and single
notes were quite different from those of the Eastern
States," and this proved to be the first notice of the
Western Meadow Lark, which later appeared as the
Sturnella neglecta in the small edition of his Birds of
America, then in course of publication.

Audubon's opinion of the Indian was modified con-
siderably after having seen him in the western wilder-
ness, and his confidence in George Catlin's descriptions
was completely shattered; "His book," he said, "must,
after all, be .altogether a humbug. Poor devil! I pity
him from the bottom of my soul; had he studied, and
kept up to the old French proverb that says, 'Bon
Renomme vaut mieux que ceinture dore,' he might have
become an honest man— the quintessence of God's

works."

After forty-eight days and seven hours out of St.
Louis, on the 12th of June, they reached Fort Union,
at the mouth of the Yellowstone, where the Omega left
them and returned down river. The country proved so
interesting that the naturalist remained two months at

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 255

the fort, where he occupied the room which had been
used by Maximilian, Prince of Neuwied, when traveling
through the western parts of America ten years before ;
here Audubon made many drawings. Buffalo were
abundant on all sides, and a favorite occupation was
shooting wolves from the ramparts of the fort. On
June 18 they killed two antelope and two deer before
noon, and "immediately after dinner," he said, "the
head of the old male was cut off, and I went to work
outlining it; first small, with the camera lucida, and
then by squares." On the 30th he wrote: "I began
drawing at five this morning, and worked almost with-
out cessation till after three, when becoming fatigued
for want of practice, I took a short walk, regretting that
I could no longer draw twelve or fourteen hours without
a pause, or thought of weariness."

On the 15th of July they started up the shore of the
Yellowstone in a cart. The party soon had had enough
of buffalo hunting, and on one day the naturalist was
nearly speared by a charging bull that had been wound-
ed. "What a terrible destruction of life," he says, "as
it were for nothing, or next to it, as the tongues only
were brought in, and the flesh of these fine animals was
left to beasts and birds of prey, or to rot on the spots
where they fell. The prairies are literally covered with
the skulls of the victims, and the roads the Buffalo
make in crossing the prairies have all the appearance of
heavy wagon tracks." Foreseeing the departure of the
buffalo, he wrote :

One can hardly conceive how it happens, notwithstanding
these many deaths and the immense numbers that are mur-
dered almost daily on these boundless wastes called prairies,
besides the hosts that arc drowned in the freshets, and the hun-

256 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

dreds of young calves who die in early spring, so many are yet
to be found. Daily we see so many that we hardly notice them
more than the cattle in our pastures about our homes. But
this cannot last ; even now there is a perceptible difference in
the size of the herds, and before many years the Buffalo, like
the Great Auk, will have disappeared.

On the 9th of August he added: "I have scarcely
done anything but write this day, and my memorandum
books are now crowded with sketches, measurements,
and descriptions." Those who maintain that a "howling
wilderness" is a place that never howls, should read his
note for August 19: "Wolves howling, and bulls roar-
ing, just like the long continued roll of a hundred
drums"; or this for the 21st: "Buffaloes all over the
bars and prairies, and many swimming ; the roaring can
be heard for miles."

At Fort Union they built a Mackinaw barge forty
feet long, which they christened the "Union," and on
the 16th of August they started for St. Louis, which
was reached in safety on the 19th of October. There
they unloaded, and "sent all things to Nicholas Ber-
thoud's warehouse." "Reached home," said Audubon,
"at 3 p. m., November 6 th, 1843, and thank God, found
all my family quite well."

When Audubon was returning by the canal route
from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, he was sought out by
a young traveler, who afterwards related the following
incident.0 The naturalist, he was told, was under "a
huge pile of green blankets and fur," which he had al-
ready noticed on one of the benches, and had taken for
the fat pile of some western trader. Having waived

•Charles Winterfield (Bibl. No. 149), The American Review, vol. i
(1845); see also Charles W. Webber, Romance of Natural History (Bibl.
No. 173) (1852).

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 257

his choice of a berth in Audubon's favor, he observed
that "the green bale stirred a little, — half turned upon
its narrow resting place, and after a while sat erect, and
showed us, to our no small surprise, that a man was
inside of it. A patriarchal beard fell white and wavy
down his breast ; a pair of hawk-like eyes glanced sharply
out of a fuzzy shroud of cap and collar." When this
stranger, drawn by a sense of irrepressible curiosity, had
ventured near enough to recognize the "noble Roman
countenance" thus obscured, he saw that it was Audu-
bon in his wilderness dress; he was "hale and erect, with
sixty winters upon his shoulders, and like one of his old
eagles, feathered to the heel." Audubon's conversa-
tion, said this writer, was impulsive and fragmentary,
but he showed him with pleasure some of his original
drawings of animals, as well as a living collection of
foxes, badgers and Rocky Mountain deer, which he was
bringing home.

To follow this narrator further:

The confinement we were subjected to on board the canal-
boat was very tiresome to his habits of freedom. We used to
get ashore and walk for hours along the tow-path ahead of the
boat; and I observed with astonishment that, though over
sixty, he could walk us down with ease. . . . His physical
energies seemed to be entirely unimpaired. . . . Another strik-
ing evidence of this he gave us. A number of us were stand-
ing grouped around him on the top of the boat, one clear sun-
shiny morning; we were at the time passing through a broken
and very picturesque region ; his keen eyes, with an abstracted,
intense expression, peculiar to them, were glancing over the
scenery we were gliding through, when suddenly he pointed with
his finger towards the fence of a field, about two hundred yards
off. "See! Yonder is a Fox Squirrel, running along the top
rail. It is not often I have seen them in Pennsylvania." Now

258 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

his power of vision must have been singularly acute, to have dis-
tinguished that it was a Fox Squirrel; for only one other per-
son . . . detected the creature at all.

The second Mrs. Victor G. Audubon 7 said that on
the day the naturalist returned, "the whole family, with
his old friend, Captain Cummings, were on the piazza
waiting for the carriage to come from Harlem . . . He
had on a green blanket coat with fur collar and cuffs;
his hair and beard were very long, and he made a fine
striking appearance. In this dress his son John painted
his portrait."8 This interesting portrait, which is still
in possession of the family, and which is reproduced by
his granddaughter in the work from which we have just
quoted, shows a man whose apparent age, as suggested
by his flowing white hair and grayish white beard, over-
shoots the clearer testimony of his smooth face and
bright eye; as already noticed, Audubon had not then
attained his sixtieth year.

Upon his return at this time Audubon is said to
have been mistaken for a Dunker, or member of a sect
of Quakers noted for their ample beards. On Novem-
ber 29 Bachman wrote: "I am glad to hear that your
great beard is now cut off. I pictured you to myself, as
I saw you in my home, when you came from Florida, via
Savannah. You jumped down from the top of the
stage. Your beard, two months old, was as gray as a
Badger's. I think a grizzly-bear, forty-seven years old,
would have claimed you as 'par nobile fratrum.' Bach-
man was apparently disturbed about Audubon's per-
sonal habits at this time, for he added in the letter just
quoted: "I am a teatotaler. I drink no mine, and do not

7 See Vol. II, p. 294.

8 See Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. ii, Note on pp. 175-6.

EXPEDITION TO THE MISSOURI 259

use snuff. I hope that you are able to say the

" 9

same.

Spencer Baird wrote to Audubon from Washing-
ton, November 24, 1843, to congratulate him upon the
safe return of his western party, saying: "From time
to time short notices of your whereabouts and doings
appeared in the newspaper and a thousand times I
wished that the fears of my friends had not prevented
me from accompanying you to the scenes of action."
Audubon thought that he might well regret the diffi-
culties that had stood in his way; in replying he said
that he had seen "not one Rattlesnake and heard not a
Word of bilious fever, or [experienced] anything more
troublesome than Moschitoes and of these by no means
many"; they had brought home a Swift Fox, an Ameri-
can Badger, and a live Deer, which they thought might
prove to be new, fifteen new birds, as well as a certain
number of quadrupeds, besides "many of the Birds pro-
cured on the Western side of the Big Rocky Hills by
Nuttall and Townsend." He felt that much still re-
mained to be done, his only regret being that he was
not what he "was 25 Years ago, Strong and Active,
for willing he was as much as ever."

In 1844 Audubon brought to a close his octavo edi-
tion of the Birds by adding seventeen species, eleven of
which were new and represented his discoveries on the
Upper Missouri of the previous year. The 500th plate,
and last of the series which marked the end of Audu-
bon's life-long labors in ornithology, was dedicated to
"Baird's Bunting," Emberiza bairdii. "If a trace of
sentiment be permissible in bibliography," said Elliott

9 At the close of the Civil War, Bachman wrote to a friend: "I had
been a snuff-taker for forty years, and I had tried three times to wean
myself from the vice. I have done it effectually now. . . ."

260 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Coues,10 "I should say that the completion of that splen-
did series of plates with the name bairdii was significant ;
the glorious Audubonian sun had set indeed, but in the
dedicating of the species to his young friend Spencer
F. Baird the scepter was handed to one who was to wield
it with a force that no other ornithologist of America
has ever exercised."

10 Bibliographical Appendix to Birds of the Colorado Valley (Bibl.
No. 181).

CHAPTER XXXV

FINAL WORK DAYS

Painting the Quadrupeds — Assistance of Bachman and Audubon's sons —
Copper plates of the Birds go through the fire in New York— Audubon
a spectator at the ruins — Bachman's ultimatum — Success of the illustra-
tions of the Quadrupeds — Bachman's letterpress — Recommendation of
Baird — John W. Audubon in London — Bachman's assistants — His life
and labors — Decline of Audubon's powers — Dr. Brewer's visit — Audu-
bon's last letters — His death at "Minnie's Land."

After 1844 Audubon's remaining energies were de-
voted exclusively to his work on the Quadrupeds, in
which it is necessary to discriminate between the large
folio of illustrations, which began to appear, in parts,
as early as 1842 and which was completed in 1846; the
text, of which he lived to see but one volume finished;
and lastly, the first and only composite edition of both
text and plates, which was published by Victor Audubon
in 1854.1 This series of works, as already noticed, was
produced in collaboration with the Reverend John
Bachman, of Charleston, South Carolina; Bachman as-
sumed entire responsibility for the text, but owing to
his comparative isolation from large libraries, and to
the demands of professional duties, he depended on the
Audubons to supply him with specimens and books.

Honest John Bachman, whose motto was, "Nature,
Truth, and no Humbug," was suffering sadly, he said,
from lack of tools, when he wrote to Victor Audubon in
November, 1844: 2

1 See Bibliography, Nos. 5-7.

2 See C. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No.
191).

261

262 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The books are to be found in New York and Philadelphia,
but are expensive. I would not have you buy them ; but could
you not copy for me such articles as we need?

I enclose my plan. I wish always, a month before the time,
that you would give me notice of the species you intend to put
into the hands of the engraver, and send me, at the same
time, the specimen. I cannot describe without it ; I will guess at

nothing.

I find the labor greater than I expected, and fear that I
may break down and, therefore, cry in time, "Help me Cas-
sius or I sink!" Writing descriptions is slow and fatiguing
work. I cannot, in the careful manner that I am doing them
write more than three in a week. My son-in-law, Haskell, has
copied forty-two closely written pages for me. I cannot
shorten the articles, many of them I ought rather to lengthen.
With patience and the help of all, I hope, however, to get on—
the work may be lighter as we proceed.

The following is my daily practice: I am up at 4 A. M.,
and work till breakfast, and recently, when parochial duties
would permit, have kept on until 3 P. M.

The brush of my old friend, Audubon, is a truth-teller. I
regard his drawings as the best in the world. Let us be very
careful to correct any errors of description that have crept in
on the plates— I see a few in the lettering— they can be cor-
rected in the letter-press ; and let us be so cautious as to have
nothing in the future to correct. There is but one principle
on which a just man can act; that is, always to seek the truth
and to abide by it.

Bachman wrote again on the 29th of that month:

About the little mouse— I cannot see a needle in a haystack ;
or give it a name without knowing what it is. Friend, descrip-
tions cannot be written, as a man works at making Jews-harps
—so many a dozen in a given time. My credit, as well as your
father's, is so deeply concerned, that / mill not publish a day
before I am ready. . • •

FINAL WORK DAYS 263

I have such confidence in you, that I believe that you will
do all that I wish. In doing this, however, you will have your
hands full. Mine are so — God knows ! Will not my old friend,
Audubon, wake up, and work as he used to do, when we banged
at the Herons and the fresh water Marsh-hens ?

Bachman explained that he was the "schoolmaster," and
when the boys were a little lazy, he would have to apply
the whip.

In March, 1844, Spencer Baird sent Audubon a live
Pennant's Marten or Fisher, a rather rare animal even
at that time, and now all but extinct. Said Baird: 3

It was found in company with an older one, in Peter's
mountain, six miles above Harrisburg about five weeks ago.
After a most desperate resistance the old one was killed, hav-
ing; beaten off a large pack of dogs, to whose assistance the
hunters were obliged to run. This individual ran up a tree,
and being stoned by the men, jumped off to a distance of forty
feet! when being a little stunned by the leap they ran up
quickly and threw their coats over it, and then secured it. The
old one measured three feet and a half from nose to end of
tail, and was about one third larger than this. ... It seems
to be in very good health, and is without exception the most
unmitigatedly savage beast I ever saw. The Royal Bengal
Tiger, or the Laughing Hyena are neither of them circum-
stances to it.

Audubon used this marten as the model for his illustra-
tion of the species (shown in natural size, Plate xli of
the Quadrupeds) ; in noticing its habits later, he said: 4

3 See Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. .51), The Auk, vol. xxiv (1907). To Mr.
Deane I am indebted for Audubon's copy of a letter to John Bachman, soon
to follow; this was written on several blank sheets at the end of his "Copy
of my Journal from Fort Union homeward. Commencing (Sunday) Aug.
16th (1843) at 12 o'clock, the moment of our departure."

4 The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America (Bibl. No. 6), vol. i,
p. 312 (London, 1847).

264 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

We kept this individual alive for some days, feeding it on
raw meat, pieces of chicken, and now and then a bird. It was
voracious, and very spiteful, growling, snarling and spitting
when approached, but did not appear to suffer much uneasi-
ness from being held in captivity, as, like many other preda-
cious quadrupeds it grew fat, being better supplied with food
than when it had been obliged to cater for itself in the woods.

Baird also tried to secure for Audubon the "far-
famed catamount" alive, which, from stories related by
hunters, he thought might be different from the young
of the panther or puma, and also a specimen of the true
black fox in the flesh; though unsuccessful in either
quest, his efficient aid was greatly appreciated by his
friend. In February, 1845, Baird paid a visit to the
Audubons at their Hudson River home, where he was
warmly received; as his biographer relates,5 upon leav-
ing he was invited to select any duplicate bird skins he
desired from the naturalist's collection, then at John G.
Bell's taxidermist shop in New York; he accepted this
generous offer, and chose about forty specimens.

It is evident that some trouble-maker had disturbed
the serenity of John Bachman's mind when the follow-
ing interesting letter was written by Audubon to balm
the feelings of his old friend. It is evident that Audubon
at this time expected to collaborate in the letterpress of
their work, but that plan, according to Bachman's own
statement, was never carried out:

Audubon to John Bachman
My DEAR FRIEND [Mnranrt Land] Jan. 8, 1845.

Never have I been so much astonished as I have been at read-
ing your letter to Victor, and to which I feel myself bound to
answer at once.

"William H. Dall, Spencer Fullerton Baird, a Biography (Bibl. No.
52), p. 121.

DRAWINGS FOR "'THE VIVIPAROUS QUADRUPEDS OF NORTH AMERICA": ABOVE, AMER-
ICAN PORCUPINE, DATED "NEW YORK, MARCH 6, 1842," AND PUBLISHED
IN 1844; BET.OW, RABBITS.

After the originals in water color in possession of the American Museum of

Natural History, New York.
Published by courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.

FINAL WORK DAYS 265

In the first place you must have been most unmercifully mis-
led by the "mutual friend" of whom you speak, when saying
that through that individual yon did understand that I never
used your name as a coadjutor in the work, which is now pub-
lishing on the Quadrupeds of North America under the names
of both I and you — Why you should have taken such a report
or saying as truth is actually beyond my most remote thought,
and again, why did you not long ago, write to me at once on
this mysterious subject.

But to put an end to all this stuff, let me assure you that
nothing of the kind has ever taken place, and this I could well
prove by upwards of one hundred of our last subscribers, all of
whom would be ready to testify that before receiving their
names on my list, I always mentioned your name to each of
them, and many that know you were glad that I had so good
and so learned a man at my elbow — I should amazingly be glad
to know who the "mutual friend" is, as I think I could give
him a lesson on propriety, being a mutual friend, that would
serve that kind gentleman for the residue of his life — But
enough of this, and all that I am sorry for is that you should
not have answered "my short letters," in some of which I par-
ticularly requested you to forward me a fine black bear and
one or two wolves, by which you would have saved me fully fifty
dollars as I have had to pay sixty dollars for two of these vile
rascals, and two hundred dollars for a pair of Elks, besides
paying the highest of prices to draw other animals —

Now my friend I wish you would set in real earnest, and
whenever it is convenient to you in preparing the letter-press
for our work. I have made a beginning and have written Ten
articles already in days, to wit all the plates of N° 1, and

the first of N° 2 which are as follows —

Lynx Rufus— Wild-Cat

Arctomys monax — Maryland Marmot

Lepus Townsendii

Neotoma Floridana

Sciurus Richardsonii

Canis (Vulpes) fulvus

266 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

The Beaver

The history of the Bison 28 pages
and Fiber Zybethicus (muskrat) 12 pages,
Tamias quadrivittatus
This will shew you that I have not been very Idle since I
began and I should like to know from you, whether you would
like to see what I have said of these, as if you do, I will have
them copied as soon as I receive your letter, and will forward
the whole, and the additional written in the interim, at the same
time. I have a beautiful drawing of a fine male moose, that
of the Elk is already engraved, and next week we will forward
to the engraver no less than five or six drawings of the best
quality, by the way I am sorry that you should look upon
the Texan Skunk as a bad figure. The animal is an ungraceful
one in its Singular Colouring, but it is nevertheless quite true
to nature, with all its specific characters to a T.

Victor wrote to you that I was anxious to have your opin-
ion about the Title page and I hope you will send me your
ideas forthwith on that subject. I send you now by mail a long
article about our work which I conceive and hope will prove
to you that the "mutual friend" knew but very little of my
feelings or actions or sayings as regards you —

I really & most truly regret that you should. have been put
out, and mis-led about this our work by a third party, who
must to say the least of it [have] abused your credulity to the
very extreme.

However, the sooner forgotten, the sooner mended, it is
with deeply felt regret from every one of my Family that we
read the account in your letter of the condition of your dear
wife, but hope that she will accompany you early next spring
to visit our humble but comfortable residence. Now do Come !
Present our joint regards to every one of your family, and
believe me when I say that none will ever feel more delighted
than I, to hear of the welfare of the beautiful "Rabbit" —

And now that I am exceedingly fatigued, having been writ-
ing for upwards of seven hours, I will wish you good night &
all the blessings that God may grant to [the] good man and

FINAL WORK DAYS 267

to every member of his family — Do not forget me near your
Sweet heart.

Your ever faithfully attached &

Sincere friend

J. J. A.

In July, 1845, a destructive fire devastated a large
section of the city of New York, including the ware-
house in which the copperplates of Audubon's Birds
were stored; many believed that the plates had been
ruined, and one of these was the writer who after wit-
nessing the event gave the following dramatic account : 6

But who had lost most of all that pale crowd that hung like
ghosts around the scene, and gazed with watery eyes, and blue
compressed lips, over the ruin? An erect old man, with long
white hair, glanced his strong bright eye as coldly over the
glowing, smoking desolation, as an eagle would, who watched
the sunrise chasing mists up from the valley. J. J. Audubon
looks over the grave of the labor of forty years !

The Plates of the Birds of America are buried beneath
those smoldering piles ! Ye money changers dare not break the
stillness with a sob, though the last cent of your sordid hoards
be gone ! ... go away ! Ye have lost nothing ! . . . Yet
that dauntless old man is not dismayed ; he and Fate knew each
other's faces in battle long ago. Let those who know how to
love and venerate such labors — to sympathize with such griev-
ous calamities, exhibit it in their prompt patronage of the new
work now issuing — The Quadrupeds of America — and in the
care which shall be taken to preserve the volumes of the Plates
of the Birds, now in existence — the value of which will be five-
fold increased !

When Baird heard the untoward news, he wrote
from Carlisle, August 4, 1845: "It is with sincerest re-

8 Charles Winterfield (Bibl. No. 150), The American Review, vol. ii
(1845).

268 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

gret that I see by the papers that your copper plates
were injured or perhaps ruined by the fire which oc-
curred a few weeks ago. Various reports are circulated
respecting your loss, and among so many contradictory
ones it is difficult to get at the truth of the case. Might
I ask you to let me know the truth of the matter." In
a postscript to this letter he added: "I forgot to say
that I have been elected professor of Natural History in
Dickinson College. The situation is entirely nominal,
nothing to do & no salary whatever." Audubon replied
promptly on the 7th of August: 7 'You have been too
well-informed about the plates of our large work. They
have indeed passed through the great fire of the 19 ul°;
but we are now engaged in trying to restore them to
their wonted former existence; although a few of them
will have to be reingraved for use, if ever that work is
republished in its original size at all."

Bachman, who paid a long visit to the Audubons
in the late summer or early autumn of 1845, said that
while he was at "Minnie's Land," Audubon painted
"Le Conte's Pine Mouse" with his usual facility and
skill, but he detected a change in his mental powers.
For a long time Bachman had complained of the want
of books, which the younger Audubons failed to supply,
and of lack of specimens, which no doubt their father
wished to retain for use in his own studies, until at
length his patience was gone and he tried another form
of appeal. The following letter 8 to their mutual friend,
Edward Harris, shows that he was then determined to
throw up the responsibility which had been assumed in
the Quadrupeds unless what he regarded as "reasonable
requests" were complied with forthwith:

7 William H. Dall, op. cit., p. 124.
"Jeanes MSS. See Note, Vol. I, p. 180.

FINAL WORK DAYS 269

John Bachman to Edward Harris

Charleston, Decern. 24, 1845.

Friend Harris, you can be of service to me, to the Audubons
& the cause of science. I will tell you how.

I find the Audubons are not aware of what is wanted in
the publication of the Quadrupeds. All they care about is to
get out a No. of engravings in two months. They have not
sent me one single book out of a list of 100 I gave them and
only 6 lines copied from a book after having written for them
for 4 years. When he published his birds he collected hundreds
of thousands of specimens. In his Quadrupeds — tell it not in
Gath — He never collected or sent me one skin from New York
to Louisiana along the whole of the Atlantic States. Now he
is clamorous for the letter press — -on many of the Quadrupeds
he has not sent me one line & and on others he has omitted
even the geographical range- — I know nothing of what he did
in the West having never received his journal & not twenty
lines on the subject. I am to write a book without the infor-
mation he promised to give — without books of reference &
above all what is a sine qua non to me without specimens. In
the meantime my name is attached to the book, and the public
look to us to settle our American species, and alas I have not
the materials to do so.

Now this you can do for me. I am willing to write every
description and every line of the book. I do it without fee or
reward. But — 1. Books of reference or copies of them he must
obtain. 2. He must publish no species without my approba-
tion. He has made some sad mistakes already. 3. He must
procure such information as I shall write for. 4. He must
send some person — say when John returns — to make a tour for
collecting specimens through the states of the west especially.
I find the smaller Rodentia differing every 600 miles. Richard-
son's species differ from those of New York — ours are once
more different from those of N. Y. Leib [?] found a number
of new species in Illinois. The New Orleans squirrels differ
from ours — California once more new. Now on this last par-

270 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ticular — the necessity of giving me specimens to describe from
I wish you to speak to Audubon. I cannot consent to impose
on the public. I cannot settle the species without specimens.
[Tell] him what I have written and [of what I have] com-
plained. Show him this letter if you should [think] it will ac-
complish the end. I shall soon have the volume finished as
well as I am able from the scanty materials with which I am
furnished. Then they will be clamorous for the second vol-
ume. Now I do not like to make any threats, but if my rea-
sonable requests are not complied with I have made up my mind
not to write another line at the end of the first volume. I
have not made up my mind hastily. It is the result of four
years remonstrance, mortification, and disappointment. Once
and for nearly a year I gave up the matter in hopeless despair.
I again resumed it on the solemn promise of Victor to do all I
wished. Three months have since gone round and not one
book sent — only ten lines copied — and a constant clamor for
the letter press. But I am called off.

If Audubon was remiss in supplying the necessary-
materials, it is possible that Bachman, in turn, may have
failed to appreciate the load which his friend's shoulders
had carried for the five years then past. To Bachman
specimens and books were, of course, absolutely essen-
tial, but Audubon needed them also, as well as sub-
scribers and the large sums of money necessary to keep
his great enterprises in orderly movement. At all
events, Bachman's ultimatum brought immediate re-
sults, and it might not be wide of the mark to affirm that
to the tactful Harris we virtually owe the completion of
that admirable work, The Viviparous Quadrupeds of
North America. It should be noticed that at the time
the complaining letter was sent, John W. Audubon was
in Texas, engaged in making collections, though, as it
proved, with little success; Victor searched the country

FINAL WORK DAYS 271

for the needed books, and his father's Missouri River
journal was despatched to Charleston, without delay.
On New Year's Day, 1846, Bachman wrote to his
friend :

As I do not like to disappoint you in anything, I send you
one of the articles. It is about a fair sample of the whole. . . .
I try to incorporate as much as I can of your own, but, in most
cases, your notes have come too late.

You see how plain Haskell writes : I should think that by
this time, he has copied three hundred pages as correctly as the
inclosed.

In his letter of March 6 he said :

For the last four nights, I have been reading your journal.
I am much interested, though I find less about the quadrupeds
than I expected. The narratives are particularly spirited,
and often instructive, as well as amusing. All that you write
on the spot, I can depend on, but I never trust to the memory
of others, any more than to my own. . . .

To return to your Journal. I am afraid that the shadows
of the Elk, Buffalo, and Bighorn hid the little Marmots, Squir-
rels and Jumping Mice. I wish you had engaged some of the
hunters to set traps. I should like to get the Rabbit that led
you so weary a chase. Write to S.9 and find out some way of
getting — not his princess brain-eating, horse-straddling squaw,

9 For "C," meaning Alexander Culbertson, a young Englishman, famous
rider and shot, then in charge of Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellow-
stone. Audubon, with the assistance of Sprague, painted his portrait and
that of his wife, a Blackfoot Indian princess, who also was noted for her
skill in horsemanship. "I lost the head of my first [buffalo] bull head,"
said Audubon, "because I forgot to tell Mrs. Culbertson that I wished
to save it, and the princess had its skull broken open to enjoy its brains.
Handsome, and really courteous and refined in many ways, I cannot recon-
cile myself to the fact that she partakes of raw animal food, with such
evident relish." (Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals, vol. ii,

P- HI).

For previous and following extracts, see C. L. Bachman, of. at.,

p. 208.

272 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

but what is better than such a specimen from the Blackfoot
country — 1st. The Skunk ; 2nd, Hares, in Winter colors ; and
3rd, the Rabbit that you chased. In your Journal your de-
scriptions of Buffalo hunts are first rate. I don't like my
article on the "Beaver" ; I shall have to write it over again.
If I could only borrow Temminck's large work. Every library
here is open to me, and you would be astonished to see the num-
ber of books in my own library ; but the scientific works of close
comparison are not among them. I had written letter after
letter, but might have saved ten dollars postage.

Audubon wrote to Baird on February 2, 1846, to
remind him of the Catamount, which was thought not
to be "the Cougar," and of the Black Fox: "for the
latter," he said, "I do give you my word that I would
willingly pay you Twenty Dollars by a draft upon us
at Sight." In another letter from "Minnie's Land, N.
Y.," of March 14, he said:10

Could you procure a black and a Silver Fox for us, we will
be willing to give a good price for either in the flesh, and pre-
served in common New England Rum, and forwarded by ex-
press to 78 John St, N.Y.

We expect to see John at home in about Six or Seven
weeks. He has made a very poor Journey of this one, and will
have to go to Europe this summer, I have no doubt.

Concerning his son's journey to Texas, Audubon
had written Spencer Baird, September 30, 1845: 1X

My son John will leave this for the West and South-West,
as far as the confines of Texas, about the last of next month,
and intends being absent until the first of March. Would you
like to go with him provided you can pay your own expenses?

10 See William H. Dall, op. cit., pp. 130-2.

11 Ibid., p. 126.

FINAL WORK DAYS 273

He will take one of our Servant men along to help him in the
procuring of Quadrupeds and Birds, of which he hopes to pro-
cure some, if not a good number of new Species.

As Baird gave no reply, Audubon sat down on Christ-
mas Day, 1845, and wrote again to his young friend: 12

I hope and trust that you were not offended at my letter,
when I wrote you on the Subject of accompanying our son
John to Texas where he is now I hope safe and sound, and I
believe at Corpus Christi. . . .

... I have at last received a fine Red Fox from our Friend
Ed. Harris, who although he did not kill it, obtained the
Cunning Animal very shortly after its death. I have drawn it
to the size of life, and I think made a good figure of it.

I have been drawing pretty constantly these last past
weeks and have finished 6 plates for the Engravers. . . . We
are all hard at Work preparing the letterpress for the 1 st
Vol. of the Quadrupeds, a copy of which I hope to send to you
about the beginning of April.

Audubon's prediction in regard to his son was cor-
rect, and after John's return from Texas, in April,
1846, he started for England on June 10, with his wife
and family; he remained in Europe until May, 1847,
engaged, as his father said, "in making figures of those
arctic animals, of which accessible specimens exist only
in the museums of that quarter of the globe."

The Audubons, as we have seen, now tried to keep
John Bachman better supplied, and in the spring of
1846 sent him several boxes of skins, with the urgent
request that all which pertained to animals that had not
been figured be returned as soon as possible. On March
13 Victor wrote that Temminck's monograph could not
be found in all America, not in Boston, or Philadelphia,

12 Ibid,, p. 129.

274 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

but that a copy would be ordered from Europe at once.
In those days Charleston was farther removed in time
from New York than California is now from Boston;
two weeks was required for a letter of one naturalist
to reach the other, and the difficulties of cooperation
were correspondingly great. On May 31 Audubon ac-
knowledged the return of the skins, but said: "Judge of
my astonishment, when I could not find a single one of
the small animals, Shrews, and Scalops argentatus, the
latter of which I am anxious to draw at once."

The summer and autumn of 1846 bore heavily on
John Bachman, subject as he then was to a "thousand
calls and interruptions," and "bowed down, and almost
distracted, with anxieties and grief." 13 But the first
volume of the letterpress which had given him so much
trouble was finished in November, and was published by
Audubon at the close of this year. It was at once recog-
nized as a standard and authoritative work, which was
then without a competitor in America, and as Louis
Agassiz affirmed, without an equal in Europe. At the
time of its issue the twentieth number of the folio illus-
trations was nearly ready; the text itself had 271 sub-
scribers, calling for 281 copies,14 though only the eastern
cities had then been canvassed.

Early in 1846 Baird wrote to Audubon:15 "I have
made drawings of the sculls of our quadrupeds which
are at your service if you want them. They are Mink,

"Mrs. Harriet Bachman died in July, 1846, and almost immediately
a daughter was stricken with a fatal disease; "It seizes," said the father,
"with a deadly hold, weakens the cords of life; and only relinquishes its
fatal grasp, when life is extinct." (See C. L. Bachman, op. cit.)

14 New York City furnished (for vol. i) 82 subscribers, who took 86
copies; Philadelphia, 33; Boston, 27 (28 copies); and Baltimore, 15. In
1854 Victor Audubon obtained 129 subscribers for the second edition (pub-
lished with reduced plates) in three days.

"For this and the following extract, see Ruthven Deane (BJbl. No.
51), loc. cit., p. 65.

THE

VIVIPAROUS QUADRUPEDS

Of

NORTH AMERICA.

BY

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, F.RS,. Ere. Etc

AND

THE REV. JOHN BACHMAN. D.D. Eic Etc

VOL. h

LONDON-
WILEY AND PUTNAM.

1847.

TITLE PAGE OF VOLUME I OF THE ENGLISH EDITION OF THE TEXT OV
"THE VIVIPAROUS QUADRUPEDS OF NORTH AMERICA."

275

276 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Wild Cat, Ground Hog, Lepus Sylvaticus, Neotoma
Floridana and others. I have got a Camera Lucida now
and intend trying to draw with it. Anything I can do
for you in this way will be cheerfully done." When he
wrote again, towards the close of this year, some impor-
tant events had happened, as shown by this letter :

Spencer Fullerton Baird to Audubon

Carlisle Nov. 4> 1846.
Dear Mr. Audubon

I have been intending to write for a long time, to find out
how you all are at Minnie's Landing, and how yourself is par-
ticularly, but have put it off from time to time for various rea-
sons. I can do so no longer, and must beg you to let me know
these particulars.

Since my last visit to you, two pretty important events
have happened to me. The first was getting married, the sec-
ond, settling down steadily in my Professional chair.16 My
wife is the only daughter of Col. Churchill Inspector Gen. of
the Army, now with Gen. Wool in Mexico. She suits me ex-
actly, being as fond of birds & snakes & fishes etc. as myself.
I have even given her a lesson or two in taxidermy.

My duties as professor consist in teaching Animal Physi-
ology, Natural Theology & Mathematics. My salary is small
$400 but I hope will be larger hereafter. I have to work hard,
but that is good for me.

Please let me know how the quadrupeds get along. Is the
first vol. published? How does John get along in England?
What has become of his Texas birds?

Please to tell me the address of your friend Ayres. I
have been collecting fishes for some weeks, and wish to corre-

18 In the summer of 1846 Baird's nominal position in Dickinson College
had been changed to an active one by his election to a professorship of
chemistry and natural history, and his marriage had followed in August.
The college had about one hundred students enrolled at that time, and the
grammar, or preparatory, school attached to it, about half as many more.
See Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 51), The Auk, vol. xxiv, p. 65 (1907).

FINAL WORK DAYS 277

spond & exchange with him on this subject. I can send him a
good many species.

Please give my love to all your kind family. My wife (to
whom two years ago I gave a picture of yourself, as the most
acceptable present) sends hers also, and desires exceedingly to
see one to whom her husband owes so many obligations of every
kind. Believe to be as ever

Yours most affectionately

Spencer F. Baird.

Audubon's immediate reply was as follows : 17
Audubon to Spencer Fullerton Baird

MlNNIESLAND.

Nov. 8th, 1846.
My dear Friend,

We were very happy to hear of your Success in obtaining
a Professorship. I wish you had been more minute as to the
amount of your Salary as I consider 400$ as a very small
sum. If you have not a house, fuel, and furniture, &c &c &c to
compensate for so small a sum, and having so much to per-
form for it. We are all glad that you have a good help-
mate in the shape of a wife, and we would be very glad to have
you under our roof, even now ; but as the winter is now fast ap-
proaching we hope to see you certainly some time next spring,
or during the summer, as you know that then our place is
worthy to reside at. The fishing is then Capital. The resi-
dence of our Friend, W. O. Ayers, is on Long Island, and I
think that a letter addressed to him at Sag-Harbor, will be
sure to be received by that good Friend of ours.

He will be glad to receive the collection of fishes which you
have procured for him, and I know will be most happy to ex-
change for other fishes or subjects if you should desire any
at his hands. Please to give your Dear Lady our best love,
and congratulations on her having such a capitally perfect

17 For this and the two following letters, see ibid., pp. 66-69.

278 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

husband. We are all well at present. I have not done anything
with the Birds which, indeed, my son Victor has sent to the
Academy of Philadelphia. I suppose I need not look any more
for a Black Fox in the flesh from you during the next winter.
Consider me always my Dear Friend,

Your most sincerely attached,

John J. Audubon.

Should you procure a black fox, be sure to forward him
uncut to our office New York 78 John Street. Adieu, and
God bless both you and your Dear Wife.

This is a mistake, I brought them back, V. G. A.

The letter press will be ready in a few days. I will for-
ward a Copy to you to Philada. from whence you can no doubt
easily get it. I will join my Father, dear Mr. Baird, in con-
gratulations, and in sincere wishes for your happiness & wel-
fare.

Yours faithfully,

V. G. Audubon.

Victor Audubon's gift of the volume was acknowl-
edged by Baird on January 19, 1847, when he said:

I have been trying for some time past to find time for
writing and thanking you for the copy of the Viviparous text.
Never had mortal man such a feast as I in turning over the
pages and reading the interesting and copious accounts of the
habits of animals, many of which were unknown to me beyond
the name. I was exceedingly gratified by the kind terms I
found myself mentioned throughout the book, more so than
I deserve. Be assured that no effort of mine however humble
shall be spared to assist in the perfecting a labor so stupendous
and important as that in which you are engaged. Would that
I could be of more substantial aid by sending half a dozen sub-
scribers, I may do so yet, who knows.

FINAL WORK DAYS 279

There was soon another matter of vital importance
which Baird wished to announce to his friend, and, on
February 8, he wrote Audubon:

Very much to my astonishment I received last Saturday a
letter from Mr. Dana saying that he had written to Dr. Picker-
ing that I would make a good curator of the Smithsonian in-
stitute, and advising me if I wished the place to write im-
mediately to Prof. Henry and enclose my credentials. Now
I would like the situation amazingly and write to ask you to
make out a flaming recommendation for the place & send me
as soon as possible. Say what you please about qualifica-
tion &c. I would be obliged to you for the exertion of any
personal influence you may have on the board of Regents.
When there I would hope to be materially useful to you in
your labors.

This was followed, on February 11, by a cordial let-
ter from Audubon, in which he said:

I am quite convinced myself that no one can easily be found
so well adapted for such a trust as yourself and if my testi-
money as to your knowledge and high character and industry,
and your zeal in seeking a perfect acquaintance with the vari-
ous branches of Natural History, and all the scientific and
literary pursuits which have heretofore occupied you, may be
of any service, please present this note to the Honorable Board
of Regents, who I trust will receive it as an evidence of my
ardent desire for your success, the more readily as I have the
honor, I think, of knowing some of the Board personally.

Spencer Fullerton Baird's subsequent career, fol-
lowing his appointment as Assistant Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution in July, 1850, as successor to
Professor Henry, its first Secretary, as the organizer
of the United States National Museum and the Fish

280 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Commission, now the Bureau of Fisheries, as one of the
ablest students of birds and fishes which the country has
ever produced, as well as the friend of science and sci-
entific men everywhere, is now well known, and has been
ably set forth by his most recent biographer. 18

John W. Audubon spent the winter of 1846-47 in
London, where he was engaged in painting subjects for
his father's work on the Quadrupeds. While he was

john w. audubon's inscription in a copy of volume i of the text of the

"QUADRUPEDS" (ENGLISH EDITION) PRESENTED TO JOHN E. GRAY.

there, arrangements were made for the publication in
that city of the first volume of the letterpress; this ap-
peared in May, 1847,19 closely following the American
edition of the previous year, and it was the only Euro-
pean issue of the text of that work. At this time also
John Audubon made the acquaintance of the distin-
guished zoologist, John Edward Gray, then in charge
of the great collections which were being brought to-
gether under his direction at the British Museum. Gray
was asked to furnish descriptions of the animals which
the younger Audubon had painted, but, as will appear
from the following letter, he declined : 20

18 William H. Dall, op. cit., which see also for preceding extract.
"See Vol. II, p. 275; and Bibliography, No. 6.

20 This hastily written note, possibly a duplicate of the one actually
sent, was inserted in a copy of The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North

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FINAL WORK DAYS 281

John Edward Gray to John Woodhouse Audubon

4 May 1847

Beit. Museum

My dear Sir

I am very sorry that I am so occupied that I cannot under-
take to furnish you with the descriptions of the American
Mammalia which you have figured here but I think you will find
that Dr Richardsons descriptions are so accurate and detailed
that you had better copy them for the work than have more
imperfect descriptions by a less experienced and minute de-
scriber.

at the same time should Dr Bachman on composing the
Work want any note or the distinction between any two species
or the description of any one wh have not contained in Rich-
ardson Work & he will write to me I shall have great pleasure
in immediately replying to his request —

Wishing you and your family a pleasant voyage believe me

Yours truly

J. E. Gray

Bachman was married in 1849 to Maria Martin,21 his
former wife's sister, who had aided Audubon in drawing
the accessories of his large plates. While engaged upon
the Quadrupeds ; he wrote to Victor Audubon, from
Madison Springs, Georgia, on June 30 of that year, as
follows : 22

I began working four hours a day, now I can work for
twelve. I shall lessen the hours, should I find my strength fail-

America (vol. i, London, 1847) which I purchased in London, August,
1913, and which bore this inscription, in autograph, on the title:

J. E. Gray.
from J W. Audubox
with grateful Recolections
May 4. 1847.

21 Her assistance to Audubon was recognized in his dedication to her
of "Maria's Woodpecker," Picus martince (see Ornithological Biography
vol. v, p. 181).

22 See C. L. Bachman, op. cit., p. 270.

<f£

^^-/f <^£ -&r f£~

*>&*~*

liTTER OF JOHN BACHMAN, NOVEMBER 7, 1846, ADDRESSED TO MR. GEORGE OATES,

CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.

From the Jeanes MSS.

282

FINAL WORK DAYS 283

ing. This is my tenth working-day. I have finished seventeen
articles, and arranged notes for another. I have used as many
of your notes as I could. Maria copies carefully. She lops
off to the right and the left with your notes and mine: she
corrects, criticizes, abuses, and praises us by turns. Your
father's notes, copied from his journal, are valuable — they con-
tain real information ; some of the others are humbug and
rigmarole ; but you have done so well as to surprise us. . . .

I hope that if nothing untoward happens, the Second Vol-
ume will be finished in a month, and the Third Volume next win-
ter.

About thirty years later, when Victor Audubon's
sister-in-law 23 was making a disposition of his literary
effects, a bundle of manuscripts was saved and given
to Mr. George Bird Grinnell. Included in it were a
number of Audubon's letters, which are now reproduced,
as well as a considerable section of the printer's copy of
The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, Volume
I; this was in various handwritings, including little of
Bachman's himself, much of Victor's and of John G.
Bell's ; a little of this copy also was made by the second
Mrs. Bachman and by other and unknown hands, pos-
sibly those of one of Bachman's daughters and of his
son-in-law, Reverend John Haskell, all of whom are
known to have assisted in this labor.

When we recall the disadvantages under which John
Bachman worked, it must be acknowledged that he was
deserving of all the credit which he received. Born of
Swiss and German stock at Rheinbeck, New York, in
1790, he clearly remembered walking in the mock
funeral procession that was held in his village when the
country was mourning the death of Washington in 1799.

23 Miss Eliza Mallory, who in 1874 was living in the Victor Audubon
house.

284 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

From early boyhood he was an ardent enthusiast in the
study of nature, at a time when such studies were gen-
erally frowned upon in country districts as not only
idle but positively harmful. He trapped the beaver,
and from the sale of its skins was able to make his first
purchase of books on natural history. While a young
man he became acquainted with Alexander Wilson and
learned to know him well, having joined him in field
excursions and collected birds for him in northern New
York; on Wilson's recommendation he succeeded both
him and his nephew, William Duncan, in the Elwood
School, at Milestown, Pennsylvania, where he taught
for a year. While there, a youth of barely fifteen, he
was invited, no doubt through the influence of Wilson,
to meet Alexander von Humboldt at a dinner given in
honor of the great traveler at Philadelphia in 1804.
From a pastorate in Shagticoke, New York, Bachman in
1815 went to Charleston, South Carolina, where he pre-
sided over the Lutheran church for nearly sixty years,
and became thoroughly identified with the South. Be-
loved as few men ever are in their community, he was
widely honored for his attainments in natural science.
In an address on Humboldt, dictated by Bachman
when in his eightieth year, and too feeble to deliver it
himself, he alluded to the event noticed above to show
"how scanty, in those days, was the material in natural
science." Among the few naturalists who were present
on the occasion of the dinner, which was held in Peak's
Museum, were, he said : 24

the two Bartrams, Wilson, the ornithologist, Lawson, his en-
graver, George Ord and a few others. . . . Few speeches were

24 See C. L. Bachman, op. cit., p. 391. John Bachman died at Charleston,
February 24, 1874.

FINAL WORK DAYS 285

made and those were short — there was no formality. . . .
Humboldt was then, as he was afterwards, in every society,
"the observed of all observers" ... I saw him every day dur-
ing the few days he remained in Philadelphia. He inserted my
name in his note-book, and for the last sixty years we cor-
responded at long intervals. ... It would be very gratify-
ing to me, and interesting to your societies, if I could have
exhibited to you his autograph in some of his letters ; but,
alas ! my whole library and all my collections in Natural His-
tory, the accumulation of the labors of a long life, were burnt
by Sherman's vandal army, and, with the exception of a single
letter, which, by accident, fell into the hands of another member
of my family, I possess no memorials of one who condescended
to speak of me as a friend.

As we have noticed, Audubon's large illustrations of
the Quadrupeds were completed in 1846; this marked
the ebb tide of his powers, and his son, John, who had
painted nearly one-half of the originals of the large
pdates, like Victor, continued to aid Bachman in the
prosecution of that work. The first number of this
lithographic series was introduced by the common Amer-
ican wildcat, or Lynx rufus, in three-quarters natural
size, followed by the proverbial ground hog, "Mary-
land marmot," or woodchuck, shown in both young and
adult state, in the size of life. Plate No. 4 reproduced
an exquisite drawing of four Florida rats climbing over
a pine branch. Some of the elder Audubon's plates of
squirrels are particularly fine and recall the best of
his more famous bird pictures; the gray fox (No. 3,
Plate xxi) is sniffing at a feather blown from a farmer's
yard; in another drawing a rascally old black rat and
its three young ones are robbing a hen's nest and break-
ing up the eggs ; Hudson Bay squirrels reach after hazel
nuts which hang in clusters from green boughs above;

286 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

opossums, with sardonic grin, are making for the ripe,
orange fruits of the persimmon, holding to the branch
with their rat-like, coiled tails; the swift fox (Vulpes
velox) sits on the ground, barking like a dog, with head
up-turned, while the better known red fox (No. 18,
Plate lxxxvii) struggles in an old-fashioned steel trap,
the toothed jaws of which have gripped a paw above the
heel, and you observe that his tail is where, in the cir-
cumstances, it is bound to be — between his legs. While
many of these plates are of the highest degree of excel-
lence, the colors are apt to be too vivid and the execu-
tion is far from uniform.

Thomas M. Brewer, a valued friend and correspon-
dent,25 in response to an urgent request, "ere it be too
late," paid a visit to the famous naturalist on the Fourth
of July, 1846, of which he has given this record: 26

I found him in a retreat well worthy of so true a lover of
nature. It was a lovely spot, on a well-wooded point running
out in the river. His dwelling was a large old-fashioned wooden
house, from the veranda of which was a fine view, looking both
up and down the stream, and around the dwelling were grouped
several fine old forest trees of beech and oak. The grounds
were well stocked with pets of various kinds, both birds and
beasts, while his wild feathered favorites, hardly less confiding,
had their nests over his very doorway. Through the grounds
ran a small rivulet, over which was a picturesque rural bridge.

The patriarch . . . had greatly changed since I had last
seen him. He wore his hair longer, and it now hung in locks of
snowy whiteness over his shoulders. His once piercing gray
eyes, though still bright, had already begun to fail him. He
could no longer paint with his wonted accuracy, and had at
last, most reluctantly, been forced to surrender to his sons the
task of completing his Quadrupeds of North America. Sur-

25 See Vol. I, p. 150. M See Bibliography, No. 79.

audubon's last (?) letter to edward harris, February 22, 1847.

From the Jeanes MSS.

287

288 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

rounded by his large family, including his devoted wife, his
two sons, and their wives, his enjoyment of life seemed to
leave little to him to desire. He was very fond of the rising
generation, and they were as devoted in their affectionate re-
gards for him. He seemed to enjoy to the utmost each moment
of time, content at last to submit to an inevitable and well
earned leisure, and to throw upon his gifted sons his uncom-
pleted tasks. A pleasanter scene or a more interesting house-
hold it has never been the writer's good fortune to witness.

Audubon's last ( ?) letter to Edward Harris, here re-
produced, is dated at "Minnie's Land, Feby 22, 1847,"
and refers to the letterpress of the Quadrupeds. His
last published letter to Baird, in which he recommended
him to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian In-
stitution,27 was written at "Minnie's Land, Feb. 11,
1847." In Spencer F. Baird's last published letter28
to him, dated at "Carlisle April 24, 1847," he refers to
"a fine specimen living of a Red Fox," and added: "If
you want him let me know immediately and I will send
him on immediately." On July 16 of that year Baird
entered this note in his diary: 20 "Went to Mr. Audu-
bon's by stage. Found him much changed."

While Audubon never became blind, as has been
erroneously stated, it troubled him to use glasses, and
when from failing powers he could no longer paint, his
heart seemed broken. Like Jonathan Swift, who com-
pared his own case with that of the proud forest tree
whose withering top showed to every passerby the first
sign of decrepitude, so the mind of Audubon gave way
before his splendid physique utterly broke down.

Bachman, who visited his old friend in the spring of

57 See Vol. II, p. 279.

28 See Ruthven Deane, loc. cit., p. 70.

MSee William H. Dall, op. cit., p. 155.

FINAL WORK DAYS 289

1848, has given this picture of the naturalist's household
in a letter30 from "Minnie's Land, May 11, 1848":

I found all well here, as far as health is concerned. Mrs.
Audubon is straight as an arrow, and in fine health, but sadly
worried. John has just come in from feeding his dogs. Audu-
bon has heard his little song sung in French, and has gone to
bed. Alas, my poor friend, Audubon, the outlines of his coun-
tenance and his form are there, but his noble mind is all in
ruins.

The following letter was written by Victor Audu-
bon to his father-in-law, John Bachman, before Febru-
ary 8, 1849, when his brother started on the ill-fated
expedition to which he refers:

My brother will leave in a few days for California, he will
be absent, perhaps for eighteen months.

This journey is undertaken with the hope that he may be
able to get gold. What may be the result, God only knows.
John will be accompanied by Col. H. L. Webb, as military
leader; the party consists of about eighty picked men. One
of Dr. Mayer's sons wished to go with John, but unluckily,
his application came after the party was made up, so they could
not take him.

I should like much to see you all, but now it will be im-
possible for me to go so far from home.

My dear old father is apparently comfortable, and enjoys
his little notions ; but requires constant care and attendance ;
the rest are well. Your granddaughters are growing finely,
and are well educated ; soon we shall call in a "Maitre de
danse," to polish them up and improve their understanding.

I am just about to start for Washington, to get letters
from the President for John and I will try and see the collec-
tion brought back by the exploring expedition, including the

30 For this and the following letter, see C. L. Bachman, op. cit.,
p. 274.

290 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

famous Blade-tail Deer. I am in a great bustle, the office is
full of Californians.

The California party, which eventually consisted of
nearly one hundred young men, sought to reach the
goldflelds by way of Texas, Mexico and Arizona; at-
tacked by cholera in the valley of the Rio Grande and
deserted by their leader, a remnant of the company chose
in his stead young Audubon, who bravely conducted
them to their destination. John Audubon returned in
the following year, after thirteen of the members of
the party and $27,000 had been lost in the venture.

Like a patriarch of old, as a friend had once pictured
him, Audubon passed the end of his days surrounded
by loving and able retainers, who, like "ministers of
state," were only too glad to execute his every wish.
Distinguished and handsome in age, appearing to many
older than he actually was, for years his snowy locks
and benign countenance attracted every passer on the
street, and for each he had a friendly look, word, or
greeting, until in him were fulfilled the words of the
prophecy: "When thou wast young, thou girdedst thy-
self and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou
shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and an-
other shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou would-
est not." On the 27th of January, 1851, Jean Jacques
Fougere Audubon died, before attaining his sixty-
seventh year, "as gently as a child composing himself
for his beautiful sleep."

CHAPTER XXXVI

AFTERWORD: AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA

Bachman completes his text on the Quadrupeds — Victor Audubon's success
in canvassing — John Woodhouse Audubon's family — New houses at
"Minnie's Land" — Second octavo edition of the Birds — -Victor Audu-
bon's illness and death — Attempt to reissue The Birds of America in
America — The residual stock of this imperfect edition— Death of John
Woodhouse Audubon — His career and work as an artist and field col-
lector— Mrs. Audubon resumes her old vocation — Fate of "Minnie's
Land" — Death of Mrs. Audubon — Her share in her husband's fame —
Story written on Audubon's original drawings — Fate of the original
copper plates of the Birds — A boy comes to the rescue — "Minnie's
Land" today— The "Cave"— A real "Audubon Park."

After the death of the elder Audubon, his sons, under
the leadership of Bachman, continued the work on the
Quadrupeds until the third and last volume of the letter-
press was completed in 1852. On March 13 of that
year Bachman wrote to Edward Harris : 1

Rejoice with me, the book is finished. I did not expect to
have lived to complete it. But Victor Audubon came on, and
I made him hold the pen, while I dictated with specimens and
books before me, and we went on rapidly ; we worked hard,
and now we are at the end of our labors. I have, at last,
prevailed on them to give the Bats. At the end of the work,
I intend to give a synopsis and scientific arrangement of all
our American species, including seals, whales and porpoises.

— ■■■■■■■

1See C. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No.
191), p. 276. The suggestion made to Mr. Harris was adopted, which
accounts for the six colored plates inserted in the third volume of the
text; the "Large Work" referred to the folio plates without accompanying
text, the "Small," to the first composite edition of both text and plates;
see Bibliography, Nos. 5-7.

291

292 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

This will be included in the letter-press of the Third Volume.

Here I will venture to consult you in regard to the publica-
tion of additional plates of species, not figured in the Large
Work. A very small Arvicola and Shrews, we may not obtain,
and they cannot be figured ; but nearly all are within our reach.
Some of the subscribers have bound up their plates, and there
cannot be a sufficient number to make even half of another
Volume. I propose, as all these figures will be contained in
the Small Work, that they should be inserted in the letter-press
of the Large Work, so that subscribers, by merely paying the
cost of the small plates, would have the work complete — what
do you think of this?

What do you think of Victor's obtaining one hundred and
twenty-nine subscribers in about three days, and I think he
will double the number next week; so, if the "Large Work"
will not pay, the "Small" one, and this is large enough, is sure
to do it.

When Victor was canvassing the South for the sec-
ond or composite edition of this work, Bachman wrote
to a friend in Savannah, on March 25, 1852 : 2

My son-in-law, Victor G. Audubon, is on a rapid visit to
the South, and has a week or two to spare, which he is de-
sirous of devoting to the obtaining of subscribers to the
"American Quadrupeds." The Work (Miniature) will be com-
plete in about thirty numbers, furnished monthly at $1.00 per
number.

The figures were made by the Audubons, and the descrip-
tions and letter-press were prepared by myself.

I have no pecuniary interest in this work, as I have cheer-
fully given my own labors without any other reward than
the hope of having contributed something toward the advance-
ment of the cause of Natural History in our country. I am,
however, anxious that the Audubons should, by a liberal sub-

aSee C. L. Bachman, op. cit., p. 278.

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 293

scription, receive some remuneration for the labors and heavy
expenses incurred in getting up this work. Of the character
of the work it does not become me to say much. I will only
add that in my department is summed up the result of inves-
tigations pursued through a long life, and, I think, the figures
have never been equalled in any publication either in Europe
or America.

May I bespeak from you a little aid to my esteemed son-in-
law, Mr. Audubon, in assisting him to procure subscribers.
He is a stranger in your city ; his time is limited, and his stay
among you will necessarily be short.

By the aid of two friends here, he obtained two hundred
and fifty subscribers in a few days.

On the 9th of April Bachman wrote to his son-in-
law: "Will you not return to New York by the way of
Charleston and sail from here, take a manuscript volume
in your pocket, and four hundred good and true names
on your list?"

The reception accorded to the illustrations and text
of this work had encouraged the brothers to do for the
Quadrupeds what their father, with their aid, had so
successfully accomplished for the Birds, by presenting
text and plates, as Bachman said, in "Miniature." In
this they succeeded as admirably as before, John reduc-
ing all the large plates, by the aid of the camera lucida,
for the octavo edition which was published in 1854.

The following historical evidence of the apprecia-
tion which Audubon's works have received at the hands
of the National Government I owe to Mr. Ruthven
Deane, to whom the reader of these pages is already in-
debted for many illuminating facts. Dr. Theodore S.
Palmer was recently inspecting governmental records
at Washington, when he accidentally came upon the fol-
lowing entry :

294 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Chap. CXXIX. — AN act making appropriations for cer-
tain Civil Expenses of the Government for the Year ending the
thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-seven.
To enable the Secretary of State to purchase one hundred
copies, each, of Audubon's "Birds of America" and "Quadru-
peds of America," for presentation to foreign governments, in
return for valuable works sent by them to the Government of
the United States, sixteen thousand dollars.
[Act of August 18, 1858 (LL State., 90).]

In John Woodhouse Audubon's family there were
two sets of children, two by his former wife, Maria R.
Bachman, and seven by Caroline Hall, to whom he was
married on October 2, 1841. Victor Gifford Audubon,
who had no children by his first wife, May Eliza Bach-
man, was married on March 2, 1843, to Georgiana Rich-
ards Mallory, of New England, and six children were
born to them between 1845 and 1854. Of the natural-
ist's fifteen grandchildren, six are believed to be now
living (1917).3

In 1852-3 Audubon's sons built houses for their

3 John W. Audubon's children by Maria Bachman were: (l) Lucy
Audubon (Mrs. De Lancey Barclay Williams), 1838-1909; (2) Harriet
Bachman Audubon, 1839-1933; by Caroline Hall, who died in 1899: (3)
John James Audubon, 1842 (lived one day) ; (4) Maria Rebecca Audubon,
1843-1925; (5) John James Audubon, 1845-1893; (6) William Bakewell
Audubon, 1847-1932. who emigrated to Australia, where he engaged in
sheep-raising, and had two children, Leonard Benjamin and Eleanor Car-
oline Audubon; Leonard Benjamin Audubon (born in 1888) fought in the
World War with the 55th Battalion of the Australian contingent, and
in the spring of 1917 he was promoted from the ranks "on account of great
bravery under unusual conditions"; if still living, he is the sole male
representative of the American branch of the Audubon family; (7) Jane
Audubon, 1849-1853; (8) Florence Audubon, 1853- ; (9) Benjamin Phillips
Audubon, 1855-1886-

Victor G. Audubon had six children by his second wife, Georgiana R.
Mallory, who died in 1882: (l) Mary Eliza Audubon, 1845- ; (2) Rose
Audubon, 1846-1879; (3) Victor Gifford Audubon, 1847-1915; (4) Delia
Talman- (Mrs. Morris Frank Tyler), 1849- ; (5) Lucy Bakewell Audu-
bon, 1851-1898; and (6) Anne Gordon Audubon, 1854-1907.

HOUSE FORMERLY BELONGING TO VICTOR GIFFORD AUDUBON, EAST FRONT, AS IT
APPEARS TO-DAY; MRS. JOHN JAMES AUDUBON KEPT HER PRIVATE SCHOOL
IN THE CORNER ROOM ON THE SECOND FLOOR.

HOUSE FORMERLY BELONGING TO JOHN WOODHOUSE AUDUBON", SOUTH FRONT,
IT APPEARS TO-DAY; AT THE RIGHT IS "tHK CAVE," WHERE THE COPPER
PLATES OF "THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" WERE STORED.

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 295

growing families on their mother's estate; Victor's was
placed just north of the original homestead, and John's
not far away. On the slope behind John Audubon's
house, a small building, later known as the "Cave," was
specially constructed for the safer keeping of the famous
copper plates, which had already passed through fire,4
and not wholly unscathed. Mr. John Hardin, now
(1915) a serene and clear-eyed man of eighty-four, who
settled in that neighborhood in 1852 and who was inter-
mittently employed by the younger Audubons for a
decade, has told me that he boxed with his own hands
all of the copper plates, after wrapping each in tissue
paper, and stored them in that building ; whenever John
Audubon wanted a plate, John Hardin would go to
the "Cave" and get it for him.

In 1856 Victor Audubon published a second reduced
edition of his father's Birds of America, in which the
text and plates of the first octavo were reproduced with
little or no change. At about that time Victor suffered
an injury to the spine,5 and after 1857 he was com-
pletely invalided; he died in his own home, August 18,
1860.

To quote the daughter of John W. Audubon : 6

During this long period of my uncle's illness all the care
of both families devolved on my father. Never a "business
man," saddened by his brother's condition, and utterly unable
to manage, at the same time, a fairly large estate, the publica-
tion of two illustrated works, every plate of which he felt he

4 See Vol. II, p. 267.

DDue, it was believed, to a fall into the "well" (now guarded by an
iron rail), which led to a basement window of his house, though one
who knew John W. Audubon well, said that Victor's illness resulted from
a fall from a railroad train; see Jacob Pentz (Bibl. No. 81), Shooting
and Fishing, May 11, 1893.

6 Maria R. Audubon, in biographical memoir of her father in Audubon's
Western Journal, 1849-1850 (Bibl. No. 219).

296 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

must personally examine, the securing of subscribers and the
financial condition of everything — what wonder that he rapidly
aged, what wonder that the burden was overwhelming! After
my uncle's death matters became still more difficult to handle,
owing to the unsettled condition of the southern states where
most of the subscribers to Audubon's books resided, and when
the open rupture came between north and south, the condition
of affairs can hardly be imagined, except by those who lived
through similar bitter and painful experiences.

In 1858 or 1859 John W. Audubon entered upon
an ambitious project, which the outbreak of the Civil
War, aided, it is believed, by the unscrupulous dealings
of business partners, rendered disastrous. In associa-
tion with Messrs. Roe Lockwood, & Son, New York,
and the lithographers, Messrs. J. Bien & Company,
Number 180 Broadway, with whom considerable money
had been invested, a second and American edition of his
father's great folio on The Birds of America was at-
tempted. An atlas of 106 double elephant plates, re-
produced in colors on stone with slight but numerous
changes from the original copper plates, was completed
as Volume I in I860;7 the war, which broke immedi-
ately afterwards, completely ruined the enterprise, so
that but few copies of the work were dispersed and an
immense stock of plates was rendered useless ; the burden
of debt was undoubtedly increased by the issue of seven
octavo volumes of text.8

Many years later, hundreds of persons who knew of
Audubon's work only through its great reputation, and

7 For fuller details, see Bibliography, No. 9, and for Prospectus of this
work, Appendix III, No. 3.

8 For conflicting accounts of this text, see Bibliography, No. 10, and
for a definitive statement, Appendix III, No. 3. Miss Maria R. Audubon
has told me that during the War, the Bien firm issued a patriotic poster,
showing an eagle, taken from one of her grandfather's original drawings,
and the American flag; it was thought that a large number of copies were
sold.

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 297

who had never learned to discriminate between a hand-
colored copper-plate engraving and a lithograph, were
deceived by an adroit, but essentially spurious adver-
tisement of these inferior reproductions when they were
being exploited by a firm of Boston book dealers. The
original bulk of these large lithographs must have been
vast indeed, if the following story, which was attributed
to a member of the firm in question, be true : "We bought
the entire stock of those plates, many years ago," so this
man is reported to have said, "and, though the sales of
every succeeding year since have been sufficient to cover
the original cost, the number of plates has not appre-
ciably diminished."

When this larger venture failed, one of the pub-
lishers, who was not satisfied with the surplusage of
books and plates left on his hands, is said to have placed
encumbrances upon the Audubon estate. At about this
time John W. Audubon's health broke down; "Worn
out," as his daughter has said,9 "in body and spirit, over-
burdened with anxieties, saddened by the condition of
his country, it is no matter of surprise that my father
could not throw off a heavy cold which attacked him
early in 1862." He died at the age of forty-nine, on the
18th of February of that year.

John Woodhouse Audubon, like his brother, Victor,
had inherited decided artistic abilities, and from a youth
had been his father's assistant, field companion and
friend. Victor Audubon, on the other hand, was never
a field collector, but aided his father more in a financial
and secretarial capacity. Both in adult life were fond
of music and good cheer, and at one time John was
probably as devoted to adventure and sport as his father
had ever been in his palmiest days. One of his youthful

Tii- i l

"Maria R. Audubon, op. cit.

298 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

pranks is thus guardedly referred to by the senior Audu-
bon when writing at American Harbor, on the coast of
Labrador, June 25, 1833: 10 "The young men, who
are always ready for sport, caught a hundred codfish in
half an hour, and somewhere secured three fine salmon,
one of which was sent to the 'Gulnare' with some cod."
Whether the fishermen at American Harbor, who had
obstinately refused to sell, ever missed those fine salmon
from their pounds, is not recorded. Another adventure
has been related by Mr. Fraser,11 whose family was
on intimate terms with the Audubons and MacGilli-
vrays at Edinburgh, when John Audubon, John Mac-
Gillivray (William MacGillivray's eldest son) , and him-
self were caught in the Ravelston woods while shooting
birds; the boys, he said "were rather roughly handled,"
but got off by giving up their guns.

Under his father's tuition John Audubon became
an observant and self-reliant collector in the field, and
an animal painter and draughtsman of no mean powers.
At twenty-one, as we have seen, he accompanied his
father's expedition to Labrador, was with him and Har-
ris in Florida and Texas in 1837, made successive visits
to England, and traveled again in Texas and in Mexico,
all in the interests of his father's works. He painted
nearly one-half of the large plates of the Quadrupeds
of North America, besides reducing all the drawings for
the smaller editions of the Birds and Quadrupeds, an
enormous labor in itself, representing the redrawing,
with numerous alterations, of 655 elaborate octavo
plates. After his return from California in 1850, he
began to bring out an account of his western travels,

"Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), vol. i,
p. 380.

11 See William MaeGillivray, A Memorial Tribute to William Mac-
Oillivray (Bibl. No. 211), p. 40.

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 299

projected for ten monthly numbers, but this never ad-
vanced beyond the first part.12

If not a "business man" by instinct or training, John
Audubon in emergencies could turn his hand to many
things. For a time he superintended the building of
houses, including his own and Victor's, which were com-
pleted in 18.53, as well as another that was built on the
Audubon estate for Mr. Hall, a brother-in-law; he also
took charge of lighting the streets, and at another time
was superintendent of a quarry in Vermont. "He was
a bluff, gruff, but friendly man," writes George Bird
Grinnell,13 and was always willing to talk about birds,
mammals, or, indeed, any natural history object, to any
boy who asked him questions." On the other hand, an
ardent sportsman, who had lived with the family for
years,14 has described him as a lovable companion,
"genial in speech, full of anecdote, and a capital conver-
sationalist ... ; in person of more than median height,
and of commanding appearance, his face told plainly of
the humanity of the man ; he was as tender-hearted as a
girl, and his expressive voice could command any key of
which the vocal organs were capable; to the last he re-
tained the Southern habit of softly clipping the ends of
words."

John Woodhouse Audubon will be remembered
chiefly as his father's aid and companion, although in
his Western Journal/5 written in his thirty-eighth year
but not published until forty-two years after his death,
he has left a record of which anyone could be rightfully
proud.

Mrs. John James Audubon was very active in body

12 See Bibliography, Nos. 174 and 219.

13 See Bibliography, No. 54.

"Jacob Pentz (Bibl. No. 81), loc. cit.
16 See Bibliography, No. 219.

300 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

and mind for a long period after her husband's death,
and in 1857, when in her seventieth year, she returned
in a degree to her old vocation of school teaching, which
had been so successfully followed in Ohio and Louisiana
when her husband was on the threshold of his extraor-
dinary career. Her pupils now consisted of some of her
numerous grandchildren and a few others drawn from
the neighborhood ; among the latter was the well known
writer and father of the original Audubon Society,
George Bird Grinnell, who pointed out to me the room
in Victor Audubon's old house where his revered
and venerable teacher had gathered her little flock. "She
loved to read, to study, and to teach," said one who
had known her, and "she knew how to gain the atten-
tion of the young, and to fix knowledge in their minds.
'If I can hold the mind of a child to a subject for five
minutes, he will never forget what I teach him,' she once
remarked; and, acting upon this principle, she was as
successful, at three score and ten years, in imparting
knowledge, as she had been in early life when she taught
in Louisiana."

Mrs. Audubon's own house was rented and eventu-
ally sold. Meanwhile, it seems, she lived for a number
of years with the family of her eldest son, and it was at
Victor's house, as just noticed, that she started a small
school. Finally, in 1863, at the age of seventy-five,
bereft of children and fortune, she left the scenes of her
once happy home, then "Minnie's Land" no longer, and
for a considerable period lived with a granddaughter at
Washington Heights, as that section on the river, includ-
ing Carmansville, came to be called, and a little later
at Manhattanville, a short distance below; there at the
home of the Reverend Charles Coffin Adams, who pre-
pared the original draft of the Life of her husband, the

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 301

history of which has been given,16 she passed a number
of years after 1865.

In a letter written to a relative from "Washington
Heights, N. Y., July 11, 1865," Mrs. Audubon spoke
thus of the present, while memories, not untinged with
sorrow, filled the retrospect :

We have passed through a very cold winter which tried
both my Granddaughter . . . and myself much. I have hoped
until I almost despair that [she] would have a short Holiday
so that we could go up to Hudson for a week and see you all
and mingle with those who sympathize and care for us, but in
a Boarding house, one seems a stranger in the world, and as I
pass my days alone generally from breakfast till our dinner
hour six o'clock evening when [my granddaughter] comes
home from her music Pupils of whom she has now ten, and from
that time I am glad when she is invited out to refresh her
mind.

I seldom leave home but to go up to see my other Grand
Daughter Lucy Williams, but being sixteen miles off we do
not go there often. . . .

I have heard from my Sister Gordon lately of Orleans, she
has her Son at home ! but they are likely to lose all their Prop-
erty on account of Sister's Son having been engaged in the
Confederate War. It does seem to me ... as if we were a
doomed family for all of us are in pecuniary difficulty more
or less. As to myself I find it hard to look back patiently
upon my great ignorance of business and the want of a wise
adviser who I now find could have saved me half the property
I have under errour and ignorance sacrificed and have just
enough left to keep us but not enjoy life by any travelling
about in this beautiful World. I sat on Sunday night after
Church on the Piazza contemplating the beautiful Moon & its
Creator, and I cannot yet say I wish to leave it, notwithstand-
ing all my disappointments and mortifications. Excuse this

"See Chapter I.

302 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

long detail about myself. I cannot help looking back as well as
to the present and future.

After Mrs. Audubon had passed her eightieth year
she left New York and again made her home in the
West. In 1874, when with a granddaughter at Louis-
ville, she dictated and signed the following letter to a
gentleman who had asked for an autograph of her hus-
band:

Mrs. Audubon to William R. Dorian

Louisville Jan. 30
1874

Mr. Wm. R. Dorian

Dear Sir

I regret that your letter of Jan. 10th has remained so
long unanswered, but my granddaughter who usually writes
for me, is so constantly occupied with her pupils that until
to-day she has not been able to find time to write to you. I
regret that I cannot give you a letter of my husband John
James Audubon with the autograph attached.

The enclosed, the best I have to send you is one from
which the autograph and a portion of the letter were cut off
many years ago.

With many regrets that I cannot more fully grant your
request

I am dear Sir

Yours respectfully,

Lucy Audubon

Mrs. Audubon's closing days were spent at the home
of her sister-in-law, Mrs. William G. Bakewell, at Shel-
byville, Kentucky, where she died, with her mental fac-
ulties unimpaired, at the age of eighty-six, June 18,
1874, having outlived this sister-in-law and her young-
er sisters, Mrs. Alexander Gordon, of New Orleans,

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 303

and Mrs. Nicholas Augustus Berthoud, of St. Louis.

Not long after John W. Audubon's death, his fam-
ily disposed of their house on what had been the "Min-
nie's Land" estate, and lived successively at Harlem,
New Haven, Connecticut, and Salem, New York, where
Mrs. John W. Audubon died, and where her daughter,
Maria Rebecca, the biographer of her father and grand-
father, with a sister, still resides. Victor Audubon's
family, with some of their kinsfolk, remained at the
Hudson River place, which was included in the section
known as "Audubon Park," until May, 1878, when they
took a house in New York, where Mrs. Victor Audubon
died in 1882.

A brother of Mrs. Victor Audubon, Mr. H. C. Mal-
lory, in writing to a friend in Buffalo from "Audubon
Park, August 31, 1874," said that it was a source of deep
regret to Mrs. John James Audubon that her last years
were not passed with them, under the shadow of her
old home on the Hudson; and he continued: "She was
a kind and good friend, very intelligent, and much be-
loved here; I remember her telling a young lady, who
asked her if she had read some fashionable novel, that
she had no time; 'at my age,' said she, 'I must make
the most of my time.' As she was a wide reader, it was
a great trial when, in age, her eyesight completely failed
her. The minister who pronounced her eulogy 17 said:

Many of you can recall that aged form and benignant coun-
tenance, as she moved along these streets upon errands of use-
fulness and benevolence, with benedictions on her tongue, and
smiles that were a blessing to all who met her.

■■--■-■■■- ■ ■" ■■■■ ■ . - — . ... »_ i ■ i

"Charles Augustus Stoddard; for his memorial sermon, see Bibliog-
raphy, No. 178. In the absence of the rector of the Church of the Inter-
cession, the pastor of the Washington Heights Presbyterian Church was
called to officiate at *he funeral of Mrs. J. J. Audubon, June 22, 1874.

304 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

Madame Audubon interested herself in all that pertained
to the welfare of the neighborhood where she lived. Although
it was not without a pang that she saw her sylvan home in-
vaded by the growth of the city, and all old associations broken
up, she did not treat those who came to live near her as
strangers. She had a large and generous heart, and with her
husband had always exercised a liberal hospitality and hearty
kindness towards all. In prosperity and adversity she was
equally sincere and humble, a friend of all worthy people. . . .

Mrs. Audubon, during the period of her husband's
greatest activity, had traveled much and met people dis-
tinguished in every walk of life. If, as some have
thought, when Audubon was struggling for recognition,
he was somewhat oblivious of the privations which his
wife endured, in the sunshine of later years, when fame
and fortune had smiled upon him, he showed by every
token of affection how fully he realized his debt. Let it
also be remembered that the monument by which Ameri-
cans have signalized their appreciation of his labors, is
honored by the ashes of his beloved Lucy, which rest by
his side.

The original drawings of the plates of The Birds of
America were sold by Mrs. Audubon on June 2, 1863,
to the Historical Society of New York,18 and a few of
them are now displayed in its building in that city; it is
still hoped that a fire-proof and adequately lighted hall
can be constructed so that the whole of this great series
of pictures may be exhibited under more perfect con-
ditions. The artistic beauty and historical value of these
drawings, with the added charm which personal associa-
tion has so richly supplied, would render Audubon's
"Book of Nature" one of the most unique and interest-

18 For the privilege of examining this unique collection I am indebted to
the courtesy of the Society, and of its librarian, Mr. Kelby.

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AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 305

ing exhibits in the New World. The collection appears
to be nearly complete, although some notable pieces, such
as the Wild Turkeys, are lacking, but there are other
drawings, and some of early date, which were never re-
produced; all are inclosed in the original portfolios,
scarred by hard knocks and the tooth of time, massive,
leather-bound containers, which two strong arms would
raise with difficulty from the ground. Most of these
originals are mounted on a gray backing, with plate
margins in each case indicated by ink lines. As was no-
ticed in an earlier chapter, many original legends and
notes written by Audubon's pencil or pen still remain
on the drawings, though many have been trimmed off
or erased; these include names of localities and dates,
and directions to the engraver for changes in the back-
ground and composition or for any improvement of
the whole or a part.

As a further illustration of the care which Audubon
exercised over the minute details of his great undertak-
ing, we will reproduce the penciled orders on the draw-
ing of the Great White Heron (Plate cclxxxi), which
shows an adult male performing the gymnastic feat of
seizing a large striped fish, a view of Key West forming
the background: "Keep closely to the sky in depth &
colouring! have the water a Pea-green tint. Keep the
division of the scales on the leg in fact white in your
engraving — The colouring over these will subdue them
enough ! finish the houses better from the original which
you have; have the upper back portion very mellowing
in the outline." Again, on the drawing of the Great
Cinereous Owl (Plate cccli), we read: "Raise the bird
about 4 inches on the copper — higher than in the Draw-
ing, and put in a landscape below of Wild Mountains,"
a direction which in this instance was not followed, for

306 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

the bird was eventually shown on a branch against the
sky.

In many instances towards the end of his work,
Audubon furnished Havell with drawings of the birds
only, with directions to supply "an old rotten stick" for
perch, or to "amend this rascally sky and water"; as we
have already seen, he often depended upon him to com-
bine several detached pictures into one plate, but not
always with happy results. The following note was
written on a drawing of the Carolina Parrot, repro-
duced in a very striking plate (No. xxvi) , in which seven
gaudy individuals of this nearly extinct species are rep-
resented feeding on a favorite weed, the cockle-bur:
"The upper specimen was shot near Bayou Sarah, and
appeared as very uncommon having 14 Tail feathers all
very distinct — uniformly affixed in 14 distinct recep-
tacles that I drew it more to exhibit one of those aston-
ishing fits of nature than anything else — it was a female.
— The Green headed is also a Singular although not so
uncommon a variety as the above one. Louisiana —
December (1821?) J. J. Audubon." The upper bird,
which is here referred to, is noticed in his "Biography"
of the species as "a kind of occasional variety."

On the drawing of the Swamp Sparrow (Plate lxiv) ,
which was published in 1829, Audubon wrote, evidently
with the wish of having his wife's name appear: "Drawn
from Nature by Lucy Audubon, Mr. Havell will please
have Lucy Audubon name on this plate instead of
mine . . !

Vandalism is always short-sighted, but seldom has its
vision been more myopic and sinister than in the case of
the copper plates of The Birds of America, most of
which were sold for old metal and converted into copper
bars. Had they been preserved to this day, their value

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 307

would have been an hundred-fold greater than that of
the few paltry tons of metallic copper which they were
supposed to represent. Mr. Ruthven Deane, whose re-
searches in the field of "Auduboniana" have added
greatly to this subject, has given a history of these
plates,19 and of the interesting way in which a remnant
came to be snatched, as it were, from the very mouth of
the furnace, through the persistence and enthusiasm of
a lad of fourteen. To follow this writer's account, it
seems that shortly after the death of her son John, Mrs.
Audubon sold the copper plates to a firm in New York,
where they remained until about 1865, stored in the
warehouse of Messrs. Phelps, Dodge & Company. Not
far from that time the plates were sorted and a few were
given away ; the large remainder was sent to a brass and
copper company, of which William E. Dodge was presi-
dent, at Ansonia, Connecticut. How some of these
were fortunately rescued, in about the year 1873, is told
in a letter to Mr. Deane from Mr. Charles A. Cowles, of
Ansonia :

At that time I was about fourteen years old. I was be-
ginning the study of taxidermy, and was naturally deeply in-
terested in birds. I happened to be at the refinery watching
the process of loading one of the furnaces, and noticed on one
of the sheets of copper that a man was throwing into the
furnace, what appeared to me to be the picture of a bird's
foot. I took the plate from him, cleaned it with acid, and
thereupon discovered the engraving, or as I termed it, the pic-
ture, of a bird (Plate cvi, Black Vulture), I made an im-
mediate but unsuccessful request to the foreman of the furnace
not to melt the plates; and then I appealed to the superin-
tendent, but without avail. I next brought the matter to the
general manager of the concern, my father, from whom I re-

w Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No. 225), The Auk, vol. xxv (1908).

308 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

ceived no encouragement. This sort of treatment was evidently
what I needed, for I hastened back to the works in a state of
mind so determined that I succeeded in having all the plates,
that had not been melted, removed to a place of safety. This
occurred in the spring of that year; and the plates remained
undisturbed until the annual inventory was taken the first of
the following year. At that time the disposition of the plates
was taken up. I appealed to my mother and interested her
to such an extent that she drove to the factory and looked at
one of the plates. She of course recognized that they were
Audubon plates ; and instructions were given by my father to
keep them intact. The plates were subsequently submitted
to a treatment which removed all oxidation and then taken to
the main office of the company, and to the best of my recollec-
tion, distributed as follows: Mr. Wm. E. Dodge, president of
the company, had a few plates sent to the American Museum
of Natural History, New York City, and a few plates to the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C, and I think he
retained one or two for himself. The remainder of them, with
the exception of two, my father kept ; and they have since come
into my possession by purchase from the estate. The two
plates just excepted were Nos. xxii and lxxxii [Purple Martin
and Whippoorwill], and they particularly struck my fancy,
so much that when the plates were first discovered I managed to
secure them on the quiet, cleaned them myself and hid them;
and when the plates were distributed no one knew of the exist-
ence of these two and they later became my property.

It was thought possible that some of these plates had
been sold in New York City before the bulk of them
were condemned as junk and sent to Connecticut, but in
1898 Mr. Deane was able to give the designation and
resting place of only thirty-seven ; 20 among these, how-

20 At that time the American Museum of Natural History, New York,
possessed nine; the Smithsonian Institution, six; Princeton University, four;
Wesley an University, Middletown, Connecticut, one, while the remainder
were in private hands.

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 309

ever, were the Wild Turkeys, Canada Goose, Great
Northern Diver, Raven, American Robin, and Ruby-
throated Hummingbird, all among the finest of the orig-
inal 435.

Under the guidance of Mr. George Bird Grinnell,
on April 6, 1916, I paid a visit to "Audubon Park,"
now "Minnie's Land" no longer, where country roads
have given way to business streets and forests to sub-
ways and skyscraper apartment houses. Notwithstand-
ing the momentous changes which the extension of upper
New York City has effected both above and below
ground during the recent era of rapid transportation,
the old Audubon houses still remain, like boulders amid
stream, the impact of the city which has flowed around
and beyond them being checked for the moment by a
rampart of solid masonry, the retaining wall of the far-
famed Riverside Drive, which rises above Audubon's
old house close to its rear veranda and there makes
a wide turn. For Mr. Grinnell this was a return to the
scenes of his boyhood; the home of his father, Mr.
George Blake Grinnell, stood on the hill just above the
Audubon house, not far from the present "Riviera"
building at One Hundred and Fifty-Seventh Street; the
Grinnell apartment house which towers aloft close at
hand stands in their old cow pasture, while their garden
site is marked by the present entrance to the subway
station on Broadway.

The first part of Audubon's original tract to be sold
was the easterly section, extending from what is now
the east side of Broadway to the Bloomingdale Road,
and between the present One Hundred and Fifty-sixth
and One Hundred and Fifty-seventh Streets; on that
portion John Woodhouse Audubon built a large frame
structure which, for a number of years, served as a

310 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

boarding house for workmen employed in the sugar
refinery of Messrs. Plume & Lamont that stood on the
river-bank, at the foot of the present One Hundred
and Sixtieth Street. Victor and John W. Audubon
also built three houses on the hill, one of which, between
One Hundred and Fifty-sixth and One Hundred and
Fifty-seventh Streets, was occupied by Mr. Grinnell;
another, at one time the dwelling of Henry A. Smythe,
a former Collector of the Port of New York, was on
land now covered by the Numismatic Building, while a
third, which was occupied by Wellington Clapp, was on
a part of the Archer M. Huntington estate, south of
One Hundred and Fifty-sixth Street, and stood a little
easterly of the present Riverside Drive; all of these
houses have disappeared. In September, 1842, the Cor-
poration of Trinity Parish acquired from Richard F.
Carman, in Carmansville, the tract of land later known
as "Trinity Cemetery"; this extended from Blooming-
dale Road to the River, and between the present One
Hundred and Fifty-third and One Hundred and Fifty-
fifth Streets.21

The original Audubon house, standing in the angle
nearly opposite One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Street, is
all but concealed, except from the river side, but may
be approached by a lane which leads off from One Hun-
dred and Fifty-eighth Street. In 1913, when this old
landmark was in imminent danger of demolition, the
Commissioner of Public Parks made an eloquent plea
for its preservation to the Audubon Societies and to
lovers of birds and nature everywhere. It was then
suggested that instead of permitting the historic struc-
ture to be destroyed, the city should acquire it, float it

21 For the substance of this paragraph, I am indebted to the Report of
the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, New York, lf>13.

AUDUBON'S FAMILY IN AMERICA 311

up the Hudson River to Fort Washington Park, and re-
establish it there as a permanent memorial to the natu-
ralist ; it was also noticed that the public interest was en-
hanced by the fact that the father of telegraphy, Samuel
F. B. Morse, had worked upon his invention while Au-
dubon's guest, and that the first message to be received
from Philadelphia came over a wire which entered his
room at the northwest corner of the building.

An early engraving 22 represents the naturalist's
house essentially as it appeared during his lifetime, sur-
rounded by goodly forest trees of oak and chestnut, but
these, when standing at all, are now reduced to gaunt
and scarred remnants. A later print 23 shows the
three Audubon houses, the river, and between it and the
lawn "that eye-sore of a railroad," 24 which was built not
long after Audubon settled upon his estate. The orig-
inal house was sold before 1862,25 and about eight years
later its new owner occupied it, after having given it a
mansard roof and made numerous changes which were
sanctioned by an era of bad taste. The naturalist's house
overlooked the river and commanded a grand view from
its high veranda on the front, while Victor's, which later
adjoined it to the north, owing probably to the en-
croachments of the railroad, was built to face the hill-
slope opposite ; a top studio, at a corner of its roof, is an
addition of a later purchaser.26

Adjoining Victor's house on the north was that of his

22 See Mrs. Horace St. John, Audubon, the Naturalist of the Neiv
World (Bibl. No. 71), New York, 1856.

23 See Valentine's Manual of the City of New York, New York, 1865.

24 On October 30, 1847, Bachman wrote John and Victor Audubon that
he proposed to visit them in the following May, when he would leave his
two daughters with them awhile, "to hear you and Victor grumble about
that eye-sore of a railroad, and to enjoy your good company, and your
fish and shrimps."

25 To Mr. Jesse Benedict.

M Mr. Charles F. Stone, whose sister was an artist.

312 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST

brother, John, and on the east side of this was built the
"Cave" and a barn since converted into a dwelling; at
one time the loft of this barn was piled with boxes of
bird skins and the surplus stock of the Ornithological
Biography > good copies of which now bring from $30 to
$50.

The three houses which were built and occupied by
the great nature lover and his two sons, though in dire
neglect, are not beyond repair; if such a project were
practicable, they should be converted into a museum,
and their walls once more ornamented with those beauti-
ful pictures of birds and beasts which father and sons
united to create. The triangle of ground between Riv-
erside Drive and the Hudson River should be spared by
the proud city that for years was the home of America's
pioneer naturalist and animal painter, as well as the
scene of his youthful experiments in trade, and con-
verted into a true "Audubon Park." Such a memorial
would contribute to the instruction and pleasure of all
the people, for every generation of Americans that is
to come.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

Original Documents

314

APPENDICES

1. Copy of the original bill rendered by Doctor Sanson, physi-
cian at Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, to Jean Audubon, con-
taining the only record known to exist of the birth of his
son, Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon {see entry for April
26, 1785). Les Cayes, December 29, 1783— October 19,
1785; paid, June 7, 1787.

DOIT Mr- AUDUBON nS4- A SANSON
Chirurgien aux Cayes

1783 Xbre

1784 Janvier

mars

SAVOIR

L

it

29

a

ipecacuanha pour
negre Bossal . . .

un

6

a

31

a

ipecacuanha pour
negre Bossal. . . .

un

6

ii

3

a

une medecine pour
negre Bossal . . .

un

6

a

5

a

une medecine pour
negre Bossal . . .

un

6

a

7

a

une medecine pour
negre Bossal . . .

un

6

a

9

a

une medecine pour
Bossal

un

6

it

10

a

une medecine pour

un

6

it

14

a

une medecine pour
mulatre joue . . .

le

6

a

26

a

une medecine pour

Mr

27

a

audubon

10

a

inocule cezard 30 "

in-

ocule jupiter 30

in-

ocule Rose 30 ".

• ■ •

do

a a

a a

a a

a a

a a

a a

a a

a a

a a

a a

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

315

la. Translation of the Sanson bill. (For comment, see Chap-
ter IV.)

M. AUDUBON, merchant, to SANSON,

Physician at Cayes

Dr.

TO WIT

' , '

Francs

1783 December " 29 " Ipecacuanha for a ne-

gro Bossal " 6 " "

" 31 " Ipecacuanha for a ne-
gro Bossal " 6 " "

1784 January " 3 " A medicine for a negro

Bossal " 6 " "

" 5 " A medicine for a negro

Bossal " 6 " "

" 7 " A medicine for a negro

Bossal " 6 " "

" 9 " A medicine for a Bossal " 6 " "

" 10 " A medicine for a Bossal " 6 " "

" 14 " A medicine for the

mulatto Joue 1 " 6 " '*

" 26 " A medicine for M. Au-
dubon " 10 " "

March " 27 " Inoculated Caesar, 30f;

inoculated Jupiter,
30f ; inoculated Rose,
30f . . . " 90 " "

1 For probable meaning of this term, see Note, Vol. I, p. 54.

316 APPENDICES

1. The original Sanson bill — Continued.

avril " 1 " apozeme purgatif pour

joue mulatre "

" 3 " une medecine pour le

mulatre joue "

" 8 " apozeme purgatif pour

le negre Dominique. "
" 10 " une medecine pour

Dominique "

15 " une medecine pour

X tj U11V, 1X1 V- Ci V. \s 1 11 »_ UWU1

Zemire

tt

<(. f M r/,y I I H uul£:utlL ut/ui

a

u

6

a

a

6

it

a

6

a

a

6

a

a

6

a

a

6

a

a

6

a

a

6

a

a

6

a

a

20 " une medecine pour Rose "
apozeme purgatif pour

jupiter

21 " une medecine pour

Dominique

may " 2 " une medecine pour la

negresse therese. ... "
" 11 " pour soins, visites et
remedes pendant la
petite verole du mu-
latre joue " 66 " "

" 21 " Liqueur m i n e r a 1 e
d'hoffman pour mlle-
Rabin " 6 " "

juin " 20 " inocule un petit negre

Bossal nomine joue. . " 30

juillet " 20 " Remis a mr audubon le

compte du traite-
ment de la galle de
marianne et de sa
fille, tout acquite. . . " 36

a a

a a

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 317

la. Translation of the Sanson bill — Continued.

April " 1 " Purgative decoction for

Joue, [the] mulatto " 6 " "

" 3 " A m e d i c i n e for the

mulatto, Joue " 6 " "

" 8 " Purgative decoction for

the negro Dominique " 6 " "

" 10 " A medicine for Do-
minique " 6 " "

" 15 " A medicine for Zemire. " 6 " "

" 20 " A medicine for Rose ..." 6 " "

" Purgative decoction for

Jupiter " 6 " "

" 21 " A medicine for Do-
minique " 6 " "

May " 2 " A medicine for the

negress Theresa. ..." 6 " "

« ii « por attentions, visits,
and remedies during
the smallpox of the
mulatto Joue " 66 " "

" 21 " Hoffman's mineral wa-
ter for Mile. Rabin. " 6 " "

June " 20 " Inoculated a little negro

Bossal named Joue . . " 30 " "

July " 20 " Account rendered to M.

Audubon for treat-
ment of the gale 2
in Marian and her
daughter, all re-
ceipted " 36 " "

2 Or acariasis, an affection of the skin caused by the mange-mite, Demo-
dex follicnlorum, a microscopic arachnid parasite found in the sebaceous
glands of dog and man.

Sis APPENDICES

1. The original Sanson bill — Continued.

7bre " 14 " apozeme purgatif pour

le negre jean macon. " 6 "

" 16 " une medecine pour jean

macon o

" 21 " saigne au bras mr audu-

bon o

" 23 " eau de tamarinds
compee- pour mr au-
dubon " 10 " "

" 24 " une medecine en deux
Dozes pour mr audu-

bon " 10 " "

gbre. «< 22 " une medecine pour le

negrillon joue " 6

" 23 " traite soigne et fourni
le medicament a joue
attaque de piano ..." 132

a a « <<

u «

L 513 " "

[Page 2]

Suite de l'autre part L 513 " "

gbre. « 25 « saigne au bras mlle-

Rabin " 8 " "

" 26 " Liqueur miner ale
d'hoffman pour mlle-

Rabin " 6 " "

" 30 " une medecine pour le

negrillon joue " 6 " "

9bre " 15 " une medecine pour le

negrillon joue " 6 " "

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 319

la. Translation of the Sanson bill — Continued.

September " 1-t " Purgative decoction for

the negro, John Ma-
son [or John, ma-
son(?)] " 6 " "

" 16 " A medicine for John

Mason " 6

" 21 " Bled M. Audubon at

the arm o

a gg « Tamarind water com-
pound for M. Audu-
bon " 10 " "

" 24 " A medicine in two doses

for M. Audubon.... " 10 " "
October " 22 " A medicine for the lit-
tle negro Joue " 6

" 23 « Treated, attended, and
furnished remedies
for Joue attacked by
the plan3 " 132

.. a

L 513 "
[Page 2]

Brought forward from

other part L 513

October " 25 " Bled Mile. Rabin at

the arm " 3 " "

" 26 " Hoffman's mineral wa-
ter for Mile. Rabin. " 6 "
«* 30 " A medicine for the lit-
tle negro Joue " 6

November " 15 " A medicine for the lit-
tle negro Joue " 6 "

EA skin disease to which negroes in Central America are specially
prone.

4.

it

320

APPENDICES

1. The original Sanson bill — Continued.

}£bre

" 8

1785 Janvier

" 18

" 21

fevrier

" 15

" 18

mars

" 6

« 10

« n

" 12

" 13

« 14

avril

" 2

« 3

" 5

« »r

" 8

" une medecine pour joue "
" une medecine pour mr

audubon "

" une medecine pour le

negrillon joue "

" 2once- manne pour mlle-

Rabin "

" une medecine pour le

tonneliere "

" une medecine pour le

tonneliere "

" une medecine pour le

tonneliere "

" trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . "
" trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . "
" trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . "
" trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . "
" une visite de nuit pour

mlle Rabin '*

" une Lotion pour un

Eresipele, que mlle-

Rabin a a la jambe. "
" une Lotion pour mlle-

Rabin "

" une Lotion pour mlle-

Rabin "

" une medecine pour le

tonneliere "

6

u

a

10

tt

a

6

a

a

3

tt

a

6

tt

a

6

a

tt

6

a

a

9

a

a

9

tt

tt

9

tt

a

9

tt

a

10

t(

a

6

tt

a

6

tt

a

6

a

a

6

a

it

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

la. Translation of the Sanson bill — Continued.

321

December
1785 January

February

March

April

' 8 " A medicine for Joue.

' 18 " A medicine for M. Au-
dubon

' 21 " A medicine for the lit-
tle negro Joue

' 15 " Two ounces of manna
for Mile. Rabin ....

' 18 " A medicine for the
cooper

' 6 " Amedicine for the
cooper

* 10 " A medicine for the

cooper

4 11 " Three doses of kino 4

for the cooper

( 22 « Three doses of kino for

the cooper

c 23 « Three doses of kino for

the cooper

* 14 " Three doses of kino for
the cooper

2 " A night visit for Mile.
Rabin

3 " A lotion for an ery-
sipelas which Mile.
Rabin has on the leg

5 " A lotion for Mile.
Rabin

7 " A lotion for Mile.
Rabin

8 " A medicine for the
cooper

a

tt

tt

a

a

tt

a

a

a

a

a

a

n

«

a

a

6

«

a

10

«

tt

6

«

tt

3

a

a

6

a

a

6

«

a

6

it

a

9

tt

a

9

n

it

9

a

a

9

tt

a

10

a

tt

6

a

a

6

a

a

6

«

tt

6

«(

tt

* See Vol. I, p. 54.

322 APPENDICES

1. The original Sanson bill — Continued.

" 9 " trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . . " 9 " "

" 10 " trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . . " 9 " "

" 11 " trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . . " 9 " "

" 12 " trois Dozes de kina

pour le tonneliere. . . " 9 " "

« g^ a Passe" la nuit pres de
mlle. Rabin, en mal
d enfant " 66 " "

" 25 " Passe la nuit pres de

mlle- Rabin " 66 " "

a 26 « mUe. Rabin est ac-

couchee

may " 2 " une visite de nuit et

Liqueur minerale
d'h.p.mlle- Rabin.... " 16 " "

" 3 " Liqueur minerale
d'hofFman p.mlle- Ra-
bin o

" 4 " six Bouteilles d'eau
blanche pour les
cataplasmes neces-
saires au mal de sein

dem1Ie- Rabin " 18 " "

juin " 19 " ouvert un abces au sein

de mlle- Rabin soins
et pour pansements. " 36

a a

u 26 " une medecine pour au-

gustin negrillon. ..." 6 " "

L 897

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 323

la. Translation of the Sanson bill — Continued.

" 9 " Three doses of kino for

the cooper " 9 " "

" 10 " Three doses of kino for

the cooper " 9 " "

" 11 " Three doses of kino for

the cooper " 9 " "

a jg a Thi-ee doses of kino for

the cooper " 9 " "

" 24 " Passed the night with

Mile. Rabin [who

was] in child-birth. . " 66 " "
" 25 " Passed the night with

Mile. Rabin " 66 " "

" 26 " Mile. Rabin is delivered " . . " "

May " 2 " A night visit and Hoff-

man's mineral water

for Mile. Rabin " 16 " "

" 3 " Hoffman's mineral wa-
ter for Mile. Rabin. " 6 " "

" 4 " Six bottles of eau
blanche for poultices
needed in an affec-
tion of the breast of

Mile. Rabin " 18 " "

June " 19 " Opened an abscess in

the breast of Mile.
Rabin ; for atten-
tions and dressings. " 36 " "

" 26 " A medicine for the lit-
tle negro Augustine. " 6

a a

L 897 " "

324 APPENDICES

1. The original Sanson bill — Continued.

[Page 3]

Suite de l'autre part. . L 897 "

a

juin " 30 " une medecine pour au-

gustin L 6 " "

juillet " 1 " une medecine pour la

vielle jeanne " 6 " "

" 16 " une medecine pour

mtlle-] Rabin " 10 " "

aout " 15 " une medecine pour mlle-

Rabin " 10 " "

" eau blanche pour mr

audubon <f 3 " "

" 20 " une medecine pour mr

aubinais commis . . . . " 10 " "
" 22 " une medecine pour mr

aubinais " 10 " "

" 24 " tinture de Rhubarbe

pour mr aubinais. . . " 6 " "

" 26 " tinture de Rhubarbe

pour mr aubinais. . . " 6 " "

7bre- " 23 " une bouteille vin medici-

nal pour le negre

enfle " 15 " "

« g^ « une me(jecme pour la

vielle jeanne " 6 " "

gbre « "i « une medecine pour le

negre enfle " 6 " "

" 11 " une medecine pour le

negre enfle " 6 " "

" 16 " une medecine pour

therese " 6 " "

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

325

la. Translation of the Sanson bill — Continued.

[Page 3]

June
July

Brought forward from

the other part L 897 " "

" 30 " A medicine for Augus-

tine

" 1 " A medicine for old Jane

n

16 " A medicine for M[lle.]

Rabin

August " 15 " A medicine for Mile.

Rabin

" Eau blanche for M. Au-
dubon

" 20 " A medicine for M.

Aubinais, clerk

" 22 " A medicine for M.

Aubinais

« 24, a Tincture of rhubarb

for M. Aubinais ....

" 26 " Tincture of rhubarb

for M. Aubinais ....

September " 23 " A bottle of medicinal

wine for a swollen

negro

" 27 " A medicine for old Jane

October " 7 " Amedicine for the

swollen negro

" 11 " A medicine for the
swollen negro

" 16 " A medicine for Theresa

6

a a

6

a a

10

a a

10

a a

3

a a

10

a a

10

a a

6

« a

6

a a

15

a a

6

a cc

6

« u

6

« «

a

a u

326 APPENDICES

1. The original Sanson bill — Continued.

" 19 " une medecine pour

therese " 6 " "

acceptee apercu [?] Le 12 octob L 1009 " "

1786

Audubon 330

1339

Pour acquit aux cajes ce 7 juin 1787

SANSON

Reeu de Mr
Sanson
7. Juin 1787.

1784 Janvier traite mr. . . .

soins et fourni services . . . 330 "

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 327

la. Translation of the Sa7i$on bill — Continued.

" 19 " A medicine for Theresa " 6 " "

Accepted vised [?] October 12 L 1009 " "

1786

Audubon 330

1339 "

Paid at Les Cayes this 7th June, 1787

Sanson

M. Sanson's receipt
June 7, 1787.

1784 January Treated
M . . . . For care and serv-
ices rendered 330 "

328 APPENDICES

2. Copy of the Act of Adoption of Fougere {John James
Audubon) and Muguet (Rosa Audubon). Nantes, March
7, 1794- (For translation, see Chapter IV.)

Extrait des registres des naissances des sections de la Halle
et de Jean-Jacques de la commune de Nantes, departement de la
Loire-Inferieure, le 17 Ventose, an 2 de la Republique, une et
indivisible, 10 heures du matin.

Devant moi Joseph Theulier, officier public elu pour con-
stater Petat-civil des citoyens, ont comparu en la maison com-
mune Jean Audubon, commandant la corvette "le Cerbere,"
batiment de la Republique, age de 49 ans, natif des Sables-
d'Olonne, departement de la Vendee et Anne Moinet son epouse,
agee de 58 ans, native de la ci-devant paroisse de Saint-Leo-
nard, de cette commune, lesquels assistes de Rene Toussaint
Julien Beuscher, fabricant, age de 25 ans demeurant section
de la Halle rue Rubens et de Julien Pierre Beuscher, chirurgien
marin, age de 24 ans, demeurant section de la Fraternite, rue
du Marchix, et employe par continuation sur la dite corvette
le Cerbere, m'ont declare adopter et reconnaitre des ce moment
comme leurs propres enfants savoir:

Un enfant male nomme Fougere, issu depuis le mariage
d'eux comparant controle le 24 Aout 1772 dans la commune
de Paimboeuf en ce departement de lui Jean Audubon avec une
habitante de PAmerique morte il y a environ huit ans et une
enfant femelle nominee Muguet issue aussi depuis le mariage sus
dit de lui Jean Audubon d'une autre habitant de PAmerique
nommee Catherine Bouffard dont il ignore le sort.

Les deux enfants ci-presents, ages le premier de 9 ans qui
echoieront le 3 Floreal prochain, le second de 7 ans que echoie-
ront aussi au 7 Floreal prochain tous deux nes en Amerique
d'apres cette declaration que les temoins ci-dessus ont certifie
veritable, j'ai redige le present acte que le pere naturel et la
mere adoptive ainsi que leurs temoins ont signe avec moi les
dits jour et an.

Signe au registre: Audubon Citoyenne Anne Moinet

Jean Audubon, Beuscher & Beuscher Jeune.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 329

3. Copy of the Act of Baptism of Jean Jacques Fougere Audu-
bon. Nantes, October 23, 1800. (For translation, see
Chapter IV.)

Premier brumaire, an neuvieme.

Nous soussignes certifions avoir baptise ce jour, premier
brumaire, an 9 de la Republique, Jean Jacques Fougere Audu-
bon fils adoptif de Jean Audubon lieutenant de vaisseau de la
Republique et d'Anne Moinet sa legitime epouse, presents et
certifiant l'adoption qu'ils ont fait du dit Fougere ainsi et de la
meme maniere qu'il est porte dans l'acte ci-dessus.

Signer Tardiveau, pretre de Saint-
Similien de la Ville de Nantes.

330 APPENDICES

4. Copy of a bill of sale of Negroes rendered by Monsieur
Ollivier to Monsieur Audubon. Les Cayes, Santo Domingo,

1785.

1785. — M. Audubon doit a Ollivier ce qui suit:

Juillet pour 4 negresses a, 1750 7.000

— — 1 " 1750 1.750

— — 1 negresse borgne 1.600

— — 1 negritte 1.200

11.590

Pour acquit en compte et billet a. mon ordre sous la reserve
d'une augmentation de cent livres sur la negritte si elle vit au
dela de six mois.

Aux Cayes, le 25 Juillet 1785.

Signe: Ollivier.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 331

5. Statement of Accounts of Messrs. Audubon, Lacroix, For-
mon, cy Jacques in the purchase of negroes from M. Th.
Johnston, Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, 1785. (For com-
ment, see Chapter III.)

Compte de vente frais et net produit de quarante negres
achetes de Monsieur Th. JOHNSTON, de compte a demi entre
MM. AUDUBON LACROIX FORMON & JACQUES, pour
prix la somme de soixante mille livres, payee au dit sieurs la
dite somme comme suit:

Par Monsieur Audubon 20.000|

Par Lacroix Formon & Jacques 40.000 {

60.000

1785 Vendu par Monsieur AUDUBON, dont il se charge :

Fevrier

11

1

a. Reynaud Chateaudun

f 1650

—

12

1

- — Garreau

2100

—

12

3

— Bourseret

6000

—

12

1

— Lui-meme

1500

—

14

2

— Cossard

3564

—

15

1

— Lenoir

1782

—

18

1

— Blanchet

1782

—

19

3

— Jacques Bourry

6000

Mars

24

3

— Bouffard

4950

—

24

1

— Lui-meme

1500

—

24

1

— Ch. Gettee

1800

—

24

1

— Bouffard

1650

19 tetes 34.278

332

APPENDICES

Vendu par Lacroix Formon & Jacques
dont il se charge:

Fevrier

12

3

a. Bourseret

6000

—

12

1

— Menard

2000

—

12

2

— Reynaud fils

3780

—

13

2

— Peridigon

3800

—

13

3

— Maillet Lacoste

5700

—

15

1

— Dugay

1712

—

19

3

— Jacques Bourry

6000

—

19

1

— Lui-meme

1782

—

19

1

— Eux-memes

1500

—

19

1

— Begon M.

1700

—

19

2

— Millet

3300

Mars

2

A.

Id.

2 mort chez Villeneuve

chirurgien

37.274

71.552

Frais a deduire payes par Lacroix
Formon & Jacques

Pour 80 regimes de bannanes 15
— 8 tetes de boeuf 3

Paye a Villeneuve chirurgien
pour le traitement du negre mort

60
24

99

La demi de Monsieur Audubon
II a recu en les reprises dont il
se charge:

183

Net produit: f 71.369

35.684.10
34.278. "

II lui est du pour Lacroix Formon & Jacques 1.406.10

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 333

Clos et arrete le present compte en double par lequel il
resulte que M. Audubon doit a Lacroix Formon & Jacques dix
mille livres pour sa demi du payement des dits negres dont il
les debite au compte courant arrete ce jour en double, et les
dits Lacroix Formon & Jacques devant au dit Sieur Audubon
celle de cent six livres dix pour sa demi qui lui revient du net
produit de la vente des dits negres, lesquels portes au credit
des deux comptes courant, dont quitte aux Cayes, le plus porte
au credit de M. Audubon la somme de dix sept cent quatre-
vingt deux livres pour la demi du billet du sieur Collard qui
nous reste aux Cayes le 16 Septembre 1785.

Pour MM. Lacroix Formon & Jacques
Signer Clerc

Nous avons recu de M. Audubon la somme de trente mille
livres pour la portion d'achat des dits negres au-dessus.
Aux Cayes, le 16 Septembre 1785.

Pour MM. Lacroix Formon & Jacques
Signer Clerc.

334

APPENDICES

6. Copy of bill of sale of Negroes to Monsieur Audubon, and
a statement of his account with Messrs. Lucas Brothers
Sf Constant. Les Cayes, Santo Domingo, August 7, 1785-
June 9, 1788. (For comment, see Chapter III.)

Nous soussignes declarons avoir vendu et livre a Monsieur
Audubon, negociant de cette ville les negres ci-apres, nation
Hibo et Canga ....

Savoir :

1

nomine

Autron I

1

—

Jupiter

1

—

Antoine

1

—

Pitre

1

—

Thehimaque

1

—

Jeanpierre

1

—

Magloire

1

— ■

Lagrilade

1

—

Patte

1

—

Parisse

Etampe

Lucas

Jh. Lucas

1 nommee Francoise
1 — Lucie

1 — Julie

-.Negresses.

13 Ensemble treize negres ou negresses a deux mille livres
chaque formant la somme de vingt six mille livres sur laquelle
somme nous avons recu vingt-quatre mille livres comme suit:

16.000 en un mandat en sucre sur MM. Lacroix Formon
& Jacques.
7.100 — 17 — 8 en un billet de Formon Plumardiere.
889—24 en son billet.

24.000 pour pajement et a compte des treize negres

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 335

ci-dessus detailles, dans le nombre desquels le nomme Patte pour
engagement de le livrer a M. Audubon des qu'il sera en etat
de se rendre aux Cayes. Le dit sieur Audubon se reservant
vue dessus quand nous lui en ferons la remise pour le prix
de la somme de deux mille livres en argent comptant et moi
Audubon accepte le dit marche et declare avoir recu livraison
des douze tetes de negres ou negresses que j'ai bien vus et visites
et desquels je suis satisfait, aux Cayes, le 7 Aout 1785.

Signer Audubon — Lucas freres.

Nous avons recu a, compte de M. Audubon 162

660

882
Pour acquit porte en debit de notre compte courant arrete
ce jour, au Fond, le 9 Juin 1788.

Lucas freres & Constant.

336 APPENDICES

7. Accounts of William Bakewell, of "Fatland Ford" as
protege of his future son-in-law and as attorney or agent
for Audubon cy Rozier, giving certain exact indications

Messrs Audubon & Rozier

1805

Jan 4 Cash for sundries 11.25

12 d° 1....

18 Brother 150

1807

Apl 22 Cash Mr Rozier 66....

Advertis'ts in Philada & Norristown . . 7. . . .

Cash pd M Fisher 40. . . .

d° paid Vendreman 3. . . .

1808

Adv.ts & hand bills 3.75

Cash Mr Pears 14.50

May 3 Exps of Horses to Philada 4.76

20 Sundries 18.50

June 8 Cash 3.18

17 Smith's work 5.00

Advertise* 1. . . .

Oct 10 Exchange of Horse 10. . . .

Keep of Horses 23 weeks 42.50

Decr 31 Cash pd Mr Pears 18.92

Note by the Author. This record proves that Audubon upon his first
return to France from the United States, must have left "Mill Grove" on
the 12th of January, 1805, or not more than a day later; three days were re-
quired to walk to New York, which could not have been reached later than
the 15th, and probably as many more were needed for a letter to go to
"Fatland Ford." He probably sailed for Nantes shortly before January

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 337

of the naturalist' s movements and personal relations, before and
after finally leaving "Mill Grove." January 4, 1805 —
April 9, 1810. (For further reference, see Chapter VIII.)

in a/c with Wm Bakewell Cr

1805

March 18 Cash 5

1807

Apl 1 Cash of Miller 150.

d° of Jackson 50.

1808

Jan 8 d° of Longacre 50. . .

Apl 2 d° of Longacre 50. . .

do 25 d 100...

May 12 d° formon 31.84

Dec 20 Cash of Longacre 30. . .

18, the day when William Bakewell recorded that he had sent his "brother,"
Benjamin Bakewell, commission merchant in New York, $150; this was un-
doubtedly in payment of the loan which the brother in New York had
made to young Audubon for his passage to France. The next item, of
April 22, 1807, was for money advanced to Ferdinand Rozier, probably
when he was acting as clerk to Laurence Huron, in Philadelphia; "ad-

338 APPENDICES

7. Accounts of William Bakewell, of "Fatland Ford," as
protege of his future son-in-law and as attorney or agent
for Audubon <§• Rozier, giving certain exact indications

Messrs Audubon & Rozier

1809

Advertise*8 & Vendue Exps 12.82

25 Bills payable to W. Thomas 607.10

Cash pd Mr Page for powr of Attorney 1.37

13 Paid Attachment fees 9.28

Cash paid for tax 2.91

25 mortes [ ?] & half taxes 7

Commission 7998 a 1 1-2 per Cent 119.97

Jany 23 omitted Exps at Vendue 3.77

$1176.91

vertisements in Philadelphia and Norristown" possibly had reference to
the lease and final sale of "Mill Grove" of the year before. Miers Fisher
was the Quaker merchant, who for many years served as Lieutenant Audu-
bon's American agent and attorney, and who was later the adviser of his
son and Ferdinand Rozier. Thomas W. Pears, a relative by marriage of
the Bakewells, was with Audubon in Benjamin Bakewell's office in New
York, and afterwards associated with him and Thomas W. Bakewell in
their disastrous mill experiment at Henderson, Kentucky. The bill of
William Thomas, former Quaker tenant of "Mill Grove," was possibly in
liquidation of his claim against Lieutenant Audubon and Dacosta in their
mining operations at this farm (see the letters to Dacosta, Vol. I, p. 117).
The credit entry under May 13, 1808. "formon— 31.84," may represent in-
terest collected on an unsettled claim of Lieutenant Audubon against Mr.
Formon, a former partner in Santo Domingo, in relation to the sale of the
ships, the Count of Artois and the Annette (see Chapter II, p. 33).
Dacosta had been urged to apply to Mr. Formon's son-in-law, who appears
to have lived at Philadelphia, but was unable to obtain anything from the
Formon estate. The "Cash of Dacosta 299.44" possibly represented inter-
est on the mortgage which we have assumed was given to Audubon and
Rozier when Dacosta and his mining company came into possession of
"Mill Grove," September 15, 1806 (see Chapter XI, p. 148).

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 339

of the naturalist's movements and personal relations, before and
after finally leaving "Mill Grove." January .If, 1805 —
April 9, 1810. Continued.

in a/c with Wm Bakewell C

1809

Apl 18 Clennell 20. . .

Sept 30 Kymar 22. . .

Oct 27 d 47. . .

Nov 6 d 22.50

Dec 23 d° 10. . .

r

1810

Jan 23 Cash of Dacosta . 299.44

Feb 13 d° of Miller 20

Balle of Neckland 237.32

Apl 3 Miller 8

9 d° 6.12l/o

$1159.221/2

340 APPENDICES

8. Concerning a Power of Attorney issued by Lieutenant Audu-
bon and Anne Moynet Audubon to Ferdinand Rozier and
John Audubon, the Younger, at Coueron, France, in 1805;
parts in French translated by a Philadelphia notary; sig-
natures of original document authenticated by the Mayor
of Coueron, October 21, 1805; his attest of the legality
of Anne Moynet Audubon's signature, at Coueron, October
27, 1805; authentification of the signature of the Mayor
of Coueron by the Subprefect of Savenay, November 27,
1805; attest of the Subprefect' 's signature by the Prefect.
(Remainder of document missing.)

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ss :

I, Peter Stephan Du Ponceau, notary public & Sworn Inter-
preter of foreign Languages for the Commonwealth aforesaid,
residing in the City of Philadelphia, do hereby certify that I
have carefully translated into English so much of the Instru-
ment of writing hereunto annexed as is written in the French
language, as follows, to wit:

At the bottom of the Deed [act] and immediately after
the Signatures of the Witnesses, there is a Certificate in France
[French], which being translated, is as follows:

Seen by us, the Mayor of the commune of Coueron, who
attest the above Signatures of G. Loyen, assistant mayor, C.
D'orbigny, Doctor of medicine, Audubon, & Anne Moynet
Audubon, to which full faith and credit is to be given, where-
ever it may be necessary — Done in our Office at Coueron, the
thirtieth of vendemiaire fourteenth year of the French Empire

[sic],

G. Vallin, mayor.

[Mayor's seal]

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 341

And on the back of the said Deed [Act] is written in French
what follows.

We, Germain Vallin, Mayor of the commune of Coueron in
the Department of Lower Loire in the French Empire, certify
to all whom it may concern, that on this day, personally ap-
peared before me John Audubon and Anne Moynette, his wife,
both now residing in this said commune, and represented to
us, That in order to give its full force & effect to the Instru-
ment written on the other side hereof, in the English language,
which they have declared to be a letter of attorney in favor
of Messieurs Ferdinand Rozier, & John Audubon, junior for
the purposes therein mentioned, it was necessary that the said
Instrument be by them acknowledged before us, according to
the forms prescribed by the Laws of the State of Pennsylvania,
and that the said Anne Moynette Audubon should be exam-
ined by us separate from her said husband, in order to declare
that she has signed and executed the said Deed [Act] of her
own free will and accord, and without being compelled thereto
by her husband ; That this formality is rigorously required
by the Laws of the State of Pennsylvania, and no other act,
not even a notarial Instrument, can in any manner Supply
the same.

In consideration thereof, we have received the acknowledg-
ment which the said appearcrs have made before us, by which
they have declared and acknowledged that the said Instrument,
written in the English Language on the other sides hereof i?
their own Act and Deed, and that they desire that it may be
recorded as such, whenever it may be necessary.

And the said John Audubon having withdrawn, we have
examined the said Anne Moynette Audubon separately and a-
part from her said husband, and She declared to us, That She
knows & perfectly understands the contents of the said Deed
[Act], and that She has Signed, Sealed, and declared [deliv-

342 APPENDICES

ered] the same, of her own free will and accord, without being
compelled thereto by her said husband, either by threats or by
any other means of compulsion whatever. In faith whereof,
we the Mayor aforesaid, have Signed the present Certificate,
and have caused the Seal of this mayoralty to be thereunto
affixed — Given at Coueron the thirtieth of vendemiaire four-
teenth year of the French Empire [sic']

G. Vallin.

[Seal of the mayoralty
of Coueron.]

(Afterwards is written also in the French Language, as
follows:)

I have seen the above and attest the Signature of G. Vallin,
mayor of the commune of Coueron, above and on the other side
affixed.

Done in the Subprefect's office, at Savenay, the fifth
Brumaire fourteenth year.

The Subprefect of the first District.

Magonet Tremelotrie

[Seal of the District
of Savenay]

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 343

I attest the above Signature of Magonet Tremelotrie. —

Nantz, the 7th. Frimaire 14th. year

The Prefect
Belleville
which [remainder
wanting.]

344

APPENDICES

9. Articles of Association of Jean Audubon and Ferdinand
Rozier to govern their partnership in business; drawn up
at Nantes, March %S, 1806. (See Chapter IX.)

[stamp] Entre nous soussignes Ferdinand Rozier

REP. FRA. et JeanAudubon, nous proposant de passer

50 aux etats Unis sommes Convenus de former une

cen societe de Commerce aux Conditions Suivantes.

Article Premier.

La societe sera regie sous les noms Collectifs
de Ferdinand Rozier et Jean Audubon et chacun
de nous aura la Signature pour toute affaire de
notre Commerce seulement.

Art. 2.

a Notre arrivee nous prendrons possession de La terre de
Mill-Grove, et nous ferons rendre Compte a Mr. D a c o s t a
qui a la procuration d Mr. Audubon pere . nous nous occu-
perons des moyens de faire valoir cet etablissement ou prendre
Connoissance de La mine de Plomb Decouverte, et avant d'y
continuer les travaux Commences, nous Examinerons si les
depenses faites par le Sr. D a c o s t a ont ete et peuvent nous
etre utiles, enfin nous fairons ou fairons faire des devis Esti-
matifs des frais et des produits qui peuvent en resulter. et nous
n'entreprendrons rien que nous ne soyons tous deux parfaite-
ment d'accord sur le principe en Consequence nous signerons
l'un et l'autre le pro jet que nous en arreterons afin que l'un de
nous ne s'en ecarte, et il en sera de meme pour toute les
nouvelles Depences qui changeraient les profits arretes.

Art. 3.

II est convenu que la Moitie du produit de cette habita-
tion seront entre nous par Moitie et pour en Connoitre ainsi

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 345

9a. Translation of the Articles of Association of John Audu-
bon and Ferdinand Rozier.

[stamp] We> tne undersigned, Ferdinand Rozier and John

REP. FRA. Audubon, who are intending to go to the United

50 States, are agreed to form a partnership in business

cen upon the following conditions :

Article First.

The partnership will be administered under the
joint names of Ferdinand Rozier and John Audu-
bon, and each of us will have the power of signa-
ture for all matters of our business only.

Art. 2.

Upon our arrival we will take possession of the farm of
Mill-Grove, and we will call to account Mr. Dacosta, who has
the power of attorney of Mr. Audubon, Senior. We shall take
measures to improve the establishment, or make an investiga-
tion of the lead mine discovered [on the property], and before
continuing the work already begun we will ascertain whether
the expenditures made by Sr. Dacosta, have been, and can still
be, advantageous to us. Finally we shall prepare, or attempt
to prepare, estimates of the expenses and the products which
accrue from these, and we shall undertake nothing upon which
we are not both perfectly agreed in principle; consequently
we shall both subscribe to the project which we shall decide
upon, in order that neither of us may depart from it, and it will
be the same for all new expenses which might alter the plans
that are reached.

Art. 3.

It is agreed that half the product of this plantation shall
be divided between us on a one half basis, and in order to

346 APPENDICES

que la perte, nous aurons un Livre particulier pour cet Ob jet,
d'un Cote seront Inseres les articles de depences par Jour, et
au moment que nous en fairons, de l'autre Cote les ventes et
Produits des fermes et de tout ce qui pourra resulter de cette
Operation en sorte que le Benefice se verra tous les jours par
l'addition des articles qui Composeront le debit et le Credit.

Art. 4.

La Maison cy dessus sera un objet distinct, de tout Com-
merce afin de pouvoir regler cette propriete tant et tant de
fois que Nous le desirerons. il est meme Convenu que joindrons
aux frais de cette Exploitation ceux necessaires pour la vie
et autres depences communes tant qu'il nous Conviendra de
vivre et d'habiter ensemble.

Art. 5.

II ne peut nous etre interdit de faire tout autre Commerce,
mais avant d'en entreprendre nous resterons six mois a prendre
des Informations aux pays de ce qui pourroit nous etre avan-
tageux, alors nous nous livrerions a quelque operation de com-
merce ou Interieur ou Maritime.

Art. 6.

Nous pourrons l'un et l'autre faire quelque voyage a l'effet
de nous procurer des Connoissances, et s'il arrivait que nous
decidions quelque Negociants a envoyer des Merchandises a. la
vente ou a, la Consignation de Mr. Rozier pere nous fairions
la Condition que le Benefice qui resulteroit de ces Consigna-
tions seroit partages entre nous et le Sur. F. Rozier pere.

Art. 7.

Tous les benefices comme les pertes resultant de nos Opera-
tions Commerciales seront partagees Egalement entre les
associes.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 347

recognize this [profit], as well as the loss, we shall keep a
special book for the purpose ; on one side shall be entered the
items of expense, day by day, and, at the moment this is done,
on the other side [shall also be given] the sales and products
of the farms, and of all that can result from this business,
in such a way that the profit shall be always apparent by the
addition of the items which compose the debit and the credit.

Art. 4.

The house above mentioned [Mill-Grove farmhouse] shall
be an object separate from all business, in order that we may
settle matters as completely as we desire. It is agreed that
we shall add to the expenses of this exploitation, those neces-
sary for life, and others of a common character, so long as it
shall suit us to live and dwell together.

Art. 5.

We cannot be prevented from engaging in any other kind
of business, but before undertaking it we shall remain six months
in order to gather from the country information of a kind
that would be advantageous to us ; we shall then apply our-
selves to some commercial occupation, whether inland or mari-
time.

Art. 6.

We are both at liberty to make any journey in order to
procure information, and should it happen that we persuade
any merchants to send goods to Mr. Rozier, Senior, we would
establish the condition that the benefit which might result from
these consignments would be divided between us and the Mr.
F. Rozier, Senior.

Art. 7.

All the benefits as well as the losses resulting from our
commercial transactions shall be divided equally between the
partners.

348 APPENDICES

Art. 8.

Les frais de Passage et autre communs entre nous fairont
le premier article de nos depences sociales. . . .

Art. 9.

Nous nous promettons l'un et l'autre amitie et I n—
telligence,et convenons tres expressement qua la moindre
difficulte, nous prendrons chacun un arbitre qui sera authorise a
se choisir un troisieme et nous engageons sur notre honneur a
en passer par tout ce qui sera decide, sans que jamais nous
puissions en faire appel devant aucuns tribunaux.

Art. 10.

En cas de mort de l'un ou l'autre (ce qu'a Dieu ne plaise)
le survivant sera seul charge de la Liquidation pour en tenir
Compte a qui de droit, c'est a dire aux heritiers du Deffunt.
mais la societe ne pourra etre dissoute que neuf annees a Comp-
ter du Jour de la Datte du present, ce Cas seulement arrivant,
il sera alloue au survivant une Commission sur les produits de
l'Etablissement fixe a Dix pour Cent.

Fait double et de bonne foy entre nous.

Nantes ce 23 Mars 1806.

Jean Audubon

FERDINAND RoZIEE

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 349

Art. 8.

The expenses of the journey and others of a common na-
ture shall make the first item of our social expenses. . . .

Art. 9.

We both resolve to maintain friendship and mutual under-
standing, and we agree very expressly that, upon the least
difficulty, we shall each select one arbitrator, who will be au-
thorized to choose a third, and we promise upon our honor to
fully accept the decision that shall be reached, without ever
having it in our power to make an appeal from it before any
courts.

Art. 10.

In case of the death of one or the other (which, God for-
bid), the survivor shall have sole charge of making a settle-
ment, in order to give an accounting to those entitled to it by
law, that is to say to the heirs of the deceased, but the part-
nership cannot be dissolved until after nine years, counting
from the day of the date of the present [instrument]. Only
in this event, the survivor will be allowed a commission upon
the products of the establishment fixed at ten per cent.
Done in duplicate and in good faith between us.
Nantes this 23 March 1806.

John Audubon

FERDINAND RoZIER

350 APPENDICES

10. Power of Attorney issued by Lieutenant Jean Audubon,
Anne Moynet Audubon, and Claude Francois Rozier to
their respective sons, Jean Audubon and Ferdinand
Rozier, at Nantes, France, April 4, 1806, eight days be-
fore the latter embarked to America to enter upon their
partnership in business.

[stamp] par devant Royer et Son Collegue, notaires a la
REP. FRA. r£sidence de Nantes, departement de la Loire-in-

cen ferieure soussignes, ont comparu le Sieur

Jean Audubon, rentier, et dame Anne Moinet, son epouse qu'il
autorise, demeurants rue Rubens, N°. 39, et monsieur Claude-
francois Rozier, negociant, rue de la fosse, tous trois commune
de nantes, Les quels constituent pour leurs Procureurs generaux
et speciaux Jean Audubon, fils, et ferdinand Rozier, fils, aux
quels, l'un en 1' absence de l'autre, ils donnent pouvoir et procu-
ration de faire, pour et au mieux de l'interet de Constituants,
tous reglements de comptes, eligements de credits, recovrements,
payements, et autres actes analogues avec tous fermiers, cor-
respondants, debiteurs et creanciers des Constituants aux
Etats-unis d'Amerique ; plaider, constituer, transiger, recevoir,
donner quittances, renouveler, prendre termes, expedier et
gereralement faire pour leur utilite, tout ce qui leur semble-
ra le plus convenable ; le tout, d'apres les renseignements, pieces
et documents relatifs, qui leur ont ete, leur sont ou leur seront
fournis tant par les constituants que par autres leurs prece-
dents charges d'affaires et fondes de pouvoirs aux dits Etats-
unis de regir, gerer et administrer la moitie appartenante aux
constituants de la terre de Mill Grove en Pensylvania meme
d'exploiter ou faire exploiter la mine de plomb recemment
decouverte sur la dite terre : consulter dans tous les cas impor-
tants, monsieur Miers fisher, — negociant a Philadelphie, comme
ami commun et bon conseil ; tenir tous livres et registres neces-
saires, faire a la fin de chaque annee ou plutot, la balance de
la recette et depense pour la regie de la dite terre et Sexploita-
tion de la mine, s'il y a lieu ; vendre aux prix, charges, clauses

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 351

10a. Translation of the Power of Attorney issued by Jean
Audubon, Anne Moinet Audubon, and Claude Francois
Rozier to Jean Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier, April 4,
1806.

[stamp] ln presence of Royer and his colleague, notaries,
75

lA* living at Nantes, department of the Loire-inferi-

cen

eure, undersigned, have appeared

Sieur Jean Audubon, capitalist, and Madame Anne Moinet, his
wife, whom he authorizes [to act], living at Number 39, rue
Rubens, and Monsieur Claude Francois Rozier, of rue de la
Fosse, all three of the commune of Nantes: who empower, to
act as their general and special attorneys, Jean Audubon, the
younger, and Ferdinand Rozier, the son, to whom, jointly and
severally, they give authority and warrant of attorney to make,
for and in the best interest of the grantors, all settlements of
accounts, assignments of credits, recoveries of debts, payments,
and other analogous acts with all tenants, representatives,
debtors and creditors of the grantors in the United States of
America; to go into court, settle, compromise, receive, to give
receipts, to renew [loans or notes], to grant time, to expedite,
and in general to do for their benefit all that shall seem to
them most fitting; the whole, according to the instructions,
papers, and documents relating thereto, which have been, are,
or shall be furnished them, as well by the grantors as by their
previous agents and attorneys in the aforesaid United States,
to govern, conduct, and administer the half, belonging to the
grantors, of the farm of Mill Grove in Pennsylvania, as well
as to exploit, or cause to be exploited the lead mine recently
discovered on the said farm; to consult, in every important
matter, Mr. Miers Fisher, — merchant at Philadelphia, as a
common friend and good counsellor ; to keep all necessary books
and registers ; at the end of each year, or sooner, to strike the
balance of receipts and expenses for the control of the said
farm and the exploitation of the mine, should there be reason
for it ; to sell at prices, charges, stipulations, and conditions,

352 APPENDICES

et conditions dont il conviendront, mais d'accord avec monsieur
Dacosta, proprietaire de l'autre moitie, la moitie de la dite
terre de Mill grove, appartenante aux constituants, en toucher
le prix, en donner quittances, faire tous partages, accepter
tout lot et generalement faire pour l'interet des constituants
tous actes conservatoires et definitifs en tous tribunaux, devant
toutes administrations et officiers publics, qui leur paraitront
necessaires ou utiles ; a l'effet de quoi, tous pouvoirs analogues
exprimes ou non exprimes pour tous cas prevus ou imprevus,
merae de substituer en tout ou partie des dits pourvoirs, qui bon
leur semblera et de le revoquer, leur sont donnes par la presente

procuration qui ne sera pas sujette a surannation.

fait et passe en l'etude et au rapport de Royer, l'un de nous,
sous les seings des comparants, apres lecture, ce jour trois
avril mil-huit-cent six. la minute est signee des parties et des
Notaires soussignes ; elle est restee a Royer, l'un d'eux, enregis-
tree a nantes le trois avril mil-huit-cent-six par Dufau, qui a
recu un franc dix centimes.

Varsavaux J. Noyer

vu par nous president du tribunal de premiere in-
stance seant a. nantes, pour legalisation des Signa-
tures varsavaux et Noyer apposees ci-dessus.
Ce jour trois avril mil huit cent six

G A N D O N

Commercial Agency of the United
States of America

I William D. Patterson Commercial agent of the United
States of America for the Port and District of Nantes do
hereby certify that the Signatures affixed to the foregoing
Document are those of Messrs J Royer and Varsavaux both
Notaries publick for the City of Nantes and of Mr Gandon

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 353

upon which they shall agree, but in accord with Monsieur
Dacosta, owner of the other half, the half of the said farm of
Mill Grove, belonging to the grantors ; to receive the price
thereof, to give receipt for it, to make all divisions, to receive
all allotments, and in general to perform for the interest of the
grantors all conservative and final acts in every court of jus-
tice before all jurisdictions and public officers, which shall seem
to them necessary or useful : to the effect of which all analogous
powers, expressed or unexpressed, foreseen or unforeseen, even
of substituting in whole or in part of the aforesaid powers,
whosoever shall seem good to them, and of revoking him, are
given to them by the present bill of attorney, which will not

be subject to expiration.

Done and granted in the office and on the report of Royer, one
of us, under the signatures of the persons in appearance, after
reading, this third day of April, one thousand eight hundred
and six. The minute is signed by the parties and the undersigned
notaries ; it remains with Royer, one of us, recorded at Nantes
the third of April one thousand eight hundred and six, by
Dufau, who has received one franc, ten centimes.

Varsavaux J. Royer

[Seal] Examined by us, judge of the Court of the First
Instance, sitting at Nantes, for the authentication
of the signatures Varsavaux and Royer, affixed
above, this third day of April, one thousand eight
hundred and six.

Gandon

President of the Tribunal of premiere Instance at the said
City and that to their Signatures and Ads as such, full faith
and Credit is and ought to be due and given

[Seal] In testimony whereof I have hereunto Set my

Hand & affixed my Seal of Office at Nantes this 4th.
of april 1806.

W D Patterson

354 APPENDICES

11. Account Current of John Audubon and Ferdinand Rozier
with the estate of Benjamin Bakewell, late commission
merchant in New York, showing their dealings and stand-
ing with this house during the first sixteen months of their

Drs Messrs John Audubon & Ferdinand Rozier

1807

Aug* 1 To Sundry Merchdize pr Invoice $2482 35

31 " Cash sundry expences on the above . . 6 44

Septr 29 " Merchdize Powder Horns shot bags &c 57

Novr 13 " W Taylor exps on D° to Pittsburgh 3 77
" Cash certificate property pr Mentor

to Nantes 2

30 " D° postage sundry french letters. . 3 14
Decer 31 " Adv* pr Jane # for Indigo & ex-
pences 1516 43

1808

Jan? 29 " Cash fr* & cartee Oil from Philada. . 12 45
30 " D° pd Hislop for breast pins on your

a/c 9

Balance 695 12

1808 4787 50

March 1 To Merche pr Bill @ 6 mos $ 161

April 7 " your note due this day 3647 29

" R. Henderson am* due him by you. . 72 12

June 27 " Cash cartSe & Lighterage on tobacco 7 50

" Freight & primage — " D° 105

July 28 " your note due this day 787 73

Septr 23 " Mdse 1 doz sans paraitres 24 24

$4804 90
Decr 13 To Balance $924 49

Note by the Author. For brig Mentor, see Chapter XI, Vol. I, p. 163,
and for the ship Jane, Captain Sammis, ibid., p. 158. For Messrs. Robert

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 355

business experience in the West. Covers the period, August
1, 1807 to December 13, 1808. (Statement accompanying
the letter of Thomas Bakewell, reproduced in Vol. I, p.
196.)

in Account Current with Benjn Bakewell

TS

1807

Aug*. 4 By your note at 8 mos $3647 29

Decr. 31 " net proceeds sales on 4.50

your a/c 319.35 323 85

" Francis Rozier balance his a/c 816 56

$4787 50

1808

Feby 1 By Balance as pr a/c rendered $ 695 12

March 1 " your dft on U S Bank Philada 2000

" commission on goods al-
lowed you $118.20 [paper torn]

deduct 1/3 profit on

french goods 24.26 [ 93.94 ]

25 " R Kinder & C°'s accepte @6 mos. [paper torn]
" L Huron's note — " 9 days.[ " ]

" your note @ 4 mos for balance.. [

Balance [ 924.49 ]

New York Decemr. 13th. 1808

for the Assignees of the [estate of Benjamin

Bakewell]
Th[omas Bakewell]

Kinder & Company, see accompanying letter of Thomas Bakewell, Vol. I,
p. 196, and letter of William Bakewell, his uncle, ibid., p. 199. Laurence
Huron was a French importer, resident in Philadelphia; for his award in
the disputed Dacosta claim, see Vol. I, p. 168. At this time Benjamin
Bakewell's importing business was in the hands of his creditors, but his son,
Thomas Bakewell, was still employed in the office.

356

APPENDICES

lla. Final Account of Francis Dacosta, rendered July 25, 1807,
to Lieutenant Jean Audubon, his vartner in the unfortunate

Dr

Mill Grove Farm — in account

1806

July 15th-

4

44

Aug. 23d

4

50

Octb 15

To housing the chair 4 months

4

Nov. 29

To Notariat and Consular charges in Bordeaux for
Certificate to make void the mortgage & bond

29

52

1807

July 25

390

62

$433

8

Dr-

John Audubon of Nantzin Accoun

t

1806

June 1st

To Balance brought from the last account

316

27

1807

July 25

to interest of the same to this day 13 m., 25 D8- . .

21

15

Sepb» 26

to his half in the Lead ore delivered to him &

N.

valued as

^>80

ahftvc $lf>r>

y^

ditto

1806

ditto

to ditto in the tools and furniture d° d° at $189 .36

94

67

Octbr 15

37

50

to the recorder in Norristown for entering satis-

faction of John Audubon mortgage to John Au-

gustin Prevost .

2

83

to compensation claimed by Francis Dacosta for

making up half of his expences, in managing the

mining Works, the mills repairs, & taking up

the formation of a Company, during two years

of constant cares — troubles — and loss of time

at 300 dollars a year. —

600

00

$1152 42

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

357

mining enterprise at "Mill Grove" '; later contested and settled by
arbitration. (For comment, see Vol. I, p. 168.)

w

ith Francis Dacosta

1806
Sepbre 26
ditto

Oct.

11

1807
april 6

By lead ore valued & divided

By tools & furniture — ditto — ditto

By M. Mackley s/ refunding money /
By sale of the Chair

By sale of 84 panes of Glass to John Pawling-

Current with Francis Dacosta

160

189 36
2 00
75

6 72

$433 8

1807
July 25

do do

By cash

By half of the ballance of the Mill Grove Farm —
account current amounting as per the above
account to 390 . 62

Ballance claimed this day

6 47

195 31
950 64

E. E. Philadelphia the 25th July 1807

[Signed] Francis Dacosta.

.152 42

358 APPENDICES

11a. Final Account of Francis Dacosta, rendered July %5,
1807, to Lieutenant Jean Audubon, his partner m the un-
fortunate mining enterprise at "Mill Grove"; later con-
tested and settled by arbitration. — Continued.

Erreurs a relever dans le Compte de
M. J. Audubon

Veritables valeurs

" au lieu de

Difference

dans

le Balance " 125"8

300"

174.92

do

Furnitures " 189"36

270"

80.64

do

Chairs " 75"

125"

50 "

do

Mine 120.29

280.29

400"

119 "71

do

— 160 "

$425-27

la moitie est de.

. 212.63V2

Omis $300 paye par francis Dacosta a Miers Fisher
le 24 May 1803 300

Ditto $176"67 La proportion de Fis Dacosta dans
la rente de la premiere annee qui ne lui a pas ete
paye 176.67

$689.30

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 359

12. Quit Claim or Release given by John James Audubon to
Ferdinand Rozier on the Dissolution of their Partnership
in Business at Saint e Genevieve, Upper Louisiana {Mis-
souri), April 6, 1811.

I John Audibon having this day by mutual Consent with
Ferdinand Rozier, dissolved and forever closed the partnership
and firm of Audibon & Rozier, — and having Received from
said Ferdinand Rozier, payments and notes to the full amount
of my part of the goods & debts of the late firm of Audibon &
Rozier — I the said John Audibon one of the firm aforesaid,
do hereby release and forever quit Claim to all or any Interest
which I have or may have in the Stock on hand and debts due
to the Late Firm of Audibon & Rozier unto him the said Ferdi-
nand Rozier, all my rights titles, claimes and Interest in the
goods merchandise and debts due to the late Firm of Audibon &
Rozier — and do hereby authorize and empower him for my part
to collect the same in any manner whatseer . either privately
or by suit or suits in law or equity — hereby acclaiming him
sole and absolute proprietor and rightful owner of all the goods
merchandises & debts of the firm aforesaid, as completely as
they were the goods and property of the Late firm of Audibon
& Rozier —

In witness whereof I have hereto Set my hand & Seal this
Sixth day of April 1811

[Seal]
John Audubon
Ed D. De Villmonte

Note by the Author. It will be noticed that the naturalist writes his
name seven times as "Audibon," in this document, but signs in the way-
usual with him at the period. See Vol. I, p. 24.

360 APPENDICES

13. Copy of a portion of the first Will of Lieutenant Jean
Audubon. Coueron, May 20, 1812. (For comment on
this and documents Nos. 14 to 18, see Chapter IV.)

Jean AUDUBON, proprietaire demeurant a sa maison de la
Gerbetiere commune de Coueron, lequel sain d'esprit a fait son
testament comme suit:

Par les presentes mon testament.

Je donne et legue a, dame Anne Moinette mon epouse, la
part et portion disponible en usufruit a raison de ce que j'aurai
ou non de descendants de generalement tous les biens meubles
et immeubles qui m'appartiendront a l'instant de mon deces.

Je donne et legue a Monsieur Jean Audubon que je crois
actuellement aux Etats-Unis sans cependant en etre sur, la
moitie en toute propriete de generalement tous les biens meubles
et immeubles qui m'appartiendront a l'instant de mon deces pour
par lui en faire et disposer en toute propriete et a sa volonte
a la charge toutefois par lui de laisser dame Anne Moinette
mon epouse jouir sur iceux du legs fait ci-dessus en sa faveur.

Je donne et legue a dame Rose Bouffard epouse de Mon-
sieur Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, demeurant actuellement
au Port-Launay en Coueron, la moitie en propre de generale-
ment tous les biens meubles et immeubles qui m'appartiendront
a, l'instant de mon deces pour par lui en faire et disposer en
toute propriete et a. sa volonte a la charge toutefois par elle
de laisser dame Anne Moinette mon epouse, jouir sur iceux du
legs que je fais ci-dessus en sa faveur.

Je veux et entends qu'en cas de mort de Monsieur Audubon
ou de madame Puigaudeau, mes deux derniers legataires aux
presentes ou meme de tous les deux, les heritiers en ligne directe
de l'un ou de l'autre recueillent entr'eux le legs fait en leur
faveur, c'est-a-dire que les heritiers de M. Audubon recueilleront
le legs qui lui est fait et ceux de Madame Puigaudeau celui fait
a, la dite; en cas toutefois que les sieurs Audubon et la dame
Puigaudeau ne recueilleraient pas eux-memes le legs, soit parce
qu'ils precederaient moi le testateur, ou autrement, . . .

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 361

14. Copy of the second and last Will of Lieutenant Jean
Audubon. March 15, 1816.

Moi, soussigne, Jean AUDUBON, demeurant a la Ger-
betiere en la commune de Coueron, departement de la Loire-
Inferieure.

Par les presentes mon testament.

Je donne et legue a. dame Anne MOINETTE, mon epouse
la part et portion disponible en usufruit a raison de ce que
j'aurai de descendants de generalement tous les biens meubles
et immeubles qui m'appartiendront a l'instant de mon deces.

Je donne et legue a Monsieur Jean RABAIN creole de Saint-
Domingue, que je crois actuellement aux Etats-Unis, sans
cependant en etre sur, epoux de Mademoiselle Lucy BACK-
WELL, la moitie en toute propriete de generalement tous les
biens meubles et immeubles qui m'appartiendront a, l'instant de
mon deces pour par lui en faire et disposer en toute propriete
et a sa volonte, a. la charge toutefois par lui de laisser dame
Anne Moinette, mon epouse jouir sur iceux du legs fait ci-dessus
en sa faveur.

Je donne et legue a, dame Rose BOUFFARD, creole de
Saint-Domingue epouse de M. Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau,
demeurant actuellement au Port-Launay en Coueron, la moitie
en propre de generalement tous les biens meubles qui m'appar-
tiendront a l'instant de mon deces pour par elle en faire et
disposer en toute propriete et a sa volonte, a la charge toute-
fois par elle de laisser a dame Anne Moinette, mon epouse jouir
sur iceux du legs fait ci-dessus en sa faveur.

Je veux et entends qu'en cas de mort de M. RABAIN ou
Madame Puigaudeau, mes deux derniers legataires aux pre-
sentes, ou meme de tous les deux, les heritiers en ligne directe
de l'un ou de l'autre recueillent entr'eux le legs fait en leur
faveur.

Cela dit, que les heritiers de M. RABAIN recueilleront le
legs qu'il lui est fait et ceux de dame Puigaudeau celui fait a
la dite dame en cas toutefois que les dits sieurs Rabain et dame

362 APPENDICES

Puigaudeau ne recueilleront pas eux-memes les legs fails, parce
qu'ils precederaient moi le testataire, ou autrement et dans le
cas ou par quelque motif que ce puisse etre les presentes dis-
positions en faveur de Jean Rabain et Rose Bouffard epouse
Loyen du Puigaudeau seraient attaquees et annulees, je declare
donner mes biens meubles et immeubles sans exception quel-
conque a la dame Anne Moinette mon epouse en toute propriete.
Fait dans ma demeure susdite a la Gerbetiere en Coueron le
15 Mars 1816. ViveleRoi!

Signe: Audubon.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 363

15. Copy of a portion of the first Will of Madame Anne
Moynet, wife of Lieutenant Audubon, December 4-> 1814>

Par les presentes mon testament.

Je donne et legue a Monsieur Jean AUDUBON, mon mari,
la jouissance en toute propriete des biens meubles et celle en
usufruit des biens immeubles qui m'appartiendront a l'instant
de mon deces, pour qu'a l'un et l'autre titre de cette epoque,
il en jouisse fasse et dispose comme de tous ses autres biens
sans etre tenu d'en donner caution, voulant et entendant qu'il
puisse faire sur les immeubles tous changements, coupes de bois
et autres qu'il lui plaira, le tout avec dispense des dommages
et interets.

Je donne et legue en toute propriete a, Monsieur Jean
Audubon fils et a dame Rose Bouffard, epouse de Monsieur
Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau a chacun par moitie, la totalite
de tous les biens qui composeront ma succession immobiliere
a l'instant de mon deces, duquel neanmoins par suite du legs
fait ci-dessus en faveur de mon mari, ils ne pourront se mettre
en possession qu'a sa mort.

Arrivant que mon mari fut mort avant moi, je veux et
entends que M. Jean AUDUBON fils et la dame Rose Bouffard,
epouse Puigaudeau, recueillent aussi ma sucession mobiliere a
Peffet de quoi le cas arrivant, je leur legue et donne en toute
propriete.

Mes intentions que si M. Jean Audubon fils ou la dite dame
Puigaudeau etaient morts l'un ou l'autre avant moi ou meme
tous les deux, leurs enfants soient mes legataires, c'est-a-dire
que les enfants de M. Audubon recueilleraient entr'eux ce que
celui-ci doit avoir et que ceux de Madame Puigaudeau recueil-
leraient aussi entr'eux ce que celle-ci doit avoir a l'effet de quoi
je les donne et legue aux dits enfants.

Si a ma mort l'un ou l'autre de M. Audubon fils ou de
Madame Puigaudeau etaient eux-memes morts sans enfants, je
veux que ce soit alors les survivants d'eux deux ou ses enfants
qui recueillent ma succession entiere, pourquoi a cette cause, je
legue la totalite de mes biens meubles et immeubles, . . .

364 APPENDICES

16. Copy of a portion of the second Will of Madame Jean
Audubon. May 10, 1816.

Je donne et legue a Monsieur Jean AUDUBON,

mon epoux, la part et portion disponible en usufruit a raison
de ce que j'aurai ou non d'enfants de generalement tous les
biens meubles et immeubles qui m'appartiendront a l'instant
de mon deces pour par lui en jouir sa vie durant, sans pouvoir
etre tenu a en fournir caution et a ma mort mes heritiers les
prendre dans l'etat ou ils seront.

Je donne et legue en toute propriete a. M. Jean RABIN,
creole de Saint-Domingue, epoux de demoiselle Lucy BACH-
WELL, laquelle je crois aux Etats-Unis d'Amerique, sans
cependant en etre sure et a dame Rose Bouffard, creole de
Saint-Domingue, epouse de Monsieur Gabriel Loyen du Puigau-
deau, demeurant au Plessis commune de Coueron, la generality
de tous les biens meubles et immeubles qui m'appartiendront a
l'instant de mon deces, pour par eux s'en mettre en possession,
les partager par moitie et chacun jouir faire et disposer de
ceux qui lui echoieront comme de ses autres biens propres de
ce jour. Si M. Jean Audubon mon epoux, est mort avant moi,
mais seulement du jour de sa mort s'il me survit parce que
je veux expressement que le legs fait ci-dessus en sa faveur ait
sa pleine et entiere execution de preference et avant tout.

Je veux et entends qu'en cas de mort de Monsieur RABIN
ou de Madame Puigaudeau mes deux derniers legataires ou
meme de tous les deux, les heritiers en ligne directe de l'un ou
de l'autre reunis recueillent le legs fait en faveur de leur auteur,
c'est-a-dire que les heritiers de M. RABIN recueuilleraient le
legs a lui fait et ceux de Madame PUIGAUDEAU ce que celle-ci
aurait recueilli.

Arrivant que les liberalites faites en faveur de Monsieur
Rabin ou celles faites en fabeur de Madame Puigaudeau ou
meme toutes les deux par quelles causes ou raisons que ce soit
viendraient a etre declarees nulles, je veux que Monsieur Audu-
bon, mon epoux recueille en toute propriete les biens meubles

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 365

et immeubles qui en font l'objet et auraient passe aux mains
de celui ou ceux qui ne pourraient les faire a l'effet de quoi je
l'institue mon heritier en droits, fonds et proprietes pour les
biens que mes autres autres legataires ci-dessus ou l'un d'eux
seulement ne recueilleraient pas,

366 APPENDICES

17. Copy of the third Will — "No 169 — of Madame Anne
Moynet, widow of M. Jean Audubon, living at his house
of La Gerbetiere, situated near the village of Port-
Launay, not far from Coueron.^ December 26, 1819.

Par les presentes mon testament ;

Je donne et legue en toute propriete a Monsieur Jean
RABIN epoux de dame Lucy BACKWELL, que je crois pre-
sentement aux Etats-Units d'Amerique et a dame Rose BOUF-
FARD, epouse de M. Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau aine la
generality de tous les biens meubles et immeubles de toute espece
et nature qui m'appartiendront a l'instant de mon deces en
quelles mains et lieux qu'ils soient et par quelques personnes
qu'ils soient dus ou possedes pour par eux deux en jouir faire
et disposer en toute propriete comme de leurs autres biens, et
ainsi qu'ils le jugeront convenable, sauf a les partager par
egale portion s'ils le trouvent a propos et necessaire et sans
que qui que ce soit etant ou se pretendant mes heritiers,
puissent y apporter aucune opposition, parce que par ces memes
presentes, j'institue le dit M. Rabin et la dame Puigaudeau,
mes seuls et uniques heritiers.

Je veux que dans le cas de mort de M. Rabin, ses enfants
recueillent entr'eux le legs fait en sa faveur, je veux egale-
ment qu'en cas de mort de Madame Loyen du Puigaudeau, ses
enfants recueillent entr'eux le legs fait en faveur de la dite leur
mere.

Je veux egalement qu'en cas de mort de M. Rabin sans
enfants, Madame Loyen du Puigaudeau ou ses enfants, re-
cueillent seuls la totalite de ma fortune et par ces memes
raisons, qu'en cas de mort de Mme Loyen du Puigaudeau sans
enfants, Jean Rabin ou ses enfants recueillent seuls la totalite
de ma dite fortune.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 367

18. Copy of a portion of the fourth and last Will of "Madame
Jean Audubon, living at the house of Les Tourterelles
('The Turtle Doves') at Coueron," July 16, 1821.

Par les presentes, mon testament,

Je donne et legue en toute propriete a Monsieur Jean
AUDUBON, dit Jean RABIN, epoux de dame Lucy BACK-
WELL, et que je crois presentement aux Etats-Unis d'Ame-
rique et a dame Rose BOUFFARD, epouse de Monsieur
Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau aine, demeurant a Coueron. Je
leur donne et legue, dis-je la generality de tous biens meubles
et immeubles de toute espece et nature que je laisserai et qui
m'appartiendront a l'instant de mon deces, en quelques mains
et lieux qu'ils soient et par quelques personnes qu'ils soient dus
ou possedes pour par eux deux en jouir, faire et disposer comme
de leurs autres biens et ainsi qu'il le jugeront convenables, sauf
a les partager par egale portion quand et comme ils le voudront
sans que qui que ce soit se disant ou pretendant les heritiers
puissent y apporter aucune opposition parce que par les dites
presentes, j'institue les dits M. Jean Audubon, dit Jean Rabin
et la dame Rose Bouffard, epouse Loyen du Puigaudeau, les
deux seuls et uniques heritiers de mes droits, actions, posses-
sions et generalement tous autres, sans exception pas meme
pour les pretentions.

Je veux et entends que dans le cas ou l'un ou l'autre ou
meme tous les deux ne pourraient pas recueillir les effets de
ma liberalite, soit parce que je leur survivrais ou par toute
autre raison, les enfants qu'ils laisseraient soient mes heritiers
et legataires, c'est-a-dire que les enfants de Monsieur Jean
Audubon dit Rabin, recueilleraient entr'eux la moitie de ma
succession que je leur legue et ceux de dame Rose Bouffard,
epouse Loyen du Puigaudeau, recueilleraient aussi ensemble
l'autre moitie que je leur legue egalement.

Je veux et entends qu'avant de mort avant moi de Monsieur
Jean Audubon, dit Jean Rabin sans enfants, Madame Rose
Bouffard epouse Loyen du Puigaudeau ou ses enfants re-

368 APPENDICES

cueillent seuls la totalite de ma fortune, et par merae raison
qu'en cas de mort avant moi de Madame Rose Bouffard, epouse
Loyen du Puigaudeau ; sans enfants, Monsieur Jean Audubon,
dit Jean Rabin ou ses enfants recueillent seuls cette to-

T.HJl LCj • • •

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 369

19. Notice of the Death of Lieutenant Jean Audubon, from the
Official Registry of Nantes. Nantes, February 19, 1818.
(For translation, see Chapter V.)

Extrait du registre des actes de deces des 3° & 4° cantons de
la Ville de Nantes, departement de la Loire-Inferieure.

L'an 1818, le 19 Fevrier all heures du matin, devant nous
soussignes, ad joints et officiers de l'etat civil, delegues de M.
le Maire de Nantes, chevalier de Saint-Louis, ont comparu les
sieurs Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau rentier, gendre du defunt
ci-apres demeurant a, Coueron et Francois Guillet, epicier
demeurant quai de la Fosse, majeurs, lesquels nous ont declare
que ce jour a, six heures du matin, Jean Audubon, ancien capi-
taine de navire, pensionnaire de l'Etat, ne aux Sables d'Olonne
departement de la Vendee, epoux de dame Anne Moinet, est
decede en la demeure de demoiselle Berthier, situee chaussee
de la Madeleine, N° 24, 4° canton.

Les declarants ont signe avec nous le present acte, d'apres
lecture leur faite. Le dit defunt age de 74 ans.

Signe au registre: Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau,

Gileet et Joseph de la Tullaye,
adjoint.

370 APPENDICES

20. Letter of Lieutenant Jean Audubon to Francis Dacosta,
his American agent and attorney, relating to the conduct
of his son and to the lead mine at "Mill Grove" farm;
transliterated from photographic copy of duplicate (Let-
ter No 4) in Jean Audubon's letter-book. Nantes, March
10, 1805. (For translation, see Chapter VIII.)

Nantes Le 19 ventose an 13, 10 mars 1805
Mr Dacosta

a phyladelphie
p Duplicata.

Je viens de recevoir dans ce moment votre duplicata du
12. 9bre. & la votre du 5. Decembre, qui n'est pas aussi avanta-
geuse, Sous plusiers rapports que votre precedente, mais enfin
il faut esperer que l'item vous prouvera que votre dernier sillon
ne sera point deserteur, et que les occides de fer qui se trouvent
se dissiperont en fouillant plus avant, au moins c'est ce que
je desire, vous faites bien de faire tous vos efforts pour avoir
des associes & Si cela ne reussit pas, & que vous vouliez
travailler pour notre compte Je trouverai tou jours bon, tout
ce que vous ferez, puisque vous avez ma confiance dans ce cas
je crois que vous s . . . ige [?], de faire faire des reparations
les plus urgentes Surtout a la maison principale, Devant
vous y loger. Quand a Mr W. Thomas, vous ferez bien de vous
le garder, pour toutes les raisons, que vous me dites & Je crois
qu'il ne doit pas sopiniatrer a se retirer, qu'il ne sache, s'il a
merite, oui ou non, sa recompense.

Je suis Mr- on ne peut plus fache de ce que vous ayez a vous
plaindre, de la conduite de mon fils, car le tout, bien considere
n'est occasionne, que par de mauvais conseils & un deffaut
d'usage on a aiguillonne son amour propre, et peut etre avait-il
ete assez jeune pour se vanter, dans la maison ou il va que cette
plantation devait lui echoir, a lui seul; vous avez tous les
moyens de detruire cette presomption, on n' ignore point a
philadelphie, que vous avez autant de droits que moi & que vous
ne faites rien que pour notre mutuel avantage.

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 371

Je lui ecris a ce sujet, car il ne men parle point, et je
lui donne la cemonce que merite son indiscretion ; vous lirez
cette lettre et voudrez bien avoir la complaisance de la cacheter
avant de lui remettre. Vous me dites que je puis m'en rap-
porter sur son compte au rapport que m'en fait Mr. Meyers
fisher, dans sa longue lettre du mois de Septembre que
Malheureusement je n'ai pas recu, car Mr fisher, ne me parle
point de lui, ni en bien, ni en mal. Quand a venir dans le pays,
cela me parrait presqu'impossible, rappeller mon fils nest pas
plus aise, les raisons qui me l'en fait l'envoyer existent toujours ;
il ne faut qu'un instant pour le faire changer du mal au bien,
sa grande jeunesse et sa petulance sont tous ses torts et si vous
avez la Bonte de lui donner l'indispensable, il sentira bientot
la Necessite de se rapprocher de vous et pourra vous etre d'une
grande utilite, si vous exploitez par vous meme.

II faut done Mon cher monsieur, que nous tachions de le
ramener par la douceur a son Devoir. Si vous avez de l'in-
dulgence pour lui ce sera moi qui vous en aurai toute l'aubliga-
tion; j'espere que la lettre cy-jointe operera chez lui un change-
ment. C'est mon seul fils, mon heritier, & je suis vieux. Quand
Mr Meiers fisher aura montre ma lettre au pretendu beaupere,
il verra qu'il s'est trompe dans son calcul sur le pretendu
Mariage de sa fille, car s'il avait lieu sans mon consentement
tout secours de ma part cesserait des cet instant; et c'est ce
que vous pouvez bien si vous voulez avoir cette bonte, dire
au pretendu beau pere, ne voulant pas que mon fils se marie
aussi jeune; vos lettres du 28 Octobre & 12 Novembre sont a
la campagne. Je ne puis point repondre categoriquement sur
leurs contents ; Je les examinerai & vous dirai par ma prochaine
ce que J'en pense. Votre famille que J'ai vu se porte bien. Nos
dames vous remercient de votre bon souvenir. Je suis & .

[Jean Audubon.]

372 APPENDICES

21. Letters of John James Audubon to Claude Francois Rozier,
father, and to Ferdinand Rozier, son, immediately preced-
ing and following his active partnership in business with
the latter: 1807 and 1812. (For translations see Chap-
ters XI and XV.)

[Letter No. 2, superscribed] Monsieur Fr. Rozier,

Negociant
Nantes.
Loire inferieure.

New York avril 24 1807—
Mr. Rozier Negociant
Nantes
Mon Cher Monsieur

Je profite d'une bonne occasion pour Bordeaux pour vous
accuser reception d'un Duplicats des pouvoirs que nous vous
demandai plusieurs mois passes. Vous saurez aussi que les vins
consignes a M. L. Huron de Philadelphia sont arrives en cette
ville et ont sauves les assurances ; votre fils s'est transporte sur
la place et par une de ses lettres m'apprend que les 60 caisses
sont vendues il me dit que vous pouvez compter sur un profit
net d'a peu pres 20 p. ct. s'il s'est trouve tres bons et le reste
ne manquera de trouver acheteur : Mr. Le Ray est arrive et
a apporte avec lui une petite Boite de dentelles pour M. Ben-
jamin Bakewell d'icy elle doit arriver en peu de jours de Phila-
delphia. Mr. B. B. a paru satisfait de la vente de son Bois
Futtie. il lui tarde seulement de voir les retours il est malheureux
que le commerce de votre ville avec ce pays ne soye pas aussi
regulierement suivi qu'a Bordeaux d'ou nous avons des Bati-
ments tous les mois et par plusieurs. Comme notre ami Fer-
dinand vous ecriva de Philadelphia concernant Mr. Huron je
ne m'ettendray pas sur son compte : dans plusieurs de vos
Lettres que si nous nous decidions obtenir un magasin de detail
que vous pourriez nous tenir constamment employe nos idees
sur ce sujet sont par faitement d'accord et ce serait avec bien
du plaisir que nous commenserions sous auspices et les bons

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 373

avis de Mr. Bakcwell ici; les objects bien choisis bien achette
et envoye avec soins sont toujours sur de rencontrer un bon
marche: j'ose esperer que le Navire la Jeanne Capt Sammis
sera arrive a votre port et que les Indigos charges par M. B.
Bakewell pourront y etre venu en temp de vente de cette mar-
chandise dont j'ai neanmoins quelque crainte vu le prix qu'ils
lui avaient coute. Nous vous remercions sincerement pour le
prix courant que vous nous avez envoye, dans une de mes
dernieres ecrite par voye de Bordeaux je vous priais de de-
mander a Mr. Fleury Emery une boite de graines de la Mar-
tinique et de se pays cy. nous esperons sous peu vous envoyer
quelque marchandises et peut etre Mr. Bakewell profitera d'une
occasion que nous allons avoir en peu de jour pour votre port.
A peu plus trois semaines passees Je fus a Mill Grove et
l'affermais pour un an ne pouvant faire mieux pour le present.
Votre fils a Philadelphia a present va essayer de terminer les
comptes de mon pere avec Mr. Dacotta [Dacosta] qui n'oublie
pas aisement d'etre chicanneur . . . presentez Je vous prie
mes respects et amities a votre bonne famille et epouse et croyez
en moi comme votre devoue

et constant
serviteur

J. J. Audubon
Ayez la complaisance de faire parvenie l'incluse a mon bon
pere.

[Superscribed] Mrs F. Roziers

Merch1

St Genevieve

u. L.

Shippingport . 10th. Augst. 1812
MON CHER ROZIER :

Come il est presque probable que l'occasion que je trouve
est sur, je suis avec elle le plaisir de t'ecrire quelque mots —

Je recus en temps ta lettre envoye a Phila a lequelle je re-
pondis alors ; depuis je n'ai entendu de tes nouvelles que par

374 APPENDICES

voies tres indirectes, je serais bien content si tu peux donner
quelques instants a tes amis que tu me compte aux nombre et
m'ecrire par temps; je partis avec ma femme et mon fils de
Phila au mois passe, la plus grande parties de ce temps a ete
a descendre L'Ohio qui est actuellement tres bas nous avons eu
la Barge et L'Equipage du G1 Clark, avec la compagnie de Mr
R. A. Maupin et de Mde Gait qui avaient rester plusieurs mois
a New York & a Phila. Je vais probablement descendre a la
N. Orleans cet autumn avec N. Berthoud, les merchandizes sont
extremement rare et tres chere, partout, mais plus encore les
gros Lainages que l'on ne trouve du tout.

Je n'ai pas de doute que ton plomb ne se vende tres bien
cet article ayant augmente considerablement depuis la guerre. —
dans les derniers jours que j'etais dans l'Est j'ai recu une lettre
de mon pere et une de ton frere toute ta famille se portait alors
bien dit 4 mois passes, ton frere desire beaucoup entendre de
toi, si la paix vient un jour non bien loin (ce qu'a Dieu plaise)
j'espere entrer en liaison avec lui.

Je lui est ecrit et l'engage a faire de meme tes lettres
pouront se rendre si envoyers a N. York et de la dans la Cartel.
Ma femme se porte bien et mon fils sois de meme et compte au
nombre de tes amis est ce que dison celui qui t'estimera tou jours.

Adieu

J. Audubon

47

APPENDIX II

Audubon's Early Dated Drawings Made in
France and America

Drawings now in the Collections of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes, of
Philadelphia, and formerly belonging to Mr. Edward Har-
ris, of Moorestown, New Jersey; of Mr. John E. Thayer,
Lancaster, Massachusetts; and of Harvard University.
(See Chapter XII.)

In addition to the serial numbers, here given, the drawings
usually bear French and English names, with various notes in
French relating to weights and measurements, and rarely with
sketches of detail.

Mr. Jeanes' collection contains the following:

No. 5 . Long-tailed Mountain Tit, 22 January, 1805
13 . Sedge Sparrow, near

Nantes, 1805

22 . Reed Sparrow, near

Nantes, 1805

78 . Hawk's Eye,— Spotted

Plover,— France, 18 March, 1805 [?]

97 . The Creeper, France,
86 . Shrike, near Nantes,
93 . Nuthatch, near Nantes,

Terns, France,
50 . The Redstart, near

Nantes, August, 1805

375

June 7,

1805

July,

1805

July 9,

1805

July 12,

1805

376 APPENDICES

No. 61 . The Great Swallow (Le
martin noir), near

Nantes, 1805

65 . The Wagtail, near Nantes, Dec. 22, 1805

69 . The Green Finch, near

Nantes, Dec, 1805

92 . L'Ecorcheur a tete rouge,

near Nantes, 1805

6 . "Grosbec," near Nantes, 1806 [?]

94 . Woodpecker, near Nantes, March 8, 1806

Fish Hawk, Perkioming

Creek, 1806

209 . Wood Thrush, Mill Grove, August 14, 1806

145 . Long-tailed Duck, New

York, Dec. 17, 1806

Golden Eye, New York, Dec. 28, 1806
153 . American Widgeon, New

York, Dec. 28, 1806

102 . Robin (eggs dated May

8th), New York, Jany. 4, 1807

156 . Shelldrake, New York, Jany. 28, 1807

143 . Widgeon, New York, ' Feby. 23, 1807

146 . Canvasback, New York, March 22, 1807
163 . Shoveller, New York, April 3, 1807
163 . Sprig-tail, New York, Feby. 22, 1807

Wood Duck, 1807

48 . Orchard Oriole, Falls of

the Ohio, June 5, 1808

214 . Chimney Swallow, Falls of

the Ohio, July 27, 1808

188 . Kentucky Warbler, 20

miles from Philadelphia, (June?), 1809

109 . Passenger Pigeon, Falls of

the Ohio, Dec. 11, 1809

Hooded Merganser, Falls
of the Ohio, March 7, 1810

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS

377

No. 41 . Catbird, Red Banks,
105 . Red-wing Blackbird,
81 . The Frog-eater (Hawk),
Red Banks,
186 . Killdeer,

200, 201 . Pewit, and Great-
crested Flycatcher,
Henderson,
207 • Carolina Parrot, Hender-
son,
49 . Swamp Sparrow, Penn-
sylvania,
6 . Spotted Sandpiper, Penn-
sylvania,
11 . Whippoorwill, Pennsyl-
vania,
10 . Nighthawk,
58 . Great American Shrike,

Henderson,
76 . Red-crowned black Wood-
pecker, Henderson,
66 . Black-capped Nuthatch,
Henderson,
Willet, Henderson,
Snipe, Henderson,
300 . Yellow-billed Rail, Hen-
derson,
Purple Gallinule, New Or-
leans,
Chuck Wills Widow, Red
River,

June,

1810

June,

1810

Nov. 29,

1810

1811

May 22,

1811

June 9,

1811

March 12,

1812

April 22,

1812

May 7,

1812

May 8,

1812

Nov. 30,

1812

Oct. 15,

1814

Feby. 16,

1815

May 8,

1815

March 17,

1816

Oct. 9,

1816

April 23,

1821

June,

1821

378 APPENDICES

The Harvard University collections contain the following:

No. 91 . L'Ecorcheur,

42 . The Sedge-bird, near

Nantes, 1805

43 . The Nightingale, near

Nantes, July 6, 1805

57 . Brown Thrush, nea'r New

York, May 10, 1807

Excellent examples of Audubon's early work in the collec-
tion of Mr. John E. Thayer are :

No. 96 . Woodpecker : prior to
1803 (see note, vol. i, p.
178).

112 . Water Thrush, Mill

Grove, Pennsylvania, Aug. 2, 1806

144 . 64. Malaga Shell Drake.
Goosander, Mergus
Merganser A. W. Chute
de L'Ohio 17 December, 1809

175 . Crested Titmouse, Red-
banks, July 1, 1810
71 . 44. The Spirit or Butter-
ball-Bufflehead, Hender-
son, Mar. 19, 1815

154 . Golden Crested Wren A.
W., Sylvia Regulus,
Shippingport, Ken-
tucky ; drawn by J. J.
Audubon - Mistletoe on

Black Walnut. Jany. 28, 1820

Hermit Thrush, opposite
Fredericksburg, Ky., Oct. 16, 1820

315 . Rose - breasted 'Grosbeak
(on spray of dogwood).

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 379

Among the drawings of the Harris-Jeanes collection which
may be earlier than 1805, though they bear no date, are "The
Black Crow of Buff on, Corneille noire," also the head of a Jack-
daw wholly in crayon and pastel: "No. 160, Le grand Due,
age vingt un an, Buffon, — the large horned owl, Eagle owl.
J. J. L. Audubon," a crayon sketch on paper measuring
eighteen by twenty-six inches, and water-marked "J. Kool" ;
also "No. 164. La corneille mantelle de Buffon, Royalton
crow, Sea crane, hooded crow, crow — British, — J. J. L. Audu-
bon," a crude sketch in pastels of the same size as the last.

The following legends appear on the drawing of the Can-
vasback Duck: "Cet Oiseau est nomme Canvas Back Canard
very much esteemed par les Americans and very rare ici
[c]elui est male et etais beau"; "New York le 22 Mars 1807—
J. J. L. Audubon" "No. 146."

APPENDIX III

"The Birds of America"

1. Final Lists of Subscribers to "The Birds of America,"
folio edition, as published by Audubon in 1839. (See
Ornithological Biography, vol. v, pp. 647-651.)

List of American Subscribers

1. Library of Congress of the United States, Washington

City.

2. State Departments, Washington City.

3. Library of the General Court of Massachusetts.

4. Legislature of South Carolina, for the Columbia College.

5. Legislature of Louisiana.

6. Legislature of Maryland.

7. Legislature of New York.

8. Legislature of Michigan.

9. Boston Athenaeum.

10. Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

11. Providence Atheneum, Rhode Island.

12. Salem Atheneum, Salem, Massachusetts.

13. American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.

14. Academy of Natural Sciences, do.

15. Columbia College of New York.

16. Boston Natural History Society.

17. Charleston Library, South Carolina.

18. Charleston Natural History Society, South Carolina.

19. Charleston Citizens' Library, do

20. Richard Harlaw [Harlan], Esq., M.D., Philadelphia.

380

"THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" 381

21. John P. Wetherell, Esq. Philadelphia.

22. Mrs. Ford, do.

23. Mrs. Douglas Cruger, New York.

24. Edward Prime Esq., banker, New York.

25. James G. King, Esq. do. do.

26. Cornelius C. Low, Esq. do.

27. P. J. Stuyvesant, Esq., M.D. do.

28. Robert Ray, Esq. do.

29. J. L. Joseph, Esq. do.

30. Richard N. Carman, Esq. do.

31. Mrs. Bailey, do.

32. Stephen Van Rensselaer, Esq., Albany, New York.

33. Hogden Haggerty, Esq. do.

34. W. L. Column, Esq. do.

35. Samuel Swartout, Esq. do.

36. James Watson Webb, Esq. do.

37. Thomas H. Faile, Esq. do.

38. Lewis Rogers, Esq. do.

39. Jer. Van Rensselaer, Esq. M.D. do.

40. H. C. De Rham, junior, Esq. do.

41. Stephen A. Halsey, Esq. Long Island, do.

42. Edward Harris, Esq. Moorestown, New Jersey.

43. Thomas H. Perkins, Esq. Boston.

44. J. G. Cushing, Esq. do.

45. Samuel Appleton, Esq. do.

46. George C. Shattuck, Esq. M.D. Boston.

47. P. J. Jackson, Esq. do.

48. James Brown, Esq. do.

49. Frederick Tudor, Esq. do.

50. The Honourable Daniel Webster, do.

51. Augustus Thorndike, Esq. do.

52. L. Baldwin, Esq. Civil Engineer, do.

53. E. Greenwood, Esq. Museum, do.

54. George Pratt, Esq. do.

55. William Sturges, Esq. do.

56. Robert Gilmor, Esq. Baltimore.

57. John B. Morris, Esq. do.

382 APPENDICES

58. Smith, Esq. Baltimore.

59. Thomas Edmonston, jun. Esq. do.

60. William Gaston, Esq. Savannah, Georgia.

61. James Potter, Esq. do. do.

62. Alexander Telfair, Esq. do. do.

63. Thomas Young, Esq. do. do.

64. John David Mongin, Esq. do. do.

65. Daniel Blake, Esq. do. do.

66. Thomas Butler King, Esq. St. Simon Island, Georgia

67. Thomas Metcalf, Esq. Augusta, Georgia.

68. E. Geddings, Esq. M.D., Charleston, South Carolina,,

69. William J. Rees, Esq. Stateburgh, do.

70. R. O. Anderson, Esq. Georgetown, do.

71. Miss Burley, Salem, Massachusetts.

72. Miss Elizabeth L. Pickman, Salem, Massachusetts.

73. William Oakes, Esq. Ipswich, do.

74. James Arnold, Esq. New Bedford, Rhode Island.

75. Garnet Duncan, Esq. Louisville, Kentucky.

76. John Croghan, Esq. M.D. do. do.

77. Henry Clay, jun. Esq. Ashland, do.

78. James Grimshaw, Esq. New Orleans.

79. Gustavus Schmidt, Esq. do.

80. J. J. Hughes, Esq. Manchester, Mississippi.

81. John Hunt, Esq. Mobile, Alabama.

82. Henry Hunt, Esq. Mobile, Alabama.

Europe

1. Her Most Excellent Majesty, Queen Adelaide, England.

2. (His Most Christian Majesty, Charles X).

3. His Majesty Philippe I. King of the French.

4. Her Royal Highness Mademoiselle d'Orleans.

5. Prince Massena, Paris.

6. His Grace the Duke of Rutland, London.

7. The Honourable W. C. Wentworth Fitzwilliam, London.

8. The Right Honourable the Countess of Ravensworth,

Ravensworth Castle.

"THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" 383

9. The University of Edinburgh.

10. The Society of Writers to her Majesty's Signet,

Edinburgh.

11. Henry Witham, Esq. of Lartington, Durham.

12. John Rutter, Esq., M.D., Liverpool.

13. Doctor Bickersteth, Liverpool.

14. Armorer Donkin, Esq. Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

15. Yorkshire Philosophical Society, York.

16. John Clough, Esq., Oxton Hall, Yorkshire.

17. Jos. S. Crompton, jun., Esq., Eshott Hall, Bradford,

Yorkshire.

18. Thomas Walker, Esq. Killinbeck, near Leeds.

19. Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society.

20. John Marshall, jun. Esq., Headlinglay, Leeds.

21. Samuel Greg [Gregg], Esq., Quarry Bank, near Man-

chester.

22. Edward Lloyd, Esq., Greenhill, near Manchester.

23. The Manchester Society for the promotion of Natural

History.

24. The Reverend Peter Horden, M.A., for the Cheetham

Library, Manchester.

25. G. W. Wood, Esq., Manchester.

26. Mrs. Rattsbone [Rathbone], Greenbank, Liverpool.

27. J. G. Children, Esq., British Museum, London.

28. The Right Honourable the Earl of Caernarvon, London.

29. S. P. Atkins, Esq., Walbrook, London.

30. The Right Honourable the Earl of Derby, P. Z. S.

[President o*f the Zoological Society], &c. &c. &c.

31. The Right Honourable Earl Spencer, London.

32. John Heathcote, Esq., London.

33. Joseph John Gurney, Esq. Earlham Hall, Norfolk.

34. James Darbyshire, Esq., Manchester.

35. John Blackwell, Esq., Manchester.

36. A. J. Cresswell Baker, Esq., Prowin Park.

37. Reverend Edward Craig, Edinburgh.

38. The College of Glasgow, as Trustees of the Hunterian

Museum.

384 APPENDICES

39. John Buddie, Esq., Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

4-0. The York Subscription Library, York.

4*1. Kirk Patrick, Esq., London.

42. T. B. L. L. Baker, Esq. Christ Church, Oxford.

43. Doctor Lodge, for the University Library, Cambridge.

44. George Thackeray, D.D., Provost of King's College,

Cambridge.

45. The Cambridge Philosophical Society.

46. The Fitzwilliam Museum, by M. Davy, Vice Chancellor.

47. Dr. Kidd, for the Anatomical School, Christ Church,

Oxford.

48. Doctor Williams, for the Radcliffe Library, Oxford.

49. James Pickering Ord, Esq., Hedge Hill, near Derby.

50. The Right Honourable Viscount Milton, London.

51. M. Feuillet, for the Library of the Royal Institute of

France.

52. Vicounte [Viscount] Simeon, for the Ministry of the

Interior, 6 copies.

53. M. Pitois, Paris.

54. Mrs. Warden, London.

55. Mr. Hearne, bookseller, London.

56. Henry Ellisan, Esq., Beverly, Yorkshire.

57. Benjamin Smith, Esq. M. P., London.

58. The Right Honourable the Earl of Bradford, London.

59. Thomas Frost, Esq., Gorton Hall, near Manchester.

60. John G. Reeves, Esq., Birmingham.

61. Birmingham Old Library, by Beilby, Knott, and Beilby.

62. Joseph C. Dyer, Esq., Manchester.

63. Thomas Walker, Esq., Ravensfield, near Doncaster.

64. George Lamb Fox, Esq., Yorkshire.

65. Haarlem Library, Holland.

66. Mrs. [Miss] Euphemia Gifford, Duffield Bank, Derby.

67. Charles Fox, Esq., Perrair, near Truro, England.

68. George Lane Fox, Esq., Yorkshire.

69. Sir John Tobin, Liverpool.

70. His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch, Dalkeith Palace,

Scotland.

"THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" 385

71. His Imperial and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of

Tuscany, &c. &c. &c.

72. London Institution, by Mr. Bradley, Librarian.

73. Benjamin Phillips, Esq., F. R. S. L., &c. &c. &c. 17

Wimpole Street, London.

74. Henry G. Bohn, Esq., London.

75. Charles J. Warde, Esq. Welcomb, near Stratford-on-

Avon.

76. The British Museum, London (in part).

77. His Grace the Duke of Northumberland, &c. &c. &c.

78. Earl Hardwicke, &c. &c. &c. Wimpole, Arrington, Cam-

bridge.

79. Sir Jacob Hastley, Bart, &c. &c. &c, Cavendish Square,

London.

386 APPENDICES

2. Prospectus of "The Birds of America" as issued in 1838,
when ten Numbers of the original folio were engraved.
(Compare Ornithological Biography, vol. i, pp. 1-16, as
supplementary text, at the end.)

Under the Particular Patronage and Approbation

of
His Most Gracious Majesty

BIRDS OF AMERICA

from

Drawings

made

During a Residence of Twenty-five Years

in
The United States and its Territories,

by

John James Audubon,

Citizen of the United States.

Member of the Lyceum of New York; Fellow of the Royal Society of Edin-
burgh; of the Linnean Society of London; Member of the Wernerian
Natural History Society of Edinburgh; of the Zoological Society, Lon-
don; Fellow of the Society of Scottish Antiquaries; Member of the
Society for promoting the useful Arts of Scotland; of the Literary and
Philosophical Societies of Cambridge, Liverpool, and Newcastle-upon-
Tyne; of the Horticultural Society of Edinburgh; of the Natural His-
tory Society of Manchester; of the Scottish Academy of Painting,
Sculpture and Architecture, &c, &c.

PROSPECTUS.

To those who have not seen any portion of the Author's
splendid Collection of Original Drawings it may be proper to
explain, that their superiority consists in every specimen being
of the full size of life, portrayed with a degree of accuracy as
to proportion and outline, the result of peculiar means dis-

"THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" 387

covered and employed by the Author, and lately exhibited to
a meeting of the Wernerian Society. Besides, in every instance
where a difference of plumage exists between the two sexes,
both the Male and Female Birds have been represented. The
Author has not contented himself with single profile views of
the originals, but in very many instances he has grouped them,
as it were, at their natural avocations, in all sorts of attitudes,
either on branches of trees, or amidst plants and flowers : some
are seen pursuing with avidity their prey through the air, or
searching diligently their food amongst the fragrant foliage ;
whilst others of an aquatic nature swim, wade, or glide over
their allotted element. The Insects, Reptiles, or Fishes, that
form the food of the birds, have been introduced into the draw-
ings ; and the nests of the birds have been frequently repre-
sented. The Plants are all copied from Nature, and the
Botanist, it is hoped, will look upon them with delight. The
Eggs of most of the species will appear in the course of the
publication.

The Particulars of the Plan of the Work will be found de-
tailed below: —

1. The Engravings in every instance to be of the exact di-

mensions of the Drawings, which, without any exception,
represent the Birds of their natural size.

2. The Plates will be Coloured, in the most careful manner,

from the original Drawings.

3. The Size of the work will be Double Elephant, and printed

on the finest Drawing Paper.

4. Five Plates will constitute a Number; one Plate from one

of the largest Drawings, one from one of the second
size, and three from the smaller Drawings.

5. There are 400 Drawings ; and it is proposed that they shall

comprise Three Volumes, each containing about 133
Plates, to which an Index will be given at the end of
each, to be bound up with the Volume.

6. Five Numbers will come out annually.

7. The Price of each Number will be Two Guineas; payable

on delivery.

388 APPENDICES

TEN Numbers being now completed, will give an exact idea
of the nature and style of the Work. All the other Numbers
will at least equal these in interest and execution. It would
be advisable for the Subscribers to procure a Portfolio, to keep
the Numbers till a Volume is completed.

*„.* Persons desirous of becoming Subscribers are requested
to apply to Mr. Audubon, or Mr. Robert Havell, Jun. (En-
graver), 79, Newman Street, Oxford Street, London.

Where Specimens of the Work may be seen: or, to any of
the following Agents: — Messrs. Treuttel, Wiirz & Co., Soho
Square, and Mr. S. Highly, Fleet Street, London ; MM. Lev-
rault and Pitois, Paris ; Messrs. Robinsons, Liverpool ; Mr. T.
Sowler, Manchester ; Mr. M. A. Barclay, York ; Messrs. Herna-
man and Robinson, Leeds ; Mr. E. Charnley, Newcastle-upon-
Tyne ; and J. B. Kidd, Esq., Edinburgh.

Note by the Author. Audubon's first Prospectus was issued on March
17, 1827, when two Numbers of his large work were ready, and the last
which I have seen bears the date of 1831, when one hundred plates had been
published. The present citation is from a copy in possession of the Boston
Public Library; it is printed on two sides of white paper, octavo, and bears
the autograph of "Wm. Everett, Esq., Aug. 7, 1867."

"THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" 389

3. Prospectus of the Second {partial) Edition of "The
Birds of America," issued by John Woodhouse Audubon,
through Messrs. Trilbner # Company, London, 1859.
(See Bibliography, Nos. 9 and 10.)

AUDUBON'S

Celebrated Work

BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA

To be published in Numbers, by Subscription only,
at one half the original price.

The undersigned proposes to publish, by Subscription,
this well-known Work of his late Father, J. J. Audubon,
F.R.SS.L.&E., etc., from the original Copperplates transferred
to stone.

This Edition, in softness, finish, and correctness of color-
ing, will be superior to the first, and every Plate will be col-
ored from the original Drawings, still in possession of the
family.

It will contain all the Plates and Text of the original
Work, embracing more than one thousand figures of Birds,
all of the size of nature, represented in action amid the scenes
or on the plants most common to their habits, — together with
seven volumes royal octavo, of Ornithological Biography.

The Work will be issued in forty-five numbers viz., forty-
four of Plates and one of Text, each number of Plates con-
taining ten — printed on seven sheets double-elephant paper,
of the best quality for the purpose, 27 by 40 inches, and will
be delivered to Subscribers Monthly, at £2, 8s per number;
the last Number, comprising seven volumes of Text, to be de-
livered bound with the fifteenth number.

It is intended that each Number shall contain as follows:
Viz. two large Plates, each occupying the whole sheet; two
of a medium size, each occupying also the entire sheet; and
six of the smaller size, two Plates on a sheet; thus presenting
ten of the original Plates on seven sheets, giving a variety in

390 APPENDICES

each number. The text is properly and scientifically classified,
and when the Work shall be completed the Plates can be placed
and be bound corresponding with the order of the Text, in
either three or four Volumes. The regular issue of the Num-
bers will commence so soon as the number of Subscribers will
justify the undertaking.

As the Work will be published for Subscribers alone, few
or none being printed beyond the number subscribed for, it is
not possible that its pecuniary value can ever be much reduced ;
on the other hand, the probabilities are that it will rather
be increased. Nor will there ever be a time when it can be
published at a less price than the present; for in estimating
the cost the mere expense of manufacturing has been taken
into consideration, without reference to the original cost of
the Copper-plates, which was nearly One hundred thousand
Dollars; and a very small profit has been charged on the ex-
pense thus estimated.

The first Number is considered superior in many respects
to the same Plates in the first Edition, and it is confidently
hoped that subsequent Numbers will exhibit still greater
superiority as the Artists gain experience. A full list of Sub-
scribers will be published with the Work. The Numbers will
not be sold separately, except the first, which will be sent,
properly packed, as a Specimen, to any part of the country,
free of expense, on the receipt of £2, 8s.

Orders or communications to Triibner & Co., Booksellers,
60, Paternoster Row, London.
New York, March 31, 1859.

J. W. Audubon.

Triibner & Co. also offer to the Trade and the Public the
following Editions of Audubon's Birds and Quadrupeds of
North America:

Birds of North America — Library Edition, 7 vols., royal
8vo., with 500 finely colored Plates, from Drawings made in
the United States and their Territories. Price £25.

"THE BIRDS OF AMERICA" 391

Quadrupeds of North America, — By J. J. Audubon and
Rev. John Bachman. Original Edition, 3 vols, imperial folio,
bound in half russia. One hundred and fifty superbly colored
Plates. With descriptive letter-press, in 3 vols., royal 8vo.
Price £63. The same work, — Library Edition, 3 vols, royal
8vo. with one hundred and fifty-five finely colored Plates.
Price £9, 9s.

Note by the Author. For the citation of this rare document, from the
only copy known to exist, I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Ruthven
Deane, who writes: "I found this Prospectus bound in the first volume of
The Ibis (1859). This copy was previously in possession of the late Pierre
Verreaux, of Paris, France, and is now in the John Crerar Library, Chicago,
Illinois."

Ornithologists will be pleased to find that it immediately sets at rest
numerous disputed questions concerning the plates and text of this sole, but
ill-fated, attempt at the republication of the original folio of The Birds of
America in America. (See Bibliography, Nos. 9 and 10, and Chapter
XXXVI, p. 296.)

Mr. Ruthven Deane has written me that an examination of the account
books kept by the Audubons during the publication of the large and small
editions of The Birds of America showed partial payments on the Folio by
23 subscribers; the only name among those not listed in the Ornithological
Biography was that of J. R. Peters, who was credited with a payment of
$412.00. Mr. Deane adds: "I have a list of the subscribers to the 1840,
8vo., edition, of 1,095 names, New York, Baltimore and Boston taking 501 ;
also a list of subscribers to the Quadrupeds of North America, 3 volume,
8 vo., edition, of 2,004 names, New York, Boston and Charleston, South
Carolina, taking 1,102."

APPENDIX IV

Authentic Likenesses of Jean Jacques Fougere Audubon

1. 1822. — Oil portrait by himself; painted at "Beech

Woods," Mrs. Jane Percy's plantation, West
Feliciana, Louisiana; given by Audubon to
Mrs. Wm. G. Johnson; inherited by her
daughter and granddaughter, and now in pos-
session of Dr. D. G. Murrell, Paducah, Ken-
tucky. Size of original, 12 by 9 inches. Re-
produced in The Auk, vol. iii, 1886 (see Bibliog-
raphy, Nos. 184 and 264).

2. 1826 (?). — Oil portrait by himself (?), 18 by 32 inches,

West Feliciana ; presented by Audubon to Col.

Edward Durrive's father, later acquired by

Mr. E. Curtis, and now in the possession of Mr.

Thomas P. Thompson, New Orleans.
My information concerning this doubtful portrait has been
derived entirely from Mr. Ruthven Deane. Now not thought to
be authentic.

3. 1826. — Pencil sketch by himself ; signed

"Audubon at Green Bank
Almost, Happy!!— Sepr 1826."

Made at the home of Mr. William Rathbone,
Sr., and presented to Mrs. Rathbone; now in
possession of Mr. Richard R. Rathbone, Glen-
y-Menai, Anglesey; for reproduction see The
Life and Adventures of John James Audubon,
392

AUTHENTIC LIKENESSES 393

edited by Robert Buchanan, and Maria R.
Audubon, Audubon and His Journals.

4. 1828.— Oil portrait by C. R. Parker, 36 by 28 inches;

painted for Audubon's friend, Walter Horton
Bentley, Manchester, England, and in posses-
sion of the Bentley family ever since. Audubon
is represented in a green coat, a crimson cloak
with deep fur edging thrown over one shoulder,
and with portfolio in hand.
For information concerning this fine but little known por-
trait, as well as for the photograph reproduced in Vol. I, p. 416,
I am indebted to Mr. Ruthven Deane. In 1913, Mr. John Con-
way Bentley, a grandson of the former owner, formerly of
Glasgow, but then living in Cheshire, England, attempted to
dispose of the Parker portrait in this country.

5. 1826. — Oil portrait by John Syme; painted at Edin-

burgh, November, 1826; supposed to have been

engraved by W. H. Lizars, but no trace of

painting or engraving has been found. See

Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 157

and 165.

On November 27, 1826, Audubon wrote: "At twelve I went

to stand up for my picture, and sick enough I was of it by

two ; at the request of Mr. Lizars I wear my wolf-skin coat,

and if the head is not a strong likeness, perhaps the coat may

be." In writing to his son, Victor, in 1833 (see Chapter

XXVII, p. 57), Audubon said: "I am glad to hear of Kidd &

Co.'s publication of Parrots, but I regret that my face should

have been there from Syme's picture, which in my estimation

is none of the best."

6. 1828. — Oil portrait painted in London by an American

artist named Parker, in August, 1828; Parker
subsequently accompanied Audubon and

394 APPENDICES

Swainson to Paris, where he is said to have
executed portraits of Cuvier and Redoute.
On August 25, a few days before starting on
this journey, Audubon wrote: "Mr. Parker has
nearly finished my portrait, which he consid-
ers a good one, and so do I" (Maria R. Audu-
bon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 303). No further mention
of this painting has been found. Same as No. 4.

7. 1881.— Miniature painted on ivory by Frederick
Cruikshank, probably in London, and before
Audubon's return to America on August 2,
1831. This portrait has become well known
through the excellent engraving of it by C.
Turner, A.R.A., first published in London,
"Jany. 12, 1835, for the Proprietor, by Robert
Havell, Print-seller, 77, Oxford Street," with
Audubon's characteristic autograph. Good
copies of the original engraving have become
very rare. (See Frontispiece, Vol. I.)
Miss Maria R. Audubon possesses a very faint water-color
sketch of the original, which, as she has recently written me,
"was destroyed by fire at Shelbyville, Kentucky, with many
other rare and valuable belongings of my grandmother's, soon
after her death [in 1874]."

8. 1833.— Portrait in oils by Henry Inman; half-length,
natural size ; in possession of Miss Harriet B.
Audubon. "Mr. Inman has painted my Por-
trait in Oil, and / say that it is a truer por-
trait of me than even the Miniature" (see
Chapter XXVII, p. 39). Engraved by H. B.
Hall for the second Octavo Edition of The
Birds of America, published in 1856, and the
same engraving has appeared in later editions
of The Life of John James Audubon, the
Naturalist, edited by Lucy Audubon; for re-

AUTHENTIC LIKENESSES 395

production of a photograph of the original
portrait, see Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i,
p. 206; and for reproduction of the Hall en-
graving, Vol. II, p. 130, of the present work.
This portrait, like the Cruikshank miniature, has become
well known through frequent reproduction ; both represent the
naturalist at the full meridian of his working powers, and are
among the finest likenesses of him extant.

9. 18SJf,. — "John J. Audubon"; portrait drawn and en-
graved on steel by J. Brown ; published by Geo.
Henderson, 2, Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, Lon-
don, 1834. A poor drawing of Audubon, in
hunting dress, published with a biographical
sketch, in an English edition of Cuvier's he
regne animal (see Bibliography, No. 56).
This drawing served as the basis of a wood en-
graving, in which Audubon is represented as
a much younger man, three-quarters length,
gun in hand, with thumb on trigger, which ap-
peared in Gleason's Pictorial for 1852 (see
Bibliography, No. 67.).

10. (Before) 1839.— Life Mask, made in London by Robert
Havell, Junior, and formerly in his possession;
acquired from his daughters, Mrs. Amelia Jane
Lockwood and Miss Marion Elington Havell,
by Mr. John E. Thayer, and by him presented
to Harvard University. For reproduction of
the mask, for excellent photographs of which
I am indebted to Dr. Samuel Henshaw, Direc-
tor of the Museum of Comparative Zoology,
Harvard University, see Vol. II, p. 188.
The original was made from a dark colored plaster (?),
and has a decidedly coarse texture. Mr. Harry P. Havell, who
possesses a replica of the original in wax, writes that he ob-
tained from the Misses Havell, his cousins, the information

396 APPENDICES

that this mask was made while Audubon was at their home
in London; the matter was treated in a jocular way, as Audu-
bon lay upon a sofa with straws in his nose, while submitting
to the rather unpleasant ordeal of having a mold made of his
countenance. Mr. Havell, to whom I am indebted for the sub-
stance of this note, also possesses the silver loving cup, which
Audubon presented to Robert Havell upon the completion of
the second volume of his illustrations in 1834 (see Chapter
XXXII, p. 192). For notice of another mask by O'Neill, Edin-
burgh, 1827, see Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol. i, p. 205.

11. 1838. — Portrait in oils, three-quarters length, by George
P. A. Healy; represents Audubon in hunting
shirt, with flowing collar open at neck, knap-
sack at side and gun in hand (see Frontispiece,
Vol. II) ; painted in London upon the initiative
of the artist, still struggling for recognition.
This portrait, with a number of other paintings, was raffled
at Boston, at a later day, when it was won by the artist, who
then gave it to a former patron, Mr. Bradlee, by whom it was
presented to the Boston Society of Natural History, and it
now hangs in the library of that institution. The present re-
production is from a photograph received through the kind-
ness of Mr. Ruthven Deane, who still owns the negative, which
was reproduced in Mr. Healy's Reminiscences (see Bibliog-
raphy, No. 197).

12. 1845. — Cameo, by John C. King; original intaglio,

in shell, a cast of which was given by the artist
to Mr. Kennard, and is now in possession of
Mr. Frederic H. Kennard, of Boston ; cast first
reproduced by C. Hart Merriam, in The Auk
for 1908 (see Bibliography No. 226).
Mr. King was a Scotch artist and sculptor, who died at
Boston, April 21, 1882.

13. 18J/.1 ( ?). — Portrait in oils, full length and size, by John

Woodhouse Audubon ; figure seated, with land-

AUTHENTIC LIKENESSES 397

scape background ; gun resting on arm, and
dog at side. For reproduction, see Maria R.
Audubon, op. cit. This or the following used
as the basis of a painting by Alonzo Chappel
(see No. 23).

14. 184-1 (?)• — Half-length portrait in oils, natural size, by

John Woodhouse and Victor Gifford Audubon.
Original presented to the American Museum of
Natural History by Mr. Fordham Morris in
1900 ; for reproduction, see Vol. II, p. 226.

15. 1841 (?). — Full-length portrait, in oils, by John Wood-

house Audubon ; original now in possession of
the American Museum of Natural History; for
reproduction, see Vol. II, p. 250.

16. 184,2. — Pencil sketch by Isaac Sprague (1811-1895), an

artist noted for his paintings of plants and
birds. Sprague accompanied Audubon on his
expedition to the Missouri River in 184*3. Ac-
cording to Miss Maria R. Audubon, the origi-
nal drawing is still in possession of the Sprague
family, Wellcsley Hills, Massachusetts. For
reproduction, see Maria R. Audubon, op. cit.

17. 1843. — Half-length portrait in oils, by John Woodhouse

Audubon, representing the naturalist as he ap-
peared when returning from his expedition to
the Missouri River in November, 1813, with
flowing white hair and beard; he wears a green
overcoat, with fur collar, and with both hands
holds a favorite gun. The original, which was
never quite finished, is now in possession of his
granddaughters, at Salem, New York. For re-
production, see Maria R. Audubon, op. cit., vol.
i. frontispiece.

398 APPENDICES

18. 1844- — Cameo by John C. King, now known only from the

photograph made from a cast of the original
intaglio, which the artist presented to the
father of Mr. O. A. Farwell, of Detroit, in
1871.
"My father and Mr. King were great friends, and on one
occasion, when father dropped into Mr. King's studio, he found
Mr. Audubon sitting for the cameo. Mr. King introduced the
two gentlemen and asked them to start a conversation, which
was continued during the sitting. The two men became so
animated in their very interesting conversation that they for-
got where they were, and thus the artist was enabled to catch
the natural and striking expression of the great ornithologist."
See "The King Cameos of Audubon," by C. Hart Merriam
(Bibl. No. 226), who published the first account of this pho-
tograph, and of the previously mentioned Kennard cast, with
reproductions, in 1908. No trace of the original cameos, which
were cut in shell, has yet been found. The Farwell photo-
graph has been reproduced as a medallion on the covers of the
present work.

19. 184.8-49 (?). — A daguerreotype made by Brady, in New

York, probably before 1850, since it was pub-
lished in that year, and a considerable interval
of time is clearly represented between this first
camera likeness and the last which was ever
made of the naturalist (see No. 20, and Vol. II,
p. 280). This daguerreotype was first published
as a steel engraving by D'Avignon, in Lester's
Gallery of Illustrious Americans (for which it
was, in all probability, originally made), in New
York, 1850 (see Bibliography No. 62).

The same sun portrait was again engraved
on steel (size 4^4 by 3l/4 inches) by Nordheim,
and published by Hermann J. Meyer, 164 Wil-
liam Street, New York. It also appeared as a

AUTHENTIC LIKENESSES 399

wood engraving, brought out by M. P.-A. Cap,
in Le Museum D'Histoire Naturelle, p. 175,
Paris, 1854 : a better reproduction, by the same
process, was given in Scribtier's Magazine, vol.
xiii, p. 275 (see "Audubon's Story of his
Youth," by Maria R. Audubon, Bibl. No. 40),
in 1893.
The original daguerreotype was finally discovered in the
collections at the National Museum, at Washington, where it
had been deposited by Mrs. Elizabeth Berthoud Grimshaw, a
daughter of Mrs. Nicholas Berthoud, and niece of Mrs. Audu-
bon; it was again published by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, and Miss
M. R. Audubon, in 1894 (see "The Last Portrait of Audubon;'
Bibl. No. 196). According to the writers just cited, the da-
guerreotype was formerly in possession of Mrs. Gordon, a sis-
ter of Mrs. J. J. Audubon, who gave it to the present owner.

20. 1850 ( ?). — A daguerreotype, representing Audubon as he

appeared at the close of his career ; original in
possession of Miss Mary Eliza Audubon ; for
reproduction see Audubon and his Journals,
vol. i, p. 74, and Vol. II, p. 280, of the present
work. As to the probable date of this picture,
see the preceding notice.

21. 1851. — Death mask; profile from original, since de-

stroyed by fire, reproduced in Scribner's Maga-
zine, vol. xiii, by Maria R. Audubon (Bibl. No.
40), March, 1893.

22. 1851. — Profile of head; pencil sketch, after death, made

by John W. Audubon ; reproduced by Maria
R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals, vol. ii,
p. 526.

23. 1861. — Oil portrait by Alonzo Chappel, engraved on steel

for Duyckinck's National Portrait Gallery of

400 APPENDICES

Eminent Americans (see Bibliography, No. 74),
and published by Messrs. Johnson, Fry & Com-
pany, New York, 1862.
The original of this portrait, which was evidently drawn,
with slight changes, from the large painting of the same sub-
ject by John Woodhouse Audubon, executed about 1841 (see
No. 13), is now in possession of Mr. Ruthven Deane, who has
written me that it is done in black and white, like all of Chap-
pel's work which was designed for the purposes of steel en-
graving, and measures 12 by 17 inches. Concerning this ar-
tist, Mr. Arthur Lumley wrote to Mr. Deane on April 26, 1905,
as follows: "I knew Chappel in my boyhood days, when he
ranked next to Felix O. C. Darley as an illustrator ; at the same
time he was a good portrait painter in oil. Chappel, in many
ways, was a gifted man, and his historical pictures were fine
in composition and color. He held a high rank, and had no
occasion to seek orders, having all he could do, and at his own
terms ; most of his work was reproduced by steel-plate engrav-
ings": Chappel, he adds, who died about 1875, was "a quiet,
genial gentleman who was ever ready to help and guide rising-
aspirants in the field of art."

24. 1907 (unveiled). — Bust by William Couper; unveiled at

the American Museum of Natural History, New
York, December 29, 1906. Reproduced through
courtesy of the Museum, at p. 160 of Vol. II of
the present work.

25. 1910 (unveiled). — Statue, by Edward Virginius Valen-

tine; unveiled in Audubon Park, New Orleans,
November 26, 1910; reproduced at p. 14 of
Vol. I of the present work.

26. 1927 (unveiled). — Bronze bust by A. Stirling Calder, in

American Hall of Fame, New York University,
New York.

APPENDIX V

Bibliography

Besides the published writings of Audubon, I have included
in this Bibliography such references to his life and times as
occur in the text or which possess some degree of merit ; all
other important literary and historical authorities are cited in
footnotes to the text. The titles appear in a single numerical
series, but the arrangement under each head is strictly chrono-
logical. All references to this list in the text are indicated
usually by title, with the name of the author, and always by
Arabic numerals, in correspondence with the series which fol-
lows. If some chaff has been admitted to this garner, no corn,
I hope, has been thrown into the fire.

a. Principal Works

1. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of America, from Original Drawings by
John James Audubon, Fellow of the Royal Societies of
London & Edinburgh and of the Linnamn & Zoological
Societies of London, Member of the Natural History
Society of Paris, of the Lyceum of New York, &c. &c.
&c. 4 vols, colored plates, double elephant folio. Pub-
lished by the Author. London, 1827-1838.
Issued without text, titles excepted, to subscribers, in 87
Numbers of 5 plates each, or 435 copper-plate engravings, col-
ored by hand, and representing 1,065 life-size figures of 489
supposedly distinct species of birds. Titles the same, except
that in volumes II-IV, after "New York," in list of societies fol-
lowing author's name, is added, "of the Philosophical Society

401

402 APPENDICES

and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia." Be-
gun at Edinburgh in autumn of 1826, and completed in Lon-
don, June 20, 1838.

A more detailed citation is:

Vol. I. Parts 1-22, pll. i- ex, 1827-30.

Vol. II. Parts 23-44, pll. cxi- ccxx, 1831-34.

Vol. III. Parts 45-66, pll. ccxxi- cccxxx, 1834-35.
Vol. IV. Parts 67-87, pll. cccxxxi-ccccxxxv, 1835-38.
More exact data on publication of individual plates are :

1827 pll. 1-25 1833 pll. 156-185

1828 pll. 26-50 1834 pll. 186-235

1829 pll. 51- 75 1835 pll. 236-285

1830 pll. 76-100 1836 pll. 286-350

1831.. pll. 101(?)-125 1837 pll. 351-400

1832.. pll. 126-155(?) 1838.. . .pll. 400 [401] -435

The first ten plates were executed by William Home Lizars,
Edinburgh, 1826-7, but were later retouched or reengraved (?)
by Robert Havell, Junior, who produced all the rest in Lon-
don; printed on Whatman's drawing paper, size (untrimmed),
39Vo x 291/4 inches, and colored after the originals. A consider-
able number of the plain plates were dispersed, and at least one
complete set exists in this state (see Note, Chapter XXVI,
Vol. II, p. 7, and also Chapter XXXII, Vol. II, p. 190) ; scien-
tific and common names, with legends of author and engraver,
and eventually the date of publication, were given on each plate.
Issued to subscribers at two guineas a Part, and sold in Europe
at £182, 14s ; in America, at $1,000. The Turkey Cock (Plate
No. 1) now brings upwards of $140, and perfect sets upwards
of $4,000, according to binding and state. Total number of
original sets probably did not exceed 190 or 200.

2. Audubon, John James, F. R. SS. L. & E. [with list of
societies] :

Ornithological Biography, or an account of the
habits of the Birds of the LTnited States of America;
accompanied by descriptions of the objects represented

BIBLIOGRAPHY 403

in the work entitled The Birds of America, and inter-
spersed with delineations of American scenery and man-
ners. 5 vols. roy. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1831-1839.

Vol. I (original ed.). Preface dated "March 1831." Pp.
i-xxiv, 1-512, and 1-16, including "Prospectus," "Con-
tents" to Vol. I, and names of subscribers to The Birds
of America. Text to accompany plates i-c of the large
folio. Adam Black, 55 North Bridge (with names of
agents; Neill & Co. Printers, Old Fishmarket), Edin-
burgh, MDCCCXXXI.

Vol. I (American reprint). Pagination the same. Judah
Dobson, Agent, 108 Chestnut St., and H. H. Porter,
Literary Rooms, 121 Chestnut St., Philadelphia,
MDCCCXXXI. Copyright by R. Harlan, M.D., 1831.
Printed by James Kay, Jun. & Co., Printers to the
American Philosophical Society, No. 4 Minor St.

Vol. I (American reprint). The same, but bearing the im-
print of E. L. Carey and A. Hart, Chestnut St., Phila-
delphia, MDCCCXXXV.

Vol. II (original ed.). Preface dated "1st December 1834."
Pp. i-xxxii, 1-588. Text of plates ci-cc. Adam and
Charles Black. Edinburgh, MDCCCXXXIV.

Vol. II (American reprint). The same, but with imprint
of Hilliard, Gray, and Company. Boston,

MDCCCXXXV.

Vol. Ill (original and only ed., as are IV and V). Preface
dated "1st December 1835." Pp. i-xvi, 1-638, with 9
woodcuts. Text to plates cci-ccc. Same imprint as
Vol. II. Edinburgh, MDCCCXXXV.

Vol. IV. Preface dated "1st November 1838." Pp. i-xxviii,
1-618. Text to plates ccci-ccclxxxvii. Imprint, the
same. Edinburgh, MDCCCXXXVIII.

Vol. V. Preface dated "1st May 1839." Pp. i-xl, 1-664,
with 98 woodcuts. Text to plates ccclxxxviii-ccccxxxv.
Same imprint. Edinburgh, MDCCCXXXIX.
According to Stone, 5 species recognized in the folio are

404 APPENDICES

suppressed in the "Biography" ; 26 new names are given, and
502 species are recognized, but as 11 were more or less hypo-
thetical, 491 remain in supposedly good standing.

3. Audubon, John James, F. R. SS. L. & E. Member of vari-

ous scientific associations in Europe and America :

A Synopsis of the Birds of North America. Pp.
i-xi, 1-359. 8vo. Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh ;
Longman, Rees, Brown, Green and Longman, London.
MDCCCXXXIX.
A methodical index to the birds of America, with special
reference to the large folio plates and Ornithological Biog-
raphy; 45 families and 139 genera are defined; 5 new names
are added, making the total number of recognized species 491.

4. Audubon, John James, F. R. SS. L. & E. (&c, &c.) :

The Birds of America from Drawings made in the

United States and its Territories. 7 vols, of text and

plates, roy. 8vo. Published by the Author and J. B.

Chevalier. New York and Philadelphia, 1840-1844.

The "Birds in Miniature," or first octavo edition of text

and plates combined; issued to subscribers in 100 Parts, each

with 5 lithographic colored plates, at $1.00 a Part.

Vol. I. Parts 1- 14; pll. 1- 70; pp. i-viii, 9-256. 1840.

Vol. II. Parts 15- 28; pll. 71-140; pp. i-viii, 9-206. 1841.

Vol. III. Parts 29- 42; pll. 141-210; pp. i-viii, 9-236. 1841.

Vol. IV. Parts 43- 56; pll. 211-280; pp. i-viii, 9-324. 1842.

Vol. V. Parts 57- 70 ; pll. 281-350 ; pp. i-viii, 9-348. 1842.

Vol. VI. Parts 71- 84; pll. 251-420; pp. i-viii, 9-460. 1843.

Vol. VII. Pts. 85-100; pll. 421-500; pp. i-x, 9[ll]-374. 1844.

In this "miniature" edition, the "delineations of American

scenery and manners" are omitted, the text revised, and the

nomenclature made to conform with the Synopsis; the plates

of the large folio were broken up, and their accessories reduced,

so that but one species appears on each ; 7 species, described in

the Biography and Synopsis are figured for the first time in an

BIBLIOGRAPHY 405

Appendix, in which also appear 17 species that had been neither
figured nor described before, thus bringing the total number
of birds represented on the octavo plates to 500 ; four of the
largest birds receive two plates each, thus leaving the number
of distinct species figured at 496, while the 12 species herein de-
scribed brings the total number of species recognized by Audu-
bon in 18-11 to 508. The plates of this edition are rearranged
and renumbered to conform with the new arrangement of the
text, which was considerably improved. The series begins with
the California Vulture, and ends with Baird's Bunting.

Vols. I-V were published by J. J. Audubon, New York, and
simultaneously issued by J. B. Chevalier, Philadelphia ; Vols.
VI-VII, published by J. J. Audubon, 77 Williams St., New
York, and 31 North First St., Philadelphia.

The Numbers or Parts were issued in blue paper covers, or
drab when without plates (7x11 inches), on which were printed
the "Prospectus," lists of subscribers and agents, besides other
information which the author wished to convey to his patrons.
The printer's legend at the right lower corner reads : "Lithd.
Printed & Cold. by J. T. Bowen, PhiladV Parts in original
covers are extremely rare ; a set in this condition was offered in
1914 at $750.

5. Audubon, John James, and Bachman, Rev. John :

The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. 2
vols, of 150 lithographic, colored plates; imp. folio.
Published by J. J. Audubon, New York, 1845-1848.
Vol. I. Parts 1-15, pll. 1- 75, 1845-1846.
Vol. II. Parts 16-30, pll. 76-150, 1846-1848.
Issued to subscribers in 30 Parts of 5 plates each, size
28 x 22 inches, at $10 a part, or $300, without text except
titles, tables of contents, and names on plates ; 76 of the orig-
inals by J. J. Audubon, and 74 by J. W. Audubon, assisted by
V. G. Audubon. Author's and printer's legends read : "Drawn
from Nature by J. J. Audubon, F. R. S. F. L. S.," and "Lith.
Printed & Cold. by J. T. Bowen, Phila. 1842 [-1845]."

406 APPENDICES

6. Audubon, John James, F. R. S. (&c, &c), and Bachman,

Rev. John, D. D. (&c, &c.) :

The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America. 3
vols., roy. 8vo. Published by J. J. Audubon and V. G.
Audubon, New York, 1846-1854.
Issued to subscribers, as text to foregoing:

Vol. I. Pp. i-xvi, 1-390. Text only. Published by

J. J. Audubon, New York, 1846.
Vol. I (European ed.). The same as foregoing with

imprint of Wiley & Putnam, London, 1847.
Vol. II. Pp. 1-336. Text only. Published by V. G.

Audubon, 1851.
Vol. III. Pp. i-vi, 1-350. Text, with 6 colored plates.

Published by V. G. Audubon, 1854.

7. Audubon, John James, F. R. S. (&c, &c), and Bachman,

Rev. John, D. D. (&c, &c.) :

The Quadrupeds of North America [in "Minia-
ture"]. 3 vols., roy. 8vo., with 155 colored plates.
Published by V. G. Audubon, New York, 1854.
Vol. I. Nos. 1-10, pll. i-1, pp. i-viii, 1-384.
Vol. II. Nos. 11-20, pll. li-c, pp. 1-334.
Vol. III. Nos. 21-31, pll. ci-clv, pp. i-vi, 1-348.
First complete edition of the text and plates reduced to
octavo size; most of the plates lithographed, printed and
colored bv J. T. Bowen. In Vol. I the introduction is cut down,
the list of subscribers omitted, and tables of contents and
genera placed at end; Vol. II is same as first edition, with
omission of subscribers' lists ; Vol. Ill same as in first edition,
except for omission of table of genera at back. All plates in
Vol. I, and 28 in Vol. II, or 78 in all, are by J. J. Audubon, and
77 are by J. W. Audubon.

8. Audubon, John James, F. R. S. (&c, &c.) :

The Birds of America, from Drawings made in the
United States and their Territories. Vols. I-VII, roy.
8vo. Published by V. G. Audubon, New York, 1856.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 407

The second octavo edition of the Birds, with 500 plates,
published without change, except in pagination. The portrait
of Audubon, which appears in this or in some of the later edi-
tions, was engraved by H. B. Hall after the painting by Henry
Inman.

9. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of America; from Original Drawings by
John James Audubon, Fellow of the Royal Societies of
London & Edinburgh, &c, &c, &c. Reissued by J. W.
Audubon. 1 vol. of 106 double elephant folio plates, in
chromolithography, by J. Bien, 180 Broadway, repre-
senting 151 of the original copper plates. Roe Lock-
wood & Son, Publishers. New York, 1860.
The only (and partial) reissue of the original folio; plates,
in many instances double, renumbered to correspond with the
octavo edition, with backgrounds often simplified or changed,
and much inferior to the original hand-colored engravings ; the
plates are dated "1858" or "1859." Checked by the Civil War,
the residual stock of plates found a ready sale thirty years
later. Citation from copy in the Public Library, New York
City. (See Appendix III, Document No. 3).

10. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of America, from Drawings made in the
United States and their Territories, by John James
Audubon, F. R. S., &c, &c. Reissued by J. W. Audu-
bon. Vols. I-VII, roy. 8vo. Text only. Roe Lock-
wood & Son, Publishers. New York, 1861. Vol. I, pp.
i-viii, 11-246; Vol. II, pp. i-viii, 11-200; Vol. Ill, pp.
i-viii, 9-234 ; Vol. IV, pp. i-viii, 9-322 ; Vol. V, pp. 1-viii,
9-346; Vol. VI, pp. i-viii, 2-456; Vol. VII (not seen).
Issued as the letterpress of the imperfect folio (see No. 9)
described above. According to Sabin, quoted by Coues (see
No. 181 of this Bibliography), only 4 royal octavo volumes of
this text was issued ; the present citation is from the 6 volumes

408 APPENDICES

in the Public Library of New York; all are without plates,
and it should be noted that Vols. I and II, and III and IV are
bound as two volumes. In 1914 a set of this edition, in seven
volumes, bound in cloth, was advertised by a bookseller in New
York at $40. (See Appendix III, Document No. 3).

11. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of America. . . . Reissued by J. W.
Audubon, in 7 vols., imper. 8vo., with 500 colored
plates, 10 x 7 inches. Roe Lockwood & Son. New York,

1861.
Third complete octavo edition, to be distinguished from the
7 vols. (No. 10) referred to above, and the V. G. Audubon
reissue of 1856 (No. 8). Reference partly from Coues.

12. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of North America: a popular and scien-
tific description of the Birds of the United States and
their Territories. New edition. New York, 1863.
Not seen, but given on the authority of Coues.

13. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of America. ... 8 vols. 8vo. New

York, 1865.
According to Coues, a later edition of J. W. Audubon's re-
issue of 1861, but in 8 instead of 7 volumes.

14. Audubon, John James, F. R. S. (&c, &c.) :

The Birds of America, from drawings made in the
United States and their Territories. Vols. I-VIII,
imper. 8vo. George R. Lockwood, late Roe Lockwood
& Son, 812 Broadway, New York. No date. (1871.)
Vol. I, pp. i-viii, i-xv (memoir), 1 1-246, pll. 1-70; Vol.
II, pp. i-vii, 11-199, pll. 71-140; Vol. Ill, pp. i-viii,
9-233, pll. 141-210; Vol. IV, pp. i-viii, 9-321, pll. 211-
280; Vol. V, pp. i-viii, 9-346, pll. 281-250; Vol. VI,

BIBLIOGRAPHY 409

pp. i-vii, 9-298, pll. 351-394; Vol. VII, pp. i-vii, 9-285,
pll. 395-440; Vol. VIII, pp. i-viii, 9-256, pll. 441-500.
(Pagination taken from Coues.)
Seventh and last complete octavo edition of text and plates,
being a reissue of the 1865 edition. In the biography, signed
"G. R. L[ockwood]., 1870," it is stated that Jean Audubon
died "at Rochefort on the Loire [sic], where he had a large
estate" at the age of ninety-five, and that J. J. Audubon was
born on his father's plantation at New Orleans in 1780. This
memoir was issued separately as an advertising pamphlet by
J. L. Sibole ("Fine Book Dealer, 109 So. 15 th. Street, New
York"), to exploit the octavo editions of the Birds and Quad-
rupeds (pp. 1-15, paper cover, no date).

b. Minor Papers and Reprints

15. Audubon, John James:

"On the Hirundo fulva of Vieillot." Annals of the
Lyceum of Natural History of New York, vol. i, pp.
163-166. New York, 1824.

16. Audubon, John James:

"Facts and Observations connected with the perma-
nent residence of swallows in the United States."
Annals of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York,
vol. i, pp. 166-168. New York, 1824.

17. Audubon, John James (a citizen of the United States) :

"Account of the Habits of the Turkey Buzzard
(Vultur aura) particularly with the view of exploding
the opinion generally entertained of its extraordinary
power of Smelling." In a letter to Professor Jameson.
[Note.] This communication was originally intended
to be sent to a friend unaquainted with the habits of
birds — J. J. A. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,
vol. 2 (Oct.-Apr.), pp. 172-184. Edinburgh, 1826-
1827. Dated "Edinburgh, Dec. 7, 1826."

410 APPENDICES

18. Audubon, John James:

"Observations on the Natural History of the Alli-
gator." In a letter to Sir William Jardine, Baronet,
&c. Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. 2,
(Oct.-April), pp. 270-280. Edinburgh, 1826-1827.
Gives the first account of the nesting habits of the American
alligator.

19. Audubon, John James:

"Account of the Carrion Crow or Vultur atratus."

Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. vi (Nov.-April), pp.

156-161. Edinburgh, 1826-1827.

Notices the nesting and other habits, and maintains that

this species, like the Turkey Buzzard, is guided to its food by

sight and not by smell.

20. Audubon, John James:

"Notes on the Habits of the Wild Pigeon of America,
Columba migratoria." Edinburgh Journal of Science,
vol. vi (Nov.-April), pp. 256-265. Edinburgh, 1826-

1827.
Read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, February 19,

1827.

21. Audubon, John James:

"Notes on the Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus), in

a letter addressed to Thomas Stuart Traill, M. D., &c."

Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. 3 (April-

Oct.), pp. 21-30. Edinburgh, 1827.

Read before the Wernerian Society of Natural History,

February 24, 1827. Reproduced in Journal of the Franklin

Institute and American Mechanics' Magazine, vol. ii, N. S., pp.

32-37. Philadelphia, 1828. Later repudiated by the editor;

see Thomas P. Jones, "The Romance of the Rattlesnake," No.

93 of this Bibliography.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 411

22. Audubon, J. J. :

"Account of the Method of Drawing Birds em-
ployed by J. J. Audubon, Esq., F. R. S. E." In a
letter to a friend. Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol.
viii, pp. 48-54. Edinburgh, 1828.

22a. Audubon, John James:

"Journey up the Mississippi." The Winter's
Wreath for 1829, pp. 104-127. Liverpool and Phila-
delphia, 1828.

23. Audubon, John James:

"Notes on the Bird of Washington — (Falco Wash-
ingtonia) or Great American Sea Eagle" (with figure).
Loudon s Magazine of Natural History, vol. i, pp. 115-
120. London, 1828-1829.
Dated "London, April, 1828."

24. Audubon, John J.:

"The Flood of the Mississippi." Edinburgh Liter-
ary Journal. February, 1831, pp. 140-142.
See "Episode" entitled "A Flood," Ornithological Biog-
raphy, vol. i.

25. Audubon, J. J. :

"An Account of the Habits of the American
Goshawk (Falco palumbarius, Wils.)." In a letter to
Sir William Jardine, Bart. Edinburgh Journal of
Natural and Geographical Science, vol. 3 (March), pp.
145-147. Edinburgh, 1831.

26. Audubon, John James:

"Improvements in the Navigation of the Missis-
sippi." Edinburgh Literary Journal, March 26, 1831,
pp. 194-195.
See Ornithological Biography, vol. i.

412 APPENDICES

27. Audubon, John James:

"Hunting the Cougar, or the American Lion."
Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. 11, pp. 103-
115. Edinburgh, 1831.
See "The Cougar," Ornithological Biography, vol. i. "It
having been remarked, and rather sharply, that in our article
on 'Audubon's Ornithological Biography,' we have overrated
that gentleman's talents, we, in our own vindication, and as
proofs of Audubon's descriptive powers, submit to the judg-
ment of our readers the above sketch, taken at random from
his work." (Editor's note.)

28. Audubon, J. J.:

"Account of a Hurricane in North America." Edin-
burgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. 12 (Oct.-April),
pp. 278-281. Edinburgh, 1831-1832.
See "The Hurricane," Ornithological Biography, vol. i.

29. Audubon, J. J.:

"The Ohio." Edinburgh New Philosophical Jour-
nal, vol. 12, pp. 122-126. Edinburgh, 1832.
See the same, Ornithological Biography, vol. i.

30. Audubon, J. J., and Bachman, Rev. John, D. D. :

"Descriptions of New Species of Quadrupeds inhab-
iting North America." Journal of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, vol. viii, pt. ii, pp. 280-329. Phila-
delphia, 1839-1842.
Read, Oct. 5, 1841.

31. Audubon, J. J., and Bachman, J. :

"Descriptions of New Species of Quadrupeds inhab-
iting North America." Proceedings of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, vol. i (Oct., 1841), pp. 92-103.
Philadelphia, 1843.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 413

32. Audubon, John James, and Bachman, John:

"Description of a new North American Fox, genus
Vulpes, Cuv., (Utah)." Proceedings of the Academy of
Natural Sciences, vol. vi, pp. 114-116. Philadelphia,
1852-1853.

33. Audubon, John James:

"Earthquake in Kentucky." Reproduced in Maga-
zine of American History, vol. 16, pp. 342-344, with
portrait. New York, 1886.
See "The Earthquake," Ornithological Biography, vol. i.

c. Epistolary Articles

34. Audubon, John James:

"Letter to the Editor" (No. 1). Dated "St. Augus-
tine, East Florida, Dec. 7, 1831." Monthly American
Journal of Geology and Natural Science, vol. i, pp. 358-
363. Philadelphia, 1832.

35. Audubon, J. J. :

"Letter from J. J. Audubon to the Editor" (No. 2).
Dated "Bulowville, East Florida, December 31, 1831."
Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural
Science, vol. i, pp. 407-414. Philadelphia, 1832.

36. Audubon, J. J. :

"Letter to the Editor" (No. 3). Monthly Ameri-
can Journal of Geology and Natural Science, vol. i
(June), pp. 529-537. Philadelphia, 1832.

37. Audubon, J. J.:

"Letter from J. J. Audubon to William MacGil-
livray." Edinburgh Journal of Natural History, vol. i
(for Dec, 1838), p. 171. Edinburgh, 1835-1839.
Dated, "On board the Crusader, Cote Blanche, 18 April,
1837."

414 APPENDICES

d. Translations

38. Bazin, Eugene:

Scenes de la Nature dans les Etats-Unis et le Nord
de VAmerique. Ouvrage traduit d'Audubon, avec
Preface et Notes du Traducteur. T. 1-2, pp. 1-460,
1-512. 8vo. Paris, 1857.
Selections from the Ornithological Biography, with Intro-
duction ; dedicated to Charles Lucien Bonaparte.

39. (Anon.) :

"Drei Ziegenmelker Nordamerika's." Naumannia:
Archiv fur die Ornithologie, vorzugsweise Europas,'
herausg. von E. Baldamus, pp. 158-163. Stuttgart und
Leipzig, 1858.

e. Autobiography

40. Audubon, Maria R. :

"Audubon's Story of his Youth." Scribner's Maga-
zine, vol. xiii, pp. 267-287, illust. New York, 1893.
First appearance of autobiographical sketch, entitled,
"Myself, J. J. Audubon." Reproduced also in Audubon and
his Journals (see No. 86), vol. i.

/. Journals

41. Deane, Ruthven:

"Extracts from an Unpublished Journal of John
James Audubon." The Auk, vol. xxi, pp. 334-338.
Cambridge, 1904.
Including entries for fourteen days, extending from October
12, 1820, to November 25, 1821.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 415

42. (Anon.):

"A Story of Meadville from John J. Audubon,
F. R. S., August 28, 1824." Pamphlet (in blue paper
cover), pp. 1-4. Dated April 9th, 1846.

An early version, taken from the original journal, and
probably given by Audubon himself to some of his friends,
possibly Spencer F. Baird, who visited him in both early and
late April of this year. For passages not since reproduced,
see Vol. I, p. 341. Citation from copy in the Public Library,
New York City.

For fuller journal records, see Audubon and his Journals
(No. 86), including "European Journals," (1826-1827), vol. i,
pp. 79-242; the "Labrador Journal,-" 1833, vol. i, pp. 343-446;
and the "Missouri River Journals," 1843, vol. i, pp. 447-532,
and vol. ii, pp. 1-196.

g. Familiar Letters

43. Coues, Elliott:

"Behind the Veil." Bulletin Nuttall Ornithological
Club, vol. v, pp. 193-204. Cambridge, 1880.
Gives interesting letters by Audubon and MacGillivray,
which are reproduced in the present work.

44. Gordon, Mrs. :

"Christopher North": A Memoir of John Wilson.
New York, 1894.
For letter of J. J. Audubon to J. Wilson, no date [Jany.
1, 1836], see pp. 363-364.

45. Shufeldt, R. W., and Audubon, M. R. :

"The Last Portrait of Audubon, together with a
Letter to his Son." The Auk, vol. xi, pp. 309-313.
New York, 1894.

416 APPENDICES

46. Rhoads, S. N. :

"Auduboniana," The Auk, vol. xx, pp, 377-383.
Cambridge, 1903.
Gives three letters to Edward Harris, partly reproduced in
the present work.

47. Deane, Ruthven :

"Unpublished Letters of John James Audubon and
Spencer F. Baird," The Auk, vol. xxi, pp. 255-259.
Cambridge, 1904.
First installment.

48. Deane, Ruthven :

(a) "A Hitherto Unpublished Letter of John James
Audubon," The Auk, vol. xxii, pp. 170-171. Cam-
bridge, 1905.

(b) See also "An Unpublished Letter of John
James Audubon to his Family," The Auk, vol. xxv, pp.
166-169. Cambridge, 1908.

49. Deane, Ruthven :

"Unpublished Letters of John James Audubon and
Spencer F. Baird," I, The Auk, vol. xxiii, pp. 194-209.
Cambridge, 1906.
Second installment.

50. Deane, Ruthven :

"LTnpublished Letters of John James Audubon and
Spencer F. Baird," II, The Auk, vol. xxiii, pp. 318-334.
Cambridge, 1906.
Third installment.

51. Deane, Ruthven:

"Unpublished Letters of John James Audubon and
Spencer F. Baird," III, The Auk, vol. xxiv, pp. 53-70.
Cambridge, 1907.
Fourth installment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 417

52. Dall, William Healey:

Spencer Fullerton Baird: A Biography. Pp. i-xvi,
1-462. 8vo. 19 Must. Philadelphia and London,
1915.
Reproduces eighteen letters of Audubon to Baird, dating
from June 13, 1840, to February 11, 1847.

53. Thayer, John E. :

"Auduboniana," The Aul; vol. xxxiii, pp. 115-118,
4 plates. Cambridge, 1916.
Reproduces four original water-color drawings, and two
letters addressed to Dr. George Parkman, dated "New York,
June 20th," and "August 13th 1841."

54. Grinnell, George Bird :

"Some Audubon Letters," The Auk, vol. xxxiii, pp.
119-130. Cambridge, 1916.
Gives two letters written to Victor G. Audubon from New
York, April 28 and Sept. 9, 1833.

See also Caledonian Mercury, November 3, 1831, for letter
to Joseph B. Kidd (No. 163), Brewer (No. 79), Bachman
(No. 191), Gunther (No. 204), Deane (No. 225), and Alex-
ander Bliss, in Autograph Leaves of our Country s Authors,
for facsimile letter of Audubon to Thomas Sully, dated "Man-
chester (England), Sept. 16, 1826" (Baltimore, 1864).

h. Biographies

55. Christopher North (John Wilson) :

"Noctes Ambrosianae," No. XXX, Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine, vol. xxi (Jan.), pp. 112-105 (sic).
Edinburgh, 1827.

56. (Anon.) :

"Biographical Sketch of John James Audubon,"
with portrait (drawn and engraved by J. Brown) ; in-

418 APPENDICES

sert in G. Cuvier and P. A. Latreille, The Animal King-
dom, vol. i, pp. 197*-204*. London, 1830.

57. Lander, Sir Thomas Dick, Bart., and Brown, Capt.

Thomas :

Biographical Sketch, with engravings by Joseph B.
Kidd. Pp. i-x, 1-184, 16mo. Edinburgh, 1833.
Mainly extracted from vol. i of the Ornithological Biog-
raphy; refers to the false rumor of Audubon's death in October,
1831, and to his plan of forming a Gallery of Paintings in
Natural History, started in association with Kidd.

58. (Anon.) :

"Biographical Sketch of J. J. Audubon." Miscel-
lany of Natural History, vol. i. 1833.
Not seen.

59. Dunlap, William:

History of the Rise and Progress of the Arts of
Design in the United States. 2 vols. New York, 1834.
For John James Audubon, see vol. ii, pp. 402-408.

60. (Anon.) Godwin, Parke:

"John James Audubon." United States Magazine

and Democratic Review, N. S., vol. x, pp. 436-450.

New York, 1842.

See also Out of the Past; Critical and Literary Papers,

pp. 89-110 (New York, 1870), and Homes of American

Authors; for the last, see No. 68.

61. Griswold, Ritfus W. :

The Prose Writers of America, article "Audubon."
Philadelphia, 1847.

62. Lester, C. Edwards (editor) :

The Gallery of Illustrious Americans, containing
the Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Twenty-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 419

four of the most eminent Citizens of the American Re-
public since the death of Washington. Plates from
daguerreotypes by Brady ; engraved by D'Avignon.
Published from 205 Broadway, New York, by G. P. Put-
nam, D. Appleton & Company, and C. S. Francis &
Company. New York, 1850.
Issued in 24 Parts. For John James Audubon, see Part
No. 7 ; reproduced in Spooner's Biographical History of the
Fine Arts, vol. i, pp. 53-55 (New York, 1867). See also No.
196.

63. Philarete-Chasles :

Etudes sur la Litterature et les Moeurs des Anglo-

Americains au xia? siecle. Pp. i-viii, 1-516. Paris,

1851. See "Audubon. Le Voyageur et le Naturaliste,"

pp. 68-106.

An excellent review by an experienced French critic and

author, who appears to have met Audubon and to have attended

one of his exhibitions in Edinburgh.

64. (Anon.) Thorpe, Col. Thomas B. :

"Incidents in the Life of Audubon," Godey's
Lady's Book, vol. xlii, pp. 306-309, with portrait.
Philadelphia, 1851.

65. Griswold, Rufus W. :

"John James Audubon," International Monthly
Magazine, vol. ii, pp. 469-474. New York, 1850-1851.

66. Cap, P. A. :

"Jean Jacques Audubon," U Illustration, vol. xviii,
pp. 70-71, illust. Paris, 1851.

67. (Anon.):

"Audubon, the Naturalist," Gleason's Pictorial, vol.
iii, p. 196, with portrait of Audubon as a young man.
Boston, Sept. 25, 1852.

420 APPENDICES

Audubon is said to have been born in New Orleans, May 4,
1780, and "in 1810 he embarked in a skiff with his wife and
young child for his only companions, and with his gun and
pencil for baggage, and commenced an adventurous and wander-
ing life — the life of a hunter and naturalist, which he did not
abandon until 1834."

68. Godwin, Parke:

"John James Audubon," in The Homes of American
Authors. New York, 1853.
See also "The Home of Audubon," The Leisure Hour, vol.
2, pp. 300-303 (London, 1853), and Little Journeys to the
Homes of American Authors, New York and London, 1896.

69. Smiles, Samuel:

Brief Biographies. Boston, 1861. See "Audubon
the Ornithologist," pp. 171-197.

70. St. John, Mrs. Horace:

Life of Audubon, the Naturalist in the New World.
His Adventures and Discoveries. Pp. i-xiv, 1-172.
London, 1856.

71. St. John, Mrs. Horace:

Life of Audubon, the Naturalist of the New World.
His Adventures and Discoveries. Revised and cor-
rected, with additions, and illustrated with engravings
by J. W. Orr from original designs. Pp. 1-24, 1-312.
Boston, 1856.
First American edition, followed by others in 1861, 1864,
1870, 1876 and later ; citation from edition of 1864.

72. Buchanan, Robert (editor) :

The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon,
the Naturalist. Edited from materials supplied by his
widow. 8vo. Pp. i-viii, 1-366. Portrait and vignette
on title. London, 1868.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 421

This was followed by a second and third English edition in
1869, the latter without frontispiece, but with vignette stamped
on cover. The editor assumed no responsibility for the fidelity
of his record, which was based on a manuscript by the Rev.
Charles Coffin Adams, of New York. Reproduced in "Every-
man's Library," with an Introduction by John Burroughs
(originally appearing as a review of Buchanan's work in 1869;
see No. 153). 12mo. Pp. i-xx, 1-336. London and New York
(no date).

73. Audubon, Lucy (editor) :

The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist.
Edited by his Widow. With an Introduction by James
Grant Wilson. 8vo. Pp. i-x, 1-444. Portrait, and
vignette on title. New York, 1869.
Reprinted at various times ; citation from a copy bearing
date of 1906. This work is a reproduction, with but slight
changes, of Buchanan's rendering of the original Adams manu-
script.

74. Duyckinck, Evert Augustus:

"John James Audubon," in the National Portrait
Gallery of Eminent Americans, illustrated from paint-
ings by Alonzo Chappel. 2 vols., 4to. New York, 1862.
For Audubon, see vol. i, pp. 47-54.

75. Parton, James:

Peoples' Book of Biography, or Short Lives of the
most interesting Persons of all Ages and Countries.
Hartford, 1869. For Audubon, see pp. 163-167.
A second edition appeared under the title Illustrious Men
and their Achievements, &c. (New York, 1881).

76. (Anon.) :

"Audubon," Chambers' Journal, vol. 46, pp. 85-89.
London and Edinburgh, 1869.
A compilation from Buchanan's Life.

422 APPENDICES

77. (Anon.) :

"The Life of John James Audubon, the Naturalist,"
Harpers' New Monthly Magazine, vol. xxxix, pp. 613-
614. New York, 1869.

78. Audubon, Maria R. :

"Reminiscences of Audubon by a Granddaughter,"
Scribner's Monthly Magazine, vol. xiii, pp. 333-386.
New York, 1876. "

79. Brewer, Thomas M. :

"Reminiscences of John James Audubon," Harper's
New Monthly Magazine, vol. lxi, pp. 666-675. New
York, 1880.
Reproduces a number of interesting letters.

80. (Anon.) Larrabee, W. H. :

"Sketch of J. J. Audubon," Popular Science

Monthly, vol. xxxi, pp. 687-697, with portrait. New

York, 1887.

See also reprint in Pioneers of Science m America.

Sketches of their lives and Scientific Work. From the Popular

Science Monthly, with additions. "John James Audubon,

1780-1851," pp. 152-156. New York, 1896.

81. Pentz, Jacob :

"The Audubons." Shooting and Fishing, May 11,
1893, illust. New York.
Interesting reminiscences and portraits of John Wood-
house Audubon and his family, with whom the author lived for a
number of years.

82. Elliot, Daniel Giraud :

"The Life and Services of John James Audubon,"
Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences,
vol. xiii, pp. 43-57. New York, 1893.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 423

An address delivered before the New York Academy of
Sciences, April 26, 1893.

83. Godwin, Parke :

"John James Audubon," in Commemorative Ad-
dresses, pp. 149-192.
An interesting sketch by one who had known Audubon as
early as 1842, but replete with errors in dates and questions of
fact ; condensed from earlier papers. See Nos. 60 and 68.

84. Mitchell, Donald G. :

American Lands and Letters. 2 vols. London,
1897, 1899. For Audubon, see vol. i, pp. 204-213.

85. Bradford, Mary Fluker:

Audubon. Pp. 1-72, illust. New Orleans, 1897.
Originally read before the Quarante Club, and privately
printed in the interests of a fund for the erection of a monu-
ment to Audubon in New Orleans, a project which has since
been realized (see Vol. I, p. 13).

86. Audubon, Maria R. :

Audubon and His Journals, with zoological and
other notes by Elliott Coues. With 37 Illustrations, in-
cluding 10 Portraits of Audubon, and 3 hitherto unpub-
lished Bird Drawings. 2 vols., 8vo. Vol. i, pp. i-xiv,
1-532 ; vol. ii, pp. i-viii, 1-554. With reproduction of
diplomas, etc. New York, 1898.
The first volume of this excellent work is devoted to a
biography of the naturalist, pp. 1-78, and to his Journals (see
No. 42) ; the second continues the Journals, and reproduces
most of the "Episodes" from the Ornithological Biography.

87. Burroughs, John:

John James Audubon, Pp. i-xviii, 1-144. With
portrait. 16mo. and (large paper) 8vo. Boston. 1902.
Citation from second edition of 1904.

424 APPENDICES

88. Merriam, C. Hart:

"John James Audubon," Popular Science Monthly,
vol. lxx, pp. 301-303, with portrait. New York, 1907.
Delivered on the occasion of the unveiling of marble busts
of ten eminent scientific men at the American Museum of Nat-
ural History, December 29, 1906.

89. Merriam C. Hart:

"John James Audubon," Bird Lore, vol. 9, pp. 3-5.
New York, 1907.

89a. Stone, Witmer:

"John James Audubon," in Leading American Men
of Science, ed. by David Starr Jordan, pp. 71-87. New
York, 1910.

90. Bakewell, Rev. Gordon :

"Reminiscences of John James Audubon." Publica-
tions of the Louisiana Historical Society, vol. v, pp.
31-41. New Orleans, 1911.
An address delivered before the Louisiana Historical So-
ciety, November 16, 1910. Affirms, on the testimony of Ber-
nard de Marigny, that Audubon was a Louisianian by birth.
See Vol. I, p. 69 of the present work.

i. Reviews and Criticism

91. (Anon.) Brewster, David :

"Mr. Audubon's Ornithology of the United States

of America," Edinburgh Journal of Science, vol. vi, p.

184. Edinburgh, 1826-1827.

This highly commendatory paper by David Brewster, and

that by Robert Jameson, which follows, gives the first formal

announcement of Audubon's work in the scientific journals of

the day.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 425

92. (Anon.) Jameson, Robert :

"Mr. Audubon's great work on Birds of the United
States of America," Edinburgh New Philosophical Jour-
nal, vol. 2, pp. 210-211. Edinburgh, 1826-1827.
The editor stated that Audubon had spent twenty-two
years in the study of American birds, and that the engravings,
of which several had already appeared, would be accompanied
by a quarto volume of letterpress, containing all his observa-
tions on the natural history of the species, in the form of let-
ters, an example of which was given in the paper on the Turkey
Buzzard in the present number of that Journal (see No. 17).

93. (Anon.) Jones, Thomas P.:

"The Romance of the Rattlesnake," Franklin Jour-
nal and American Mechanics' Magazine, vol. ii (Au-
gust), N. S., p. 144. Philadelphia, 1828.
This notorious attack upon Audubon's veracity was fol-
lowed by Waterton (see No. 115), and referred to by Victor
Audubon (see No. 118), in his reply. Audubon's original arti-
cle (see No. 21) was published by this editor, who knew so
little of its author that not even his name was given correctly.

93a. Cuvier, Georges:

"Rapport verbal fait a L'Academie Royale des Sci-
ences, sur L'Histoire naturelle des Oiseaux de L'Ame-
rique Septemtrionale, de M. Audubon," he Mo7iiteur,
lre- octobre. Paris, 1828.
For extracts from Cuvier's report, see Chapter XXIII, p.
413.

94. (Anon.) :

"Ueber die Abbildungen von Vogeln," in Froriep,
Notizen, Bd. xxi, col. 49-54. Berlin, 1828.

95. W[illiam], S[wainson].:

"Some Account of the Work now publishing by Mr.
Audubon," Loudon s Magazine of Natural History, vol.
i, pp. 43-52 (May). London, 1828-1829.

426 APPENDICES

Dated at "Tittenhanger Green. April 11, 1828." A
highly laudatory article on Audubon's plates, quoted in his
"Prospectus" of The Birds of America.

96. (Anon.):

"Report of a committee appointed by the Lyceum
of Natural History of New York to examine the splen-
did work of Mr. Audubon upon the Birds of North
America; May, 1829," American Journal of Science
and Arts, vol. xvi, pp. 353-354. New Haven, 1829.
Applauds The Birds of America, and recommends that the
Lyceum become a subscriber.

97. "Ornithophilus" :

"Remarks on Audubon's Birds of America, and
Ornithological Biography," Edinburgh New Philosophi-
cal Journal, vol. 10, pp. 317-332. Edinburgh, 1830-
1831.
A highly favorable and elaborate review, mistakenly at-
tributed to Swainson. Reprinted in the National Gazette and
Literary Register, vol. xii (June 10), Philadelphia, 1831. In
an editorial note it is said that the Ornithological Biography
is about to be reprinted in Philadelphia by James Kay, Jr.,
& Company.

98. Christopher North (John Wilson):

"Audubon's Ornithological Biography Introduc-
tion," Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. xxx, pp.
1-16 (July). Edinburgh, 1831.
The second of Wilson's articles in praise of Audubon; re-
printed with his later reviews of the same work in Critical and
Miscellaneous Essays, vol. v, pp. 91-149.

99. Christopher North (John Wilson):

"Audubon's Ornithological Biography. Second
Survev. Wilson's American Ornithology," Blackwood's

BIBLIOGRAPHY 427

Edinburgh Magazine, vol. xxx, pp. 247-280. Edin-
burgh, 1831.

100. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography By John

James Audubon. &c. &c Edinburgh, 1831," Edin-
burgh Literary Journal or Weekly Register of Criti-
cism and Belles Lettres, April 16, 1831, pp. 248-249.

101. (Anon.) Featherstonhaugh, G. W. :

"Ornithological Biography. By John James Audu-
bon, F. R. S. Published by Judah Dobson and H. H.
Porter, Literary Rooms, Philadelphia," Monthly Amer-
ican Journal of Geology and Natural Science, vol. i,
September, pp. 136-139. Philadelphia, 1831.

102. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography," American Quarterly
Review, vol. x, pp. 245-258. Philadelphia, 1831.

103. (Anon.):

"The Birds of America. . . . By John James Audu-
bon, F. R. S vol. i. folio. London, 1831.

Ornithological Biography 1 vol. 8vo. Edin-
burgh, 1831," Quarterly Review, vol. xlvii, pp. 332-366.
London, 1832.
In the same article are reviewed Jameson's edition of Wil-
son's American Ornithology, and Part II of Swainson's and
Richardson's Fauna B or eali- Americana.

104. Waterton, Charles:

"On the Faculty of Scent of the Vulture," Loudon's

Magazine of Natural History, vol. v (April), pp. 233-

241. London, 1832.

Signed "Walton Hall, Dec. 21, 1831"; the first of nineteen

critical and polemical articles extending over a period of five

years, and directed against Audubon and his friends.

428 APPENDICES

105. (Anon.) Peabody, W. B. O. :

"Audubon's Biography of Birds. Ornithological

Biography of Birds Philadelphia, 1831,"

North American Review, vol. xxxiv, pp. 364-405
(April). Boston, 1832.
The first of three able articles by the same anonymous
writer which appeared in this Review. See Nos. 130 and 143.

106. (Anon.) Featherstonhaugh, G. W. :

"Audubon, Author of The Birds of America, and

Ornithological Biography," Monthly American Journal

of Geology and Natural Science, vol. i, pp. 456-468

(April). Philadelphia, 1832.

A laudatory review, in which the author professes to give

"a true history of a conspiracy, got up to utterly break down

and ruin the reputation of one of the most remarkable men

America ever produced."

107. Abert, John:

"Habits of Climbing of the Rattle-snake. Extract

of a letter from Col. Abert, of the U. S. Topographical

Engineers, to Dr. Harlan of Philadelphia," Monthly

American Journal of Geology and Natural Science, vol.

i, pp. 221-223. Philadelphia, 1832.

Dated "Washington, Oct. 21, 1831." Supports Audubon's

account of the climbing habits of the rattlesnake, which had

become the subject of acrimonious dispute.

108. (Anon.):

"Audubon," The Athenceum, vol. for 1833, pp. 817-
818. London, 1833.
In number for November 23. An account, partly from pri-
vate sources and partly from a New York newspaper, of Audu-
bon's present researches and plans, with detailed comment on
his Florida and Labrador expeditions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 429

109. Hunter, Perceval:

"Means by which the Vulture (Vultur Aura, L.)
traces its Food," Loudon' 's Magazine of Natural His-
tory, vol. vi, pp. 83-88. London, 1833.
Dated "Oxford, Jul. 2, 1832." Defends Audubon's account
of lack of sense of smell in the Vulture, published in 1826 (see
No. 17).

110. Waterton, Charles:

"The Means by which the Turkey Buzzard traces

its Food," Loudon s Magazine of Natural History, vol.

vi, pp. 162-163. London, 1833.

Signed "Walton Hall, Jany. 1, 1833." A caustic reply to

the last. Reprinted in Essays in Natural History, chiefly

Ornithology, First Series. London, 1838.

111. Waterton, Charles:

"Remarks on Mr. Audubon's Account of the 'Habits
of the Turkey Buzzard (Vultur Aura), particularly
with the View of exploding the Opinion generally enter-
tained of its extraordinary Powers of Smelling,' " Lou-
don's Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi, pp. 163-
171. London, 1833.
A characteristically flippant article, ending thus : "But
here I will stop : I have been too long on carrion, — 'neque enim
toluare vaporem ulterius potuV (Ovid Met., ii, 301)."

112. Waterton, Charles:

"The Gland on the Rump of Birds," Loudon's
Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi, pp. 274-277.
London, 1833.
Denial that birds ever oil their feathers in preening, as
Audubon had maintained for the eagle. Reprinted, with many
controversial articles, which follow, in Essays on Natural His-
tory, First Series, referred to above.

430 APPENDICES

113. Audubon, V. G. :

"[Mr. Audubon, Jr.] in Reply to Mr. Waterton's

Remarks on Audubon's Biography of Birds," Loudon s

Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi, p. 369. London,

1833.

Signed "121 Great Portland St., Jn. 7, 1833." Victor

Audubon's defense of his father, who was then in America.

114. R[obert] B[akewell] :

"Observations on Mr. Waterton's Attacks on Mr.
Audubon," Loudon s Magazine of Natural History, vol.
vi, pp. 369-372. London, 1833.
Signed "Hampstead, Jn. 10, 1833."

115. Waterton, Charles:

[Mr. Waterton in reply to Mr. Audubon, Jun.],
Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi, pp.
464-465. London, 1833.
Signed "Walton Hall, July 6, 1833"; Refers to Dr. Jones'
"Romance of the Rattlesnake" (see No. 93), and quotes a let-
ter by George Ord, in explaining why Swainson did not write
the "Biography of Birds."

116. Waterton, Charles:

"Air. Audubon again," Loudon's Magazine of Natu-
ral History, vol. vi, pp. 465-468. London, 1833.
A reply to Robert Bakewell, in which the author says that
his only object in attacking Audubon was to defend his own
account of the vulture.

117. Swainson, William:

"Mr. Audubon, and his Work, the 'Biography of
Birds': Mr. Swainson in reply to Mr. Waterton,"
Loudon 's Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi, p. 550.
London, 1833.
Dated Sept. 17, 1832.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 431

118. Audubon, V. G. :

"Mr. Audubon, and his Work, the 'Biography of
Birds': Mr. Audubon, jun., in Reply to Mr. Water-
ton," London's Magazine of Natural History, vol. vi,
pp. 550-553. London, 1833.
Signed "121 Great Portland, Sept. 19, 1833." Quotes ar-
ticles by Jones, Featherstonhaugh and Abert; see Nos. 93, 101,
106 and 107.

119. Waterton, Charles:

"Retrospective Criticism," embracing the following
minor articles : "Mr. Audubon, and his Work, the
Biography of Birds" (signed "Walton Hall, Nov. 7,
1833) ; "Mr. Audubon, jun."; "Aerial Encounter of the
Eagle and the Vulture" (see the "Biography of Birds,"
vol. i, p. 163) (signed "Walton Hall, Nov. 7, 1833") ;
"Audubon's Humming-bird" (see the "Biography of
Birds," vol. i, p. 218) ("Walton Hall, Nov. 19, 1833") ;
"The Virginian Partridge," Loudons Magazine of
Natural History, vol. vii, pp. 66-74. London, 1834.
The three last reprinted in Essays on Natural History,
First Series, referred to above.

120. Waterton, Charles:

"Retrospective Criticism," embracing the following
minor articles: "The Vulture's Nose" ("Walton Hall,
March 6, 1834") ; "Audubon's Claim to the Authorship
of the Biography of Birds" ; "Audubon and his Or-
nithology"; "The Passenger Pigeon" ("Walton Hall,
Jany. 19, 1834"). Loudon's Magazine of Natural His-
tory, vol. vii, pp. 276-283. London, 1834.
The first and last articles reprinted in Essays on Natural
History, First Series, referred to above.

121. (Anon.):

"The Birds of America. No. XXXVII. By J. J.
Audubon, Esq. Coloured Plates. Elephant folio. Lon-

432 APPENDICES

don, Havell," Athenaeum, vol. for 1834, p. 350 (May
10). London, 1834.
At the same time was also reviewed Part ii of A Manual of
the Ornithology of the United States, by Thomas Nuttall.

122. (Anon.):

"The Birds of America. By J. J. Audubon, F.R.S.,
F.L.S. Parts XLI, XLII, XLIII. London, Havell,"
Athenceum, vol. for 1834, pp. 653-654. London, 1834.
Describes the Wood Duck (Plate ccvi) as perfect, and com-
pliments the engraver, Robert Havell, on "the accuracy with
which he has appreciated and retained the spirit of the origi-
nals."

123. (Anon.) Hall, James:

"American Ornithology," The Western Monthly
Magazine, vol. ii, pp. 337-350 (July). Cincinnati,
1834.
A comparative review of the ornithological works of Alex-
ander Wilson, Thomas Nuttall, and John James Audubon,
very laudatory of the first two but condemnatory of the last,
by Judge Hall, whose brother, Harrison Hall, was an inter-
ested publisher of Wilson's work. "How shall we venture to
dissent from the almost unanimous expression of public senti-
ment, which has set him [Audubon] up as a sort of 'greatest
and best,' against whom to speak in dispraise, would be a spe-
cies of treason. Yet it must be done, and it is our vocation
to do it : the critic must not be silent when the interests of sci-
ence require, and the honor of his country demands, that he
should proclaim the truth The exaggerations con-
tained in these sketches ["Episodes"] are such as to weaken
our confidence in the entire work."

124. Bachman, John:

"Retrospective Criticism. Remarks in defence of
the Author of the Birds of America," Loudon's Maga-

BIBLIOGRAPHY 433

zlne of Natural History, vol. vii, pp. 164-175. London,

1834.
A reply to Waterton, and an appeal for as much justice for
Audubon as was shown to Wilson, his predecessor. Dated
"Charleston, Dec. 31, 1833."

125. Bachman, John :

"An account of some experiments made on the habits
of the Vultures inhabiting Carolina, — the Turkey Buz-
zard and the Carrion Crow, particularly as it regards
the extraordinary powers of smelling usually attributed
to them," Journal of the Boston Society of Natural His-
tory, vol. i, pp. 15-31. Boston, 1834.
Bachman did not deny the power of smell to the vultures,
but maintained that they were guided to their prey by sight
alone.

126. (Anon.):

"Audubon's Birds of America and Ornithological

Biography," Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal,

January, 1835.

"All is life, health, and beauty. Never before were birds

so represented, and if ever again they will be, still Audubon

will be the chief of a school, of whom it will be said that it

studied nature. Turn now to any volume of plates that you

can find, and what presents itself? not a bird surely, but an

effigy stuffed with straw, and more worthy of being burnt, than

that of a Tory statesman by a radical mob."

127. Bachman, John:

"Defence of Audubon," Bucks County Intelligencer,
1835.
Not seen.

128. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography Volume ii, pub-
lished at 25s.," Loudon's Magazine of Natural History,
vol. viii, pp. 184-190. London, 1835.

434 APPENDICES

129. Taylor, Richard C. :

"On the Geology and Natural History of the North-
Eastern Extremity of the Alleghany Mountain Range,
in Pennsylvania, United States," Loudon's Magazine of
Natural History, vol. viii, pp. 529-541. London, 1835.
Confirms Audubon's account of the climbing habits of the
rattlesnake.

130. (Anon.) Peabody, W. B. O.:

"Audubon's Biography of Birds ; Ornithological
Biography," North American Review, vol. xli, pp. 194-
231. Boston, 1835.

131. Christopher North (John Wilson) :

"Audubon's Ornithological Biography," Black-
wood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 37, pp. 107-124.
Edinburgh, 1335.

132. Waterton, Charles:

"On Snakes, their Fangs, and their Mode of procur-
ing Food," Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, vol.
viii, pp. 663-668. London, 1835.
Reprinted in Essays on Natural History, First Series, re-
ferred to above.

133. Waterton, Charles, Esquire, of Walton-Hall:

"A Letter to James [Robert] Jameson, Esq." [fol-
lowed by 21 lines of fine print, giving titles and mem-
bership in scientific societies]. Pp. 1-14. Wakefield,
1835.
Privately printed, and designed mainly to hit Audubon and
his snake stories over Jameson's shoulders. Signed, "Walton-
Hall, January 27, 1835." "Should you honor me with

a reply, I promise you that I will take an immediate and dis-
passionate notice of it; and I will address to you a second,
a third, and a fourth letter, and so on. As you have first

BIBLIOGRAPHY 435

attacked me through Audubon, through him I will continue to

point my dart at you This mode of carrying on the

warfare will answer well my ends. It will give me an oppor-
tunity of again bringing on the stage certain individuals with
whom I have not yet quite squared up accounts ; and, at the

same time, I trust it will be to you a kind of hint,

a warning — lest you make another false step in your exertions
to sound again in the public ear, O Candour ! whither art thou
fled? Certainly not to Walton Hall. . . . Pray, sir, where
were your brains (whither had they fled? Certainly not to
Walton Hall) when you received, and approved of, a narrative
at once so preposterous and so palpably fictitious?" Reprinted
in Essays on Natural History, edited by Norman Moore (Lon-
don, 1871). Citation from pamphlet in Library of British
Museum.

134. Waterton, Charles, Esquire, of Walton-Hall :

"Second Letter to Robert Jameson, Esq." [with
same titles as in last]. Pp. 1-16. Wakefield, 1835.
Ridicules in particular Audubon's accounts of the Vulture,
the Passenger Pigeon, and a hurricane in North America.
Signed "Walton-Hall. March 2nd-, 1835."

135. Waterton, Charles:

"Audubon's Plates of the Birds of America," Lou-
don's Magazine of Natural History, vol. viii, pp. 236-
238. London, 1835.
Accuses Audubon of misrepresentation in his statements of
the time required to produce his drawings.

136. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography, or an Account of the
Habits of the Birds of the United States of America.

By J. J. Audubon, vol. ii &c. First Notice,"

Athenaum, London, January 3, 1835, pp. 5-7.
The same: "Second Notice," Athenaum, January 17, pp.
43-45.

436 APPENDICES

The same: "Third Notice," Athenaum, January 31. pp.
87-89.

"There is amply sufficient remaining in Audubon's pages,
for fully a dozen more notices, were we disposed to follow the
exhausting system."

137. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography .... vol. iii, First
Notice," Athenceum, pp. 41-42, January 16, 1836.
London.

The same: "Second Notice," Athenaeum, January
23, 1836, pp. 62-63.

138. Waterton, Charles, Esq., Walton-Hall:

"An Ornithological Letter to William Swainson,

Esq., F.R.S. &c. &c." Pp. 1-16. Wakefield (Richard

Nichols, Bookseller), 1837.

Signed "Walton-Hall, March 10, 1837," and reprinted in

Moore's edition of Essays on Natural History, referred to

above. A long and bitter tirade against both Swainson and

Audubon. "You have seen fit to laud one man exceedingly, for

his zoological acquirements, who to my certain knowledge, paid

other people for the letterpress and drawings, which were to

appear in his work." Citation from pamphlet in British

Museum Library.

•

139. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography by John James

Audubon, vols, i-iii," Oken's Isis, Bd. xxx, pp. 922-
928. Leipzig, 1837.

140. Sells, W.:

"On the Habits of the Vultur aura, with notes on
the dissections of the two heads of two specimens by R.
Owen," Proceedings of the Zoological Society of Lon-
don, Pt. v, pp. 33-35. London, 1837.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 437

Favors the view that the vulture is guided to food by the
sense of smell.

141. (Anon.) :

"Ornithological Biography vol. iv "

Athenceum, London, Dec. 1, 1838, pp. 849-852.

142. (Anon.):

"Ornithological Biography vol. v . ... ."

Athenceum, London, vol. for 1839, p. 77.

143. (Anon.) Peabody, W. B. O. :

"Audubon's Ornithological Biography," North
American Review, vol. i, pp. 381-404 (April). Bos-
ton, 1840.

144. (Anon.) :

"Audubon's Ornithology. A Synopsis of the Birds
of North America. Edinburgh, 1839. The Birds of
America. London and Edinburgh, vol. 1. New York,
1840," American Journal of Sciences and Arts, vol.
xxxix, pp. 343-357. New Haven, 1840.

145. Ord, George:

[Reply to Audubon's charge against Wilson, and
countercharge against Audubon.] Proceedings of the
American Philosophical Society, vol. 1, pp. 272-273.
Philadelphia, 1840.
Report of meeting held September 18, 1840.

146. (Anon.):

"The Birds of America .... vol. ii, octavo edi-
tion published by J. J. Audubon, and J. B.

Chevalier," American Journal of Science and Arts, vol.
xlii, pp. 130-136. New Haven, 1842.
"Mr. Audubon has now nearly a thousand subscribers to his
work ; an instance of liberal support of a work on natural his-

438 APPENDICES

tory certainly without a parallel in the New World, and hardly
with one in the Old."

147. (Anon.):

"A Synopsis of the Birds of North America, by J.
J. Audubon. London, 1839," Qken's Isis, Bd. xxxvii,
pp. 713-718. Leipzig, 1844.

148. WlNTERFIELD, CHARLES :

"American Ornithology (The Birds of America and
Ornithological Biography)," The American Review: A
Whig Journal, vol. i, pp. 262-274. New York 1845.

149. Winterfield, Charles:

"About Birds and Audubon," The American Re-
view: A Whig Journal, vol. i, pp. 371-383. New York,
1845.
Refers to a meeting with Auiiubon on a canal boat in Penn-
sylvania, when the latter was returning from his Missouri River
expedition in 1843. See No. 173.

150. Winterfield, Charles :

"A Talk about Birds and Audubon," The American

Review: A Whig Journal, vol. ii, pp. 279-287. New

York, 1845.

Interesting reference to "the great fire [of July 19, 1845]

which so lately devastated so large a part of this proud city

[New York]," in which the copper plates of Audubon's Birds

were thought to have been destroyed (see Chapter XXXV, p.

267).

151. (Anon.) :

"Audubon, the Naturalist," Athenccum, London,

vol. for 1856, p. 283.
Review of Mrs. Horace St. John's Life of Audubon (see

No. 71).

BIBLIOGRAPHY 439

152. (Anon.):

"The Life and Adventures of John James Audu-
bon," Athenceum, London, vol. for 1868, pp. 833-834.
Review of Buchanan's Life (see No. 72).

153. (Anon.) Burroughs, John:

"The Life of Audubon edited by Mrs. J. J.

Audubon" [see No. 73], The Nation, vol. ix, pp. 13-14.
New York, 1869.
Reprinted in Buchanan's Life of Audubon, "Everyman's
Library" (see No. 72).

154. (Anon.) :

"The Adventures of Audubon," .... Edinburgh
Review, vol. cxxxii, pp. 250-275. Edinburgh, 1870.
Review of Buchanan's Life.

155. Shufeldt, R. W. :

"Shedding Horns of Antelope," Shooting and Fish-
ing, New York, March, 1896.
For critical articles by the same author, see also the fol-
lowing: "On the Terrestrial Attitudes of Loons and Grebes,"
The Ibis, London, January, 1898; "Audubon's Figure of the
Mountain Partridge," Field and Stream, New York, September
1899; "Scaup Duck," Shooting and Fishing, New York, No-
vember 26, 1903; and "The Nest of the Orchard Oriole," The
Wilson Bulletin, Oberlin, June, 1903.

156. (Anon.):

"A Great Naturalist," Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine, vol. clxiv, pp. 58-69. Edinburgh, 1898.
Review of Audubon and his Journals.

157. (Anon.) Merriam, C. Hart:

"Audubon," The Nation, vol. LXVI, pp. 151-152.
New York, 1898.

440 APPENDICES

See also Science, N. S., vol. VII, pp. 289-296, with
plate. New York, 1898.
Reviews of Audubon and his Journals.

158. M[iall],L. e.:

"Audubon," Nature, vol. lvii, pp. 286-287. London,

1896-1898.
A dour review, in which the writer remarks that Audubon's
Birds of America "has great artistic merit but less scientific
value than a good series of photographs from life."

159. Hutt, W. N.:

"Audubon the Original Nature Fakir," Scientific
American, vol. xcviii, p. 59. New York, 1908.
A feeble echo of the slanderous charges brought against
Audubon by Thomas P. Jones in 1828 (see No. 93).

160. Colles, George W. :

"A Defense of Audubon," Scientific American, vol.
xcviii, p. 311. New York, 1908.
An excellent rejoinder to the egregious article quoted above.

161. Burns, Frank L. :

"Alexander Wilson," Pts. I-VIII, The Wilson Bul-
letin, vols, xx-xxii. Oberlin, 1908-1910.
See particularly, I. "The Audubon Controversy," vol. xx,
pp. 3-18, and II. "The Mystery of the Small-headed Fly-
catcher," vol. xx, pp. 63-79.

j. Auduboniana and Miscellanea

162. (Anon.):

"Wilson the Ornithologist," The Literary Gazette,
and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts and Sciences, Lon-
don, Saturday, September 3, 1831, p. 574.
A grotesque notice, based on a rumor, said to have origi-
nated in a Philadelphia newspaper, of the death of Audubon

BIBLIOGRAPHY 441

in America, but confounding his identity with that of Alexan-
der Wilson, whose death had actually occurred at Philadelphia
eighteen years before. In the issue of October 15, the editor
acknowledged his error in resurrecting and then killing Wilson,
but explained that the obituary was intended for Audubon.

163. Brown, Capt. Thomas:

"Mr. Audubon," Caledonian Mercury, Edinburgh,
Thursday, November 3, 1831.
Quotes a letter written by Audubon, to Joseph B. Kidd and
dated "New York, Sept. 7, 1831," four days after his death had
been announced in England. In its issue of September 8, this
paper had already corrected the London editor's error respect-
ing Wilson.

164. (Anon.) Featherstonhattgh, G. W. :

"Audubon's Expedition to California and the Rocky
Mountains," Monthly American Journal of Geology and
Natural Science, vol. i, p. 229. (November.) Phila-
delphia, 1831.

165. (Anon.) :

"Mr. Audubon," New York Mirror, vol. 10, p. 325.
New York, April 20, 1833.

166. (Anon.):

"Audubon and his Labrador Expedition." Edi-
torial in the National Gazette and Literary Register,
Philadelphia, vol. xiii, No. 3808, September 10, 1833.
"We wish him a degree of success and prolongation of vigor
equal to his great merits ; indeed, for the past at least, success
is fully assured."

167. (Anon.):

"Mr. Audubon," National Gazette and Literary
Register, Philadelphia (extracted from the Boston
Patriot), vol. xiii, No. 3919, September 10, 1833.

442 APPENDICES

Welcomes Audubon on his return to Boston, and gives de-
tailed account of his successful Labrador expedition.

168. MacGillivray, William :

A History of British Birds, indigenous and mi-
gratory, 5 vols., 8vo. Illust. London, 1837-1852.
See Practical Ornithology, 6th. Lesson: "Ornithologus
[Audubon], and Physiophilus [MacGillivray]," pp. 462-474
(1839).

169. Swainson, William :

Taxidermy, Bibliography, and Biography. The
Cabinet Cyclopaedia, conducted by the Rev. Dionysius
Lardner. 12mo. London, 1840. For "J. J. Audubon,
Animal Painter," see pp. 116-117.

170. Freiligrath, F. :

"Epistel an Audubon nebst einer Antwort aus Amer-
ika." Pp. 1-16, 18mo. Philadelphia, 1844.
This rare little pamphlet bears on its cover a woodcut of
an Indian brandishing a gun and knife : the poem begins :

"Mann der Walder, der Savannen!
Neben rother Indier Speer,
An des Mississippi Tannen
Lehntest du dein Jagdgewehr !"

and the response:

"Audubon, den Vogelfanger
Sangst du an, mit Herzeleid ;
Freiligrath, o grosser Sanger !
Deine Lieder fliegen weit."

See also J. Bayard Taylor, "Audubon. From the German
of Ferdinand Freiligrath," Graham's American Monthly Maga-
zine, vol. xxvi, p. 264. This poem consists of twenty stanzas,
the first four and best of which are :

BIBLIOGRAPHY 443

Man of forests and savannas!
On the Mississippi's tide,
Leanest thou thy hunting-rifle
Oft the Indian spear beside ;

With the forest's tawny chieftains
Thou the friendly pipe dost light —
Seest the wandering pigeon's journey
And the eagle's silent flight.

With thy shot thou lam'st his pinion ;
And the trackless region through,
On the mighty river's mirror
Pliest thou thy swift canoe.

O'er the green and grassy prairie
Boldly flies thy fiery steed;
Deer and forest-fruits the manna
God has given thee in thy need !

Ferdinand Freiligrath (1810-1876), well known German
lyric poet and apostle of democracy, was more than once
forced to flee his native land on account of his political senti-
ments; he went to England seven years after Audubon had
finally settled in America, and that country became his refuge
for over twenty years ; his translations from the English in-
cluded Longfellow's poem of "Hiawatha."

171. (Anon.) :

"Mort de Jean Jacques Audubon, celebre natu-
raliste americain," illust., L' Illustration, Paris, vol.
xvii, No. 416, February 28, 1851, p. 128.

172. (Anon.):

"John James Audubon," Harper's New Monthly
Magazine, vol. ii, pp. 561-563 (March). New York,
1851.

444 APPENDICES

173. Webber, Chaeles Wilkins :

Romance of Natural History; or Wild Scenes and
Wild Hunters. 8vo. ; pp. 1-8, 17-610. Philadelphia,

1852.
An abridgment of the author's Wild Scenes and Wild
Hunters, 1851, and also issued under the title The hunter
naturalist; also published as The Romance of forest and
prairie life; narrative of perilous adventures # wild hunting
scenes (H. Vizetelly. London, 1853). Gives an anecdote of
meeting Audubon on a canal boat in Pennsylvania, when he was
returning from the Upper Missouri in 1843 (see No. 149) and
is quoted here for no other reason.

174. Audubon, John Woodhouse:

Illustrated notes of an expedition through Mexico
and California. Pp. 1-48, 4 plates, plain or colored.
J. W. Audubon. New York, 1852. Reprinted as Ex-
tra Number 41 of The Magazine of History, with Notes
and Queries. Pp. 1-83, 4 colored plates (including
frontispiece). W. Abbatt. Tarrytown, 1915.
It was planned to issue this work monthly in ten numbers,
if it should receive sufficient public support. The drawings are
exquisitely reproduced, and as works of art are deserving of
the highest praise. See No. 219.

175. A[nna]. A[tkins].:

Memoir of J. G. Children, Esq., including some un-
published poetry of his father and himself. Printed for
private distribution. Pp. 1-314. Westminster, 1853.
Refers to Audubon's relations with Children, and to his
naming of "Sylvia childreni," which later proved to be an error.

176. Nolte, Vincent :

Fifty Years in both Hemispheres: or Reminiscences
of a Merchant's Life. London, 1854.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 445

English edition of a work originally published at Hamburg
in the same year. See particularly his version of the meeting
with Audubon in 1810, and of their descent of the Ohio in
Nolte's flatboat to Louisville in the winter of that year.

177. Wallace, W. Ross :

"Audubon's Hymn in the American Forests," Har-
per's New Monthly Magazine, vol. xix, p. 619 (Octo-
ber). New York, 1859.

178. Stoddard, Charles A[ugustus] :

"A Noble Woman's Life : A Memorial Sermon to the
late Madame Audubon." Printed by request. Pp. 1-24,
18mo. Anson D. F. Randolph & Co., 770 Broadway,
cor. 9th St., New York, 1874.

179. F.

"Audubon's Birds of America," Magazine of Amer-
ican History, vol. 1, pp. 252-253. New York and Chi-
cago, 1877.
Reproduction of a note by J. Prescott Hall concerning
Audubon's subscribers.

180. Lockwood, Samuel:

"Audubon's Lily Rediscovered," Popular Science
Monthly, vol. x (April), pp. 675-678. New York, 1877.
Records the rediscovery of Audubon's long lost and dis-
credited yellow water lily, Nymphaa flava, by Mrs. Mary
Treat, in Florida, in the summer of 1876. Originally figured
by Audubon, with the Common American swan, on Plate ccccxi,
of The Birds of America, in 1838.

181. Coues, Elliott:

Birds of the Colorado Valley, Bibliographical Ap-
pendix : "List of Faunal Publications relating to North
American Ornithology," pp. 567-746. 8vo. Washing-
ton, 1878.

446 APPENDICES

Gives full citations of the various editions of Audubon's
works. "It takes an inspired idiot to be a good bibliographer"
(Coues).

182. Wade, Joseph M. :

"Letter to J. M. Wade on Audubon's Mill," Or-
nithologist and Oblogist, vol. 8, p. 79. Boston, 1883.

183. Jordan, David Starr :

"Rafinesque," Popular Science Monthly, vol. xxix,
pp. 212-221 (June). New York, 1886. Reproduced in
Pioneers of Science in America, edited by William Jay
Youmans (New York, 1896).

184. Shufeldt, R. W. :

"On an old Portrait of Audubon, painted by himself,
and a word about some of his early Drawings," The
Auk, vol. iii, pp. 418-430, with portrait. New York,
1886.

185. Saunders, Frederick:

The Story of Some Famous Books. For Audubon,
see pp. 141-144. London, 1887.

186. Starling, Edmund L. :

History of Henderson County, Kentucky. 8vo., pp.
1-832. Henderson, 1887.
Gives an account of Audubon's mill and of his other busi-
ness ventures at Henderson, but when departing from local rec-
ords is inaccurate and unreliable.

187. Martin, D. S. :

"Audubon's Grave," Science, vol. x, pp. 68-69
(Aug. 5). New York, 1887.
Refers to the project set on foot to raise funds for erect-
ing a monument to the naturalist.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 447

188. Shufeldt, R. W.:

"Audubon's Grave," Science, vol. x, p. 108 (Aug.
28). New York, 1887.
Proposes that the remains of Audubon should eventually
rest in the crypt of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New
York City.

189. (Anon.):

[Audubon's Grave], Science, vol. x, p. 205 (Oct.
28). New York, 1887.

Announces the appointment of a committee by the
New York Academy of Sciences to secure funds for the
erection of the proposed monument.
See also the same, vol. x, p. 278 (Dec. 9).

190. Shufeldt, R. W. :

"Audubonian Sketches," The Audubonian Magazine,
published in the interests of the Audubon Society for
the protection of birds, vol. i (January), pp. 267-271,
illust., and vol. ii (February), pp. 3-6, illust. New York,
1888.

See files of the same magazine, vol. i, pp. i-xi, 1-288,
February, 1887-January, 1888, and vol. ii, pp. i-vi,
1-264, February, 1888- January, 1889, New York, for
various comments on Audubon's life and services.

191. Bachman, C. L. :

John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. 8vo, pp. i-xii,
1-436, with portrait. Charleston, 1888.
Reproduces numerous letters which passed between the
Bachman and Audubon families.

192. Loomis, Leverett M. :

"A Forgotten Volume," The Auk, vol. viii, p. 230.
New York, 1891.

US APPENDICES

193. (Anon.):

"Report of the Audubon Monument Committee of
The New York Academy of Sciences," Transactions of
the Academy, vol. xiii, pp. 23-69. New York, 1893.

194. Shufeldt, R. W. :

"Audubon the Naturalist," illust., The Great Di-
vide, San Francisco, September, 1893.

"More about Audubon the Naturalist," ibid., Febru-
ary, 1894.

195. Duke, Basil W. :

"Audubon," Southern Magazine, vol. iii, August,
1893, pp. 3-19, portrait and illust. Louisville, 1893-
1894.

196. Shufeldt, R. W., and Audubon, M. R. :

"The Last Portrait of Audubon, together with a let-
ter to his son," The Auk, vol. xi, pp. 309-313, portrait.
New York, 1894.
The original of D' Avignon's engraving, published in 1850 ;
see No. 62.

197. Healy, George P. A.:

Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter. Chicago,
1894.
Gives an account of his successful manoeuvres to obtain sit-
tings for his portrait of Audubon in 1838.

198. Call, Richard Ellsworth:

The Life and Writings of Rafinesque. Filson Club
Publications, No. 10. 4to. Pp. i-xii, 1-227. Louis-
ville, 1895.
Takes Audubon severely to task for his treatment of
Rafinesque at Henderson in the summer of 1818; see pp. 24-
29.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 449

199. "Renignolds" (E. R. Shattuck) :

"Audubon's Plates sold for Junk," Forest and
Stream, New York, September 12, 1896.

200. Bakewell, W. G. :

Bakewell-P age-Campbell. Being an account of the

descendants of John Bakewell, of Castle Donnington,

Leicestershire, England, born in 1638, &c, &c. Wm. H.

Johnston & Company. Pittsburgh, 1896.

Gives genealogy of the Bakewells, and of the families of

J. J., J. W. and V. G. Audubon.

201. Coues, Elliott:

"Letter by Audubon to Charles Bonaparte, dated
New York, May 1, 1833," The Osprey, vol. ii. Wash-
ington, 1897.

202. Rozier, Firman A. :

Rozier's History of the early Settlement of the Mis-
sissippi Valley. 8vo., pp. 1-338. St. Louis, 1898.
See Part X for some account of the business relations of
Audubon with the author's father, Ferdinand Rozier.

203. Coues, Elliott:

"William Swainson to John James Audubon, The
Auk, vol. xv, pp. 11-13. Cambridge, 1898.
Letter dated "Tettenhanger Green, 2d October 1830" ; re-
printed in The Osprey, vols, iv and v (Washington, 1900).

204. Gunther, Albert:

"The unpublished correspondence of William Swain-
son with contemporary naturalists (1806-1840)," Pro-
ceedings of .the Linncean Society, 112th session, pp.
14-24. London, 1900.
Lists twenty-four letters of Audubon to Swainson, dating
from 1 May, 1828, to 11 Jany., 1838, with brief reference to

450 APPENDICES

their contents. For abstract of this paper see Theodore Gill,
"Swainson's Correspondence." The Osprey, vol. v, pp. 29-30
(Washington, 1900).

205. Gill, Theodore:

"Correspondence of and about Audubon with Swain-
son," The Osprey, vol. v, pp. 23-25. Washington,
1900.

206. Gill, Theodore :

"William Swainson and his Times," The Osprey,
vols, iv and v. Washington, 1900.

207. (Anon.):

"Recent Sales of Audubon's Works," The Osprey,
vol. v, pp. 31 and 63. Washington, 1900.
Copy of The Birds of America sold by Bangs, February 6,
1896, for $1,250, and another by Sotheran, London, 1892, for
£345 (about $1,725), the first with the Ornithological Biogra-
phy included.

207a. Bohemian (C. S. Boutcher) :

"Early Days in the Lehigh Valley," Black Diamond
Express, vol. iv, pp. 3-15. New York, 1900.
Describes Audubon's visit to Mauch Chunk in 1829. and
gives also a detailed account of the copy of The Birds of
America formerly the property of David Eckley, of Boston,
and then in possession of Robert H. Sayre, of South Bethle-
hem, Pennsylvania (for which see Chapter XXVI, p. 7).

208. (Anon.) :

"Audubon in the [American] Museum [of Natural
History]," with explanatory notes by Maria R. Audu-
bon, The American Museum Journal, vol. 1, pp. 82-84,
with portrait. New York, 1900-1901.
Describes portrait of Audubon painted by his sons towards
the close of his life, and given to the Museum by Mr. Fordham

BIBLIOGRAPHY 451

Morris, of New York, an oil painting of wild turkeys, the origi-
nal of which was made by Audubon in 1826 for the Royal In-
stitution of Liverpool, and several other paintings and plates.
In vol. ii, page 42, of the same journal is reproduced an un-
published painting of the Red-eyed Vireo by Audubon.

209. Deane, Ruthven:

"Unpublished Letters of William MacGillivray to
John James Audubon," The Auk, vol. xviii, pp. 239-
249. Cambridge, 1901.

210. Coues, Elliott:

"Auduboniana and Other Matters of Present In-
terest," Bird Lore, vol. iii, p. 9. New York, 1901.

210a. Clark, Edward B. :

"Relics of Audubon," Chicago Evening Post, Febru-
ary 7, 1901.
An account of Auduboniana and other literary rarities in
possession of Mr. Ruthven Deane.

211. MacGillivray, William :

A Memorial Tribute to William MacGillivray, M.A.,
LL.D. Ornithologist; Professor of Natural History,
Marischal College and University, Aberdeen. 4to, pp.
i-xvi, 1-204, with illust. Edinburgh, 1901.
Contains sketch of MacGillivray's life and work, with an
account of the monument placed over his grave, and of a beau-
tiful memorial tablet inscribed to his memory at Marischal Col-
lege, with an unpublished "Journal" by MacGillivray, and ex-
tracts from his other writings.

212. Butterworth, Hezekiah :

In the Days of Audubon; A Tale of the "Protector
of Birds." Illustrated. Pp. x-xii, 1-236. New York,
1901.

452 APPENDICES

213. Job, Herbert K. :

"Following Audubon among the Florida Keys,"
Outing, vol. xliii, pp. 71-79, illust. New York, 1903.

214. Howe, Reginald Heber :

"Audubon's 'Ornithological Biography,' " The Auk,
vol. xxi, p. 286. Cambridge, 1904.

Note on volume i of the American edition, bearing the
imprint: "Philadelphia: Judah Dobson, Agent, 108 Chestnut
Street; and H. H. Porter, Literary Rooms, 121 Chestnut
Street. MDCCCXXXI." See also Ruthven Deane, The Auk,
vol. xxiv, 1907, p. Ill, and Nathaniel E. Janney, the same,
p. 349.

This writer at one time proposed to bring out a revised
edition of the Ornithological Biography, but the project was
abandoned from lack of support.

215. (Anon.) :

"[John James Audubon] ; Notice of the Commemo-
ration of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary
of his birth," The Auk, vol. xxii, p. 334 (July). Cam-
bridge, 1905.

See Chapter I, Note 6.

216. Deane, Ruthven :

"John James Abert to John James Audubon"
(hitherto unpublished letters), The Auk, vol. xxii, pp.
172-175. Cambridge, 1905.

217. Deane, Ruthven:

"William Swainson to John James Audubon" (a
hitherto unpublished letter), The Auk, vol. xxii, pp. 31-
34. Cambridge, 1905.

218. Deane, Ruthven :

"William Swainson to John James Audubon," The
Auk, vol. xxii, pp. 248-258. Cambridge, 1905.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 453

219. Audubon, John W. :

Audubon s Western Journal: 18J+9-1850. Being the
MS. record of a trip from New York to Texas, and an
overland journey through Mexico and Arizona to the
gold-fields of California. With a biographical memoir
by Maria R. Audubon, and edited by Frank Heywood
Hodder. Map, portrait, and original drawings. Pp. 1-
250, 8vo. Cleveland, 1906.
For the original edition of Part 1 of J. W. Audubon's
Journal, see No. 174 of this Bibliography.

220. Claiborne, F. :

Simple Love and Occasional Pieces in Verse,
with A Notice of Audubon. Pp. 1-60. New Orleans,
1906.

221. Stone, Wither:

"A Bibliography and Nomenclator of John James
Audubon," The Auk, vol. xxiii, pp. 298-312. Cam-
bridge, 1906.
Most complete and accurate analysis of Audubon's ornitho-
logical works yet given.

222. (Anon.):

"Abstract of Audubon's Account Books, kept at
Philadelphia, while the Octavo edition of the Birds was
being issued," Evening Post, New York, Saturday Sup-
plement for December 29, 1906.

223. (Anon.):

"Original Account Book of J. J. Audubon," The

Nation, vol. lxxxiv, p. 12 (June 3). New York, 1907.

See the preceding; gives interesting data regarding the

issue of the first octavo edition of The Birds of America in

parts, at Philadelphia. 1840-1844.

454 APPENDICES

224. Deane, Ruthven :

"Unpublished Letters of Introduction carried by
John James Audubon on his Missouri River Expedi-
tion," The Auk, vol. xxv, pp. 170-173. Cambridge,
1908.

225. Deane, Ruthven:

"The Copper-Plates of the Folio Edition of Audu-
bon's 'Birds of America,' with a brief Sketch of the En-
gravers," The Auk, vol. xxv, pp. 401-413. Cambridge,
1908.

226. Merriam, C. Hart:

"The King Cameos of Audubon," The Auk, vol. xxv,
pp. 448-450, with plate. Cambridge, 1908.

226a. Merritt, Dixon L. :

"Audubon, the Ornithologist, in Kentucky," The
Taylor-Trotwood Magazine, vol. 10, pp. 293-298.
Nashville, 1909.

226b. Derby, Earl of :

In letter, to Audubon, dated January 17, 1835. Re-
production of "The Eagle and the Lamb." Forest and
Stream, June 26, 1909, pp. 1011-1012. New York,
1909.

S27. Shufeldt, R. W., M.D. :

"An hitherto unpublished painting by Audubon,"
The Wilson Bulletin, N. S., vol. xii, pp. 3-5, illust.
Oberlin, 1910.
Oil painting of cock and hens, but original in poor state
of preservation.

228. Fitzpatrick, T. J. :

Rafinesque. A Sketch of his Life with Bibliogra-
phy. 8vo., pp. 1-242, with portrait and reproductions
of rare titles. Historical Department of Iowa, Des
Moines, 1911.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 455

Cites 939 separate publications by Rafinesque, numerous
manuscripts and 134 Rafinesquiana.

229. Arthur, Stanley Clisby:

"John James Audubon, and the Birds of Louisiana,"
Times-Picayune, New Orleans, May 2, 1915.
Gives an account, with illustrations, of "Fontainebleau,"
and of the house at Mandeville which is regarded as "the prob-
able birthplace" of Audubon.

230. Arthur, Stanley Clisby:

"Audubon in West Feliciana," Times-Picayune,

New Orleans, August 6, 1916.

Follows Audubon's footsteps in Louisiana, and gives an

interesting account, with illustrations, of the plantation houses

at which Mr. and Mrs. Audubon lived at various intervals from

1821 to 1829.

231. Rhoads, Samuel N. :

"More Light on Audubon's Folio 'Birds of
America,' " The Auk, vol. xxxiii, pp. 130-132. Cam-
bridge, 1916.

232. Williams, George Alfred:

"Robert Havell, Junior, Engraver of Audubon's

'The Birds of America,' " Print-Collector s Quarterly,

vol. 6, No. 3 (October), pp. 225-257, illust. Boston,

1916.

Presents a genealogy of the Havell family, and gives an

excellent analysis of the work of the eminent engraver.

233. (Anon.):

"More Buried Treasure in a Noted Basement," New
York Tribune, Sunday, March 11, 1917.
An appeal for a better treatment of the originals of Audu-
bon's Birds of America. "The original charter of the New
York Historical Society signifies that the organization was

456 APPENDICES

formed to preserve the history of the United States, and espe-
cially the history of the City of New York. If Audubon's
wonderful drawings of the birds of America are not United
States history and New York City history rolled into one, then
what, in the name of Herodotus, Father of History, is?"

234. Townsend, Charles W. :

"In Audubon's Labrador," The Auk, vol. xxxiv, pp.
133-146, illust. Cambridge, 1917.

235. Neal, John:

"Audubon, the Ornithologist," New England
Galaxy, Boston, January 3, 1935 ; continued February
7, 1935, and with "The Birds of America," April 18,
1935.

236. Audubon, John James:

"Myself," written about 1835. For further refer-
ence, see No. 40.

237. Audubon, John James:

"Audubon," The New World, New York, vol. vii,
July 15, 1842.
Letter to Dr. Gideon B. Smith, dated "Missouri River, May
24, 1843."

238. Speed, John Gilmer:

The Poems of John Keats with Annotations of Lord

Houghton and a Memoir by Speed. New York, 1883.

Reproduces letters of John Keats to his brother, George,

with charges against Audubon. Letters from George Keats, to

which these were in reply, are not given.

239. Haycraft, Samuel:

"Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and its Surroundings,"
Elizabethtown News, 1869. Republished 1889-90.
States that Audubon and Rozier were merchants in Eliza-
bethtown at an early date. Probably an error, but quoted by

BIBLIOGRAPHY 457

Albert J. Beveridge in Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858, vol. i, p.
18.

240. Walsh, James J. :

"Audubon the Naturalist," Records of the American
Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, vol. xv, pp.
8-21. Philadelphia, 1904.
States that Audubon "was born on the Island of San Do-
mingo not long before the negro insurrection on that island."
I owe this reference to a letter of the late William Beer in 1925.

241. Trudeau, Edward Livingston, M. D. :

An Autobiography, New York, 1916.
The father, Dr. James Trudeau of New Orleans, is said to
have helped Audubon with the anatomy of his birds and in mak-
ing drawings of them and their eggs. The son possessed a
painting of his father in Indian costume, said to have been done
by Audubon in the early eighteen-forties.

242. Sage, John H. :

"Description of Audubon," The Auk, vol. xxxiv, pp.
239-240. Cambridge, 1917.
A picture of Audubon in St. Louis in 1843. Originally pub-
lished in The Buffalo Courier, August 22, 1843, and in The Sen-
tinel and Witness, Middletown, Connecticut, September 5, 1843.

243. Herrick, Francis Hobart:

Audubon the Naturalist : A History of his Life and
Time. In two volumes, pp. i-xl, 1-452, i-xiv, 1-494.
New York, 1917.

244. Bolton, Reginald Pelham:

"Old Names and Places on the Heights. Audubon's
Minniesland," The Home News, New York, November 7,
1917.

458 APPENDICES

245. Herrick, Francis H. :

"Audubon's Bibliography," The Auk, vol. xxxvi, pp.
372-380. Philadelphia, 1919.
"The present list is more nearly correct than any that has
preceded it, but it would be remarkable if further emendation
were not needed."

246. Geiser, Samuel Wood :

"Audubon in Texas," Southwest Review, vol. 16, pp.
108-135. Dallas, 1931. One of eight articles by the
author which appeared in the Southwest Review, vols.
14-16, 1928-1931, under the title "Naturalists of the
Frontier." See volume with same title, Dallas, 1937.

247. Lewis, Harrison F. :

"Some Canadian Auduboniana," The Canadian
Naturalist, vol. xlvii, pp. 162-172. Ottawa, 1933.
Reproduces four letters by Audubon to Thomas McCulloch,
Jr., 1836-1841.

248. Knappen, Phoebe:

"Some Additional Audubon Copper-Plates," The
Auk, vol. li, pp. 343-349. Philadelphia, 1934.
Lists 85 of the original 435 copper-plates of The Birds of
America, now, or once, known to exist.

249. Audubon, John James:

Journal Made While Obtaining Subscriptions to His
"Birds of America," 1840-1843. Edited by Howard
Corning; foreword by Francis H. Herrick. Pp. i-viii,
1-182. The Club of Odd Volumes, Boston, 1929.

250. Audubon, John James:

Journal Made During His Trip to New Orleans in
1820-21. Edited by Howard Corning; foreword by
Ruthven Deane. Pp. i-x, 1-236. The Club of Odd Vol-
umes, Boston, 1929.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 459

251. Muschamp, Edward A. :

Audacious Audubon-' The Story of a Great Pioneer,
Artist, Naturalist and Man. Pp. 1-312. New York,
1929.

252. Dounce, Henry Esty:

"Gilding Audubon," The Saturday Review of Lit-
erature, May 10, 1930. New York.

253. Audubon, John James:

Letters, 1826-1840. Edited by Howard Corning.
In two volumes, pp. i-viii, 1-280; 1-280. The Club of
Odd Volumes, Boston, 1930.

254. (Anon.):

"Preservation of the Audubon House, at 155th

Street and Riverside Drive ; Report of Committee on its

Removal and Restoration." New York, November 2,

1931.

Fifteen thousand dollars were required for the removal of

the house to a new site, and ten thousand dollars for a new

foundation and restoration. Failure to obtain the required

amounts before November 30 led to the abandonment of the

project.

255. Richards, Irving T. :

"Audubon, Joseph R. Mason and John Neal,"
American Literature, vol. vi, pp. 122-140. Durham,
N. C, 1934.

256. (Anon.):

"A Memorial to Audubon," New York Times, Oc-
tober 27, 1935.
Plan for the Audubon Memorial Park, including the Audu-
bon Museum, in which will be housed the collection of Audu-
bon relics assembled by the Henderson (Kentucky) Historical
Society. To be dedicated in 1938.

460 APPENDICES

257. Bakewell, Thomas:

"Audubon and Bakewell, Partners ; Sketch of the
Life of Thomas Woodhouse Bakewell, written by Him-
self," The Cardinal, vol. iv, Sewickley, Pa., 1935.
"My individual loss by Mr. Audubon, exclusive of the debt
due to my father, is about $14,000, so that you can see I have
had a full share of bad luck in worldly matters." (In letter to
his stepmother, Mrs. Rebecca Smith Bakewell, from Louisville,
April 8, 1821.)

258. Herrick, Francis H. :

"Audubon's Sesquicentennial." Address at the
Edgeworth Club, Sewickley. The Cardinal, vol. 4, pp.
31-33. Sewickley, Pa., 1935.

259. Peattie, Donald Culross:

Singing in the Wilderness : A Salute to John James
Audubon. Pp. i-xvi, 1-246. New York, 1935. An
imaginative story, well told.

260. Peattie, Donald Culross:

Green Laurels: the Lives and Achievements of the
Great Naturalists, pp. i-xxiv, 1-370. New York, 1936.

261. Rourke, Constance:

Audubon. Pp. 1-342. New York, 1936.
For criticism of this and the following, see the "Foreword
and Postscript" to this volume.

262. Tyler, Alice Jaynes:

/ Who Should Command All. Pp. 1-64. New
Haven, 1937.

263. (Anon.):

"The Clumber Library Sale," London Times Liter-
ary Supplement, June 26, 1937.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 461

Records the sale of a copy of Audubon's Birds of America,
from the library of the Duke of Newcastle, at two thousand
four hundred pounds, sterling. See Vol. II, p. 204.

264. Arthur, Stanley Clisby:

Audubon: An Intimate Life of the American Woods-
man. Pp. 1-518. New Orleans, 1937.

265. Rourke, Constance:

"The Mystery of Audubon," New York Herald
Tribune Books, July 25, 1937.
A review of / Who Should Command All, by Alice Jaynes
Tyler.

266. Audubon, John James:

The Birds of America, with 435 reproductions of the
double elephant folio plates, and 65 of later origin, all in color ;
with text by William Vogt. 4to. Pp. i-xxv with 250 sheets of
plates. New York, 1937.

267. Herrick, Francis Hobart:

"Audubon and the Dauphin," The Auk, vol. liv, pp.
476-499. Cambridge, 1937.

INDEX

Abert, John James, on Audubon's
plans, ii, 3; his career and the rat-
tlesnake episode, ii, 3, 77; "Abert's
squirrel," ii, 4, 64, 155.

Abolitionists (Les Amis des Noirs),
activity in France, i, 43; their op-
position to white planters and fo-
menting of rebellion in Santo Do-
mingo, i, 49.

Academy of Natural Sciences (Phil-
adelphia), introduction of Audu-
bon to, i, 328; foundation and
work of, i, 333; notice of meeting
of, i, 333; Waterton on rejection
of Audubon by, ii, 87.

Accipiter cooperi, i, 330.

Adams, Rev. Charles Coffin, history
of his manuscript on the Life of
Audubon; his career and writings,
i, 18; ii, 300.

Adams, John Quincy, i, 396.

Adelaide, Queen of England, patron-
age of, i, 391.

Allston, Washington, i, 336.

American Ornithologists' Union,
number of species of American
birds recognized by (in 1910), ii,
215; doubtful species in "Check-
List" of, ii, 215.

American Ornithology, story of the
author, production and publication
of, i, 202-219; original drawings
for, i, 213; the engraver and pub-
lisher of, i, 213, 217; the Prospec-
tus and character of, i, 217; the
issue and patronage of, i, 217;
death of the author of, i, 219; pub-
lication of the last volume of, i,
223; second American edition of, i„

223; diary of the author of, i, 224;
Audubon's charge against the au-
thor of, i, 226; counter charge of
Ord in defense of the author of,
i, 227.

American Philosophical Society, Au-
dubon to Sully on his rejection by,
i, 362; his later membership in, i,
363; Harlan on rejection of Abert
by, ii, 3-4; 27.

Anthus spraguei, Sprague's Titlark,
ii, 253.

Antonio de Sedella, Father, portrait
of, i, 319, 321; Governor Claiborne
on, i, 319.

"Ark." See Flatboats.

Arthur, Stanley Clisby, i, 314; on
the bird-life of the St. Francis-
ville region, i, 315; ii, 318; on
Audubon and West Feliciana, i,
322-323; 338.

"Articles of Association" of Audu-
bon and Ferdinand Rozier, de-
scription and reproduction of
original of, i, 146-148; ii, 344-349.

Ashburton, Lord, Baron (Alexan-
der) Baring, ii, 242.

"Astur (Falco) Stanleii," i, 354, 417.
See "Stanley Hawk."

Athenaeum (London), on Audubon,
ii, 84-85, 140, 199-200; advertise-
ment of The Birds of America, ii,
201.

Aubinais, M., i, 55.

Audibon (or Audubon?), Pierre, in
the American Revolution, i, 24.

Audubon, Anne, suit by, i, 28, 263.

Audubon, Catherine Francoise. See
Mme. Jean Louis Lissab6.

463

464

INDEX

Audubon, Claude, and his family, i,
27.

Audubon, Dominica, suit by, i, 28,
263.

Audubon, Jean, his command at
Yorktown and checkered career, i,
24; his parentage and father's
family, i, 26-28; birth and bap-
tism, i, 27; beginning of life at
sea and capture at Louisburg, i,
28; a prisoner in England, i, 28;
enters French Merchant marine
and begins his voyages to New
Foundland, i, 29; enlists in French
navy and appears at Nantes, i, 30;
reenters merchant marine and be-
gins voyages to Santo Domingo, i,
30; his ships and commands, i, 31;
his marriage, i, 32; fight in Le
Comte d'Artois and capture by
the English, i, 32; prisoner in New
York, and release, i, 32; joins the
American Revolution and com-
mands a ship at the siege of York-
town, i, 34; later commands in the
United States and fight with a
British privateer, i, 34; residence
in the West Indies, i, 36; travels
in the United States and purchase
of "Mill Grove," i, 36; joins the
National Guard at Les Cayes, i,
37; epitome of Santo Domingo ca-
reer, i, 37; engagement with Coi-
rond Brothers with interests at
Les Cayes and St. Louis, i, 38;
rapid rise to wealth as planter, su-
gar refiner, and slave dealer, i, 39;
light cast by his dealings in slaves,
i, 39; ii, 330-335; his West Indian
fortune and final settlement of es-
tate, i, 40-41, 268; treatment of
slaves and dependents, i, 41, 54;
Santo Domingo experience com-
pared with that of a contemporary
planter at Jaquemel, i, 44-48; birth
of his son at Les Cayes, i, 52; dis-
covery of bill of his physician, i,

53; see also i, 54, and ii, 314-327;
his son, Fougere, and daughter,
Muguet, taken to France, i, 57; his
reference to Audubon's mother, i,
59; designation of his children in
his wills, i, 63, ii, 360-362; dual
personality expressed by his son,
i, 63; joins National Guard at
Nantes, i, 74; possible refuge of
his family during Revolution in
France, i, 76; activities immediate-
ly before and during French Revo-
lution, i, 77-82; Revolutionary of-
fices, i, 78; report as Civil Com-
missioner, i, 78; mission to Por-
nic and Paimboeuf, i, 79; signa-
ture during Revolution, i, 79; mis-
sion to Les Sables d'Olonne, and
letters to the Administration, i,
80; his reimbursement for ser-
vices to the Republic, i, 81; oper-
ations as ensign commander, and
encounter with the Brilliant, i, 82;
his later commands and elevation
to rank of lieutenant de vaisseau,
i, 82; his financial losses in Santo
Domingo, i, 82; indemnity from
the French Government, i, 83; re-
spective rank and service in the
French merchant marine and navy,
i, 83; his certificate of service, i,
83; retirement and pension, i, 83,
85; settlement and occupations at
"La Gerbetiere," i, 85; Santo Do-
mingo interests described in power
of attorney, i, 85; residences at
Nantes, i, 86; see also i, 57, 58; his
death, i, 87; his son's tribute, i, 87,
88; financial vicissitudes, i, 88; see
also i, 85; habits, abilities and
physical characteristics, i, 88; let-
ter soliciting aid for his son, i,
100; interest in "Mill Grove" and
the Prevost mortgage, i, 105; lease
and inventory of the property, i,
105; portrait at age of forty-five
(?), i, 106; mining project with

INDEX

465

Dacosta, i, 113; sale to Dacosta of
a one-half interest in "Mill Grove,"
and its lead mine, i, 114; expecta-
tions for his son, i, 115; financial
aid from Claude Francois Rozier,
i, 115; correspondence with Dacos-
ta, i, 116-153; instructions regard-
ing his son's proposed marriage, i,
117; appeal in answer to Dacosta's
complaints concerning his son, i,
118; instructions for settlement of
claims against the Ross and Foi-
mon estates, i, 121-123; his uncan-
celed mortgage, i, 122; instruc-
tions concerning the farmhouse at
"Mill Grove," i, 122; as grantor of
powers of attorney, i, 131, 132-133,
153; see also i, 85-87; marriage of
his daughter, i, 131; arranges a
business partnership for his son, i,
132; his former country villa as it
appears to-day, i, 135-145; division
of the "Mill Grove" property and
sale of his remaining interests, i,
149-150, 152-153; letters of his son,
i, 159-161, 163; portrait at Coue'r-
on, i, 100; troubles with Dacosta
and contest over his final accounts,
i, 168; bequest of his property in
usufruct to his wife, and testa-
mentary designation of his chil-
dren, i, 262; contest of relatives
over wills, i, 263; unfounded state-
ments of biographers of his son, i,
264; his claims against the Ross-
Formon estates as a basis of fic-
tion, i, 265; final settlement of his
financial affairs, i, 268; his de-
scendants in France and last of
his name in America, i, 269, ii, 294.
Audubon, Mme. Jean (Anne Moy-
net), her marriage and property
at Paimboeuf, i, 32, 40, 57, 80;
adoption of children by, i, 59;
baptism of adopted son, i, 60-61 ;
characterization of her son in
wills, i, 62, 262-264; as grantor of

powers of attorney, i, 131, 132-
133, 153; legal troubles and im-
poverishment, i, 263; removal from
"La Gerbetiere," i, 263, 268; her
death at "Les Tourterelles," i,
263; disposition of her estate, i,
266, 269; break in relations of her
adopted son with his family in
France, i, 266-269; attack upon her
husband's estate and its final set-
tlement, i, 263, 268; her testa-
ments, ii, 363-368.
Audubon, Jean Jacques Fougere
(John James Audubon, see also
Fougere and Jean Rabin), his
masterpiece, i, 1 ; his greatest
working period, i, 2; experience in
Paris in 1828, i, 2; Cuvier's eulogy
and patronage of the French Gov-
ernment, i, 3; rarity and cost of his
publications, i, 4; personality and
talents, i, 5; attacks upon his char-
acter, i, 6; his historical back-
ground and hitherto unwritten his-
tory, i, 7; his Americanism, i, 8;
characteristics of his writings, i,
8-10; his Ornithological Biography,
i, 9; drawings of birds and mam-
mals, i, 10; influence on American
ornithology, i, 10; honesty of pur-
pose, i, 11; memories of him in
London, i, 11; public monuments
and other honors in America, i, 13;
Societies and Clubs dedicated to
his memory, i, 14; his bibliography,
i, 15; attempt at autobiography, i,
16; first formal Life of, i,. 17; true
history of Buchanan's Life, i, 18-
22; Mrs. Audubon's revision of
Buchanan's Life, i, 22; Miss Maria
R. Audubon's Life and Journals,
i, 22; accepted account of his birth
and early life in light of new dis-
coveries, i, 22; parentage and early
names ; a creole of Santo Domingo,
i, 52; his baptismal name, i, 53;
discovery of the bill rendered by

466

INDEX

the physician who assisted at his
birth, i, 53; feeble health and
death of his mother, i, 56; birth
of his sister, Creole of Santo
Domingo, i, 56; taken with his sis-
ter to France, i, 57; his foster
mother and home at Nantes and
Coueron, i, 57; his adoption and
text of act, i, 59; suppression of
his mother's name, i, 60; his bap-
tism and text of act, i, 60; as-
sumed name of "La Forest," i, 61 ;
his signatures, i, 61, 63; his names
appearing in wills, i, 62; his dual
personality in a power of attor-
ney, i, 64; first date given in his
autobiography, i, 65; record in his
Ohio River journal, i, 66; his later
autobiographic sketch, i, 66-68;
traditional date of birth, i, 68;
myth concerning birth in Louisi-
ana, i, 68-72; account given by the
Rev. Gordon Bakewell, i, 69; in-
fluence of environment on charac-
ter, i, 90; his limited schooling, i,
91-93; the spur his ambition need-
ed, i, 91; experience in the French
navy, i, 92; early passion for na-
ture and for drawing, i, 93; as
truant, i, 94; his father intervenes
and takes him to Rochefort, i, 94;
return to Coueron, i, 96; baptized
in the Catholic Church, i, 96; first
return to the United States, i, 98;
illness at Morristown, i, 99 ; be-
friended by his father's American
agent, i, 99; his father's letter and
intentions in sending him to Amer-
ica, i, 100; his settlement at "Mill
Grove" farm, and period of stay
there, i, 101-103; begins his studies
of American bird-life, i, 106;
makes first "banding" experiment
on young of a wild bird, i, 107;
visit to "Fatland Ford," and
choice of a wife, i, 110; his gayety
and extravagance, i, 110; abstemi-

ous habits in youth as regards food
and drink, i, 111; his account of
himself, i, 111; bis accomplish-
ments described by a future broth-
er-in-law, i, 111; opposition to his
marriage, i, 116; Dacosta's griev-
ances, i, 116-119; quarrels with
Dacosta and returns to France, i,
123-125; voyage on the Hope, i,
126; life at Coueron and friend-
ship with D'Orbigny, i, 127; re-
ceives with Ferdinand Rozier a
power of attorney from his par-
ents, i, 131; attends the marriage
of his sister and signs the record,
i, 131 ; his relations with his broth-
er-in-law, i, 132; his partnership
with Rozier and second letter of
attorney, i, 132; returns, with Ro-
zier, to the United States, i, 134;
voyage of the Polly, and receipt
of Captain Sammis, i, 134; expe-
rience with British privateers, i,
134; boyhood home at Coueron, i,
136-145; his description of "La
Gerbetiere," i, 136; his abortive at-
tempt, with Rozier, to administer
the "Mill Grove" mine and farm,
i, 146-148; their "Articles of
Association," i, 146-148; ii, 344-
349 ; sale of remaining rights in
"Mill Grove" to Dacosta and Com-
pany, i, 148-149; receives, with Ro-
zier, new power of attorney, i,
153; enters business office of Ben-
jamin Bakewell in New York, i,
153; his associates and correspond-
ence with the elder Rozier, i, 153-
166; letters to his father, i, 159-
161, 163-164; his use of English
and French, i, 155; ii, 372-374;
plans a retail business with Rozier,
i, 157-158, 160-162, 165; dispatch
of live birds, and other objects of
natural history to France, i, 158-
159, 160, 162, 165-166; conflicting
references to "Mill Grove" ex-

INDEX

467

plained, i, 158-160, 162, 165-168;
his drawings and preoccupation in
New York, i, 170-172; works for
Dr. Mitchell's collections in natural
history, i, 171; term of service in
the Bakewell office, i, 154-155, 171-
172; his account of himself, i, 172;
his early drawings, ideals and per-
severance, i, 173-174, 178-183;
study under David in Paris, i, 174-
175, 176-178; cause of certain de-
fects in his published work, i, 174;
date of his Paris experience, i, 174-
175, 177; encouragement from his
father, i, 174; David's supposed
influence on his style, i, 178; pat-
ronage of Edward Harris and his-
tory of the Harris-Jeanes collec-
tion of his early drawings, i, 179-
183; his drawing methods, i, 183-
185; his ambition, difficulties and
defects, i, 184; purchases goods in
New York, and with Rozier starts
west, i, 186; Rozier's diary of their
journey, i, 187-192; settles at
Louisville, i, 192; venture in indigo
and effect of the Embargo Act,
i, 193; his marriage to Lucy Green
Bakewell, and return to Louisville,
i, 194; a later journey on the Ohio
River, i, 195; occupations at Louis-
ville, i, 196, 197-198; business with
assignees of the Bakewell firm, i,
196; birth of his elder son, i, 198;
his drawings of birds and plants,
i, 198; his wife receives a portion
of her father's estate, i, 198; meet-
ing with Alexander Wilson, and
the troubles which ensued, i, 207;
stories of Audubon and of his
rival compared, i, 220-225; charges
and counter charges, i, 226; his
merits and demerits, i, 227-232;
his difficulties and pleasures as
western trader, i, 232-236; moves
with Rozier to Henderson, i, 236;
again they move to Ste. Genevieve,

i, 237-241 ; held up at Cash Creek,
i, 238-240; experience at the Great
Bend, i, 240; dissolution of his
partnership with Rozier and return
to Henderson, i, 241 ; after-rela-
tions with Rozier, i, 243; in
troubled times, i, 246; befriended
by Dr. Rankin, i, 248; birth of
their younger son, i, 248; enters
the commission business with a
brother-in-law, i, 249; his visit to
Ste. Genevieve, i, 249; reenters
trade at Henderson and buys land,
i, 250; town records of his pur-
chases, i, 250, 252; his store and
house of logs, i, 252; his popu-
larity, i, 252; Henderson gossip
and anecdotes, i, 253; his second
partnership with Thomas W. Bake-
well, i, 254; they lease land and
build a steam grist-, and lumber-
mill, i, 254; partnership of Thomas
W. Pears, i, 254; the Henderson
mill at a later day, i, 254; their
mechanical difficulties, i, 254; lease
of timber land and plunder of
workmen, i, 255; bill of lumber
rendered by J. J. Audubon & Co.,
ij 256; financial depression and
failure of the mill, i, 257; quarrel
over steamboat and encounter with
Bowen, i, 257-259; legal history of
the suit, i, 258; the opinion ex-
pressed to him by the judge, i,
259; goes to Louisville jail for
debt, i, 260; declares himself a
bankrupt and is released, i, 260;
his walk to Louisville, i, 260; later
account given to Bachman, i, 260;
reflections on passing his old mill
in 1820, i, 261; light on his enig-
ma, i, 262-272; his designations in
wills, i, 262-264; probable history
of a fictitious "bequest," i, 264-
266; his brother-in-law's letters, i,
266-269; attempt of relatives to
break his father's will in France,

468

INDEX

and impoverishment of his step-
mother, i, 263; his step-mother's
death, i, 963; the last of his family
in France, i, 269; his elder son's
visit to Coueron, i, 269; his refer-
ence to "Audubon of La Rochelle,"
i, 270; hts "Episodes" and methods
of composition, i, 273-284; discrep-
ancies and inaccuracies of some
of his narratives, i, 273-274, 279-
291 ; his account of meeting Nolte
and Nolte's account of meeting
him, i, 274-279; on horseback from
Henderson to Philadelphia, i, 275;
description of the famous earth-
quakes and the hurricane, i, 279-
291; criticism of his account of
Daniel Boone, i, 291 ; "Episode" of
"The Prairie," i, 274, 282-284; an-
swer to a criticism of, i, 284; his
sketch of "The Eccentric Natural-
ist" and comment, i, 285-300; prac-
tical jokes, and cost to Zoology, i,
291; the "Scarlet-headed Swallow"
and "Devil-Jack Diamond Fish,"
i, 291-293; his later relations with
Rafmesque, i, 294; his ^Eneid,
1819-1824. i, 301-326; debt to his
wife, i, 301 ; begins to work at
portraiture at Shippingport, i,
303; removal to Cincinnati, i, 303;
history of his engagement as taxi-
dermist at the Western Museum,
and friendship with Dr. Drake, i,
303-306; starts a drawing school
and plans a journey through the
West and South, i, 306; starts
with Captain Cummings and Jo-
seph R. Mason for New Orleans,
i, 307; his Ohio and Mississippi
Rivers journal, i, 307; experience
at Natchez; boots and portraits, i,
308; loss and recovery of a port-
folio, i, 309; stranded at New Or-
leans, i, 309 ; resorts to por-
traiture again, i, 311; his draw-
ings of birds, i, 311; interview

with Vanderlyn, i, 312; leaves New
Orleans with Mason, i, 313; meet-
ing with Mrs. Pirrie and engage-
ment at "Oakley," i, 312; enchant-
ments of the West Feliciana coun-
try and introduction to St. Fran-
cisville, i, 313-315; experience as
tutor to "my lovely Miss Pirrie of
Oakley," i, 315, 317-318; leaves
abruptly and returns with Mason
to New Orleans, i, 318; his indus-
try and fruits, i, 318; joined by his
family in New Orleans, i, 319; cri-
sis in financial affairs and losses
of drawings, i, 320; as teacher at
Natchez and Washington, i, 321;
parts with his pupil assistant, i,
321; his first lessons in the use of
oil colors, i, 321; engagements of
his wife at New Orleans, Natchez
and St. Francisville, i, 322; his
wife's "Beechwoods" school, i, 322;
resolution to pursue his ornitho-
logical studies, i, 323; misadven-
ture with Stein, i, 324; ill and
adrift, i, 324; decides to visit
Philadelphia to find a publisher
for his drawings, i, 325; settles,
with his elder son, at Shipping-
port, i, 325; experience in Philadel-
phia in 1824, i, 327-335 ; his exhibi-
tion at the Academy of Natural
Sciences, i, 328; meeting with
Bonaparte and Ord, i, 328; opposi-
tion encountered, i, 328-330; criti-
cisms of Ord and Lawson, i, 329;
his work for Bonaparte, i, 330;
appreciation of Fairman and Har-
ris, i, 331 ; assistance of Edward
Harris and beginning of their
friendship, i, 331, 333; early letter
to Harris, i, 332; Thomas Sully,
as friend and teacher, i, 334; visit
to "Mill Grove," i, 335; reception
in New York and assistance of
Samuel Latham Mitchell, i, 33C;
election to membership in the Ly-

INDEX

469

ceum of Natural History, i, 338;
acts as model for Vanderlyn's por-
trait of Andrew Jackson, i, 338;
to Thomas Sully, i, 339; visit
to Albany and Niagara Falls, i,
339; misadventure at Presque Isle,
i, 340; the Meadville "Episode," i,
341-343; residence at Pittsburgh, i,
343; journey to Lakes Ontario and
Champlain, where plans of his
publication are matured, i, 343;
stranded at Cincinnati, i, 344; re-
turns to St. Francisville, and resorts
to teaching, i, 346; sails with his
drawings from New Orleans, i,
347; journal of the voyage of the
Delos, i, 348-350; lands in Liver-
pool, i, 350; his credentials, i, 351;
introduction to Lafayette, i, 351 ;
customs duties, i, 350; Nolte's let-
ter to the Rathbones, i, 352; aid of
the "Queen Bee" of "Greenbank,"
i, 353; his "observatory nerves,"
i, 353; ornithological dedications,
i, 354; exhibition of his drawings
at the Royal Institution, i, 354;
appearance and habits, i, 354;
paintings as gifts, and the Turkey
Cock seal, i, 355; painting meth-
ods, i, 355; opens a subscription
book of The Birds of America at
Manchester, i, 356; plan of the
work, i, 356; his life of contrasts,
i, 357; journey to Edinburgh, i,
357; invitation to merge his work,
i, 357; meeting with Lizars, who
agrees to engrave his first num-
ber, i, 358; first proof of the Tur-
key Cock received, i, 358; publica-
tion of the first ten plates in Edin-
burgh, i, 358; success of his Edin-
burgh exhibition, i, 359; impres-
sions of Philarete-Chasles, i, 359;
Cap's hint taken, i, 360; cast of
his head made and his portrait
painted, i, 361; response at ban-
quet of the Royal Institution, i,

361 ; society's tax on his strength,
i, 361; contributions to journals, i,
362; blackballed by an American
Society, i, 362; proposed gift to
the Royal Institution, i, 363; visit
to "Dalmahoy," i, 363; friendship
of Basil Hall, i, 364; characteriza-
tion of Francis Jeffrey, i, 365; first
meeting with Scott, and his record
of the interview, i, 365; exhibits
his drawings at Sir Walter's home,
i, 366; Scott, on Audubon, i, 367;
papers on the Wild Pigeon and the
Rattlesnake, i, 368; his painting of
"Pheasants attacked by a fox," i,
369; Sidney Smith, i, 369; to his
wife, i, 369-373; first meeting with
Kidd, i, 373; issues his Prospectus,
i, 373; visit to Selby at "Twizel
House," 374; with Thomas Bewick
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, i, 375;
success in canvassing, i, 376; in
London, i, 377-410, 413-418; his
credentials for the metropolis, i,
376-380; abandonment of his work
by Lizars and discovery of Robert
Havell, Junior, i, 380-384; his
Birds of America fly to London, i,
384; painting his way to liberty, i,
388 ; canvassing experiences, i, 388 ;
efforts to secure the patronage of
the King, i, 390, 392; the Queen
becomes his patroness, i, 392; visit
to Glasgow, i, 393; difficulties with
his publishers, i, 393; timely aid
from Sir Thomas Lawrence, i, 393-
396; exhibition and sale of his paint-
ings, i, 394; resolutions on snuff,
i, 396; dislike of London, i, 397;
his work and Selby's compared, i,
397; revision of his drawings, i,
398; calls by appointment upon an
earl, i, 398; visits the great Uni-
versities, i, 399; solicitations oi
publishers and contributions to
magazines, i, 399; friendship with
Swainson, and original letters of

470

INDEX

their correspondence, i, 400-403;
Swainson's review of his work, i,
403; visit at Tyttenhanger, i, 404;
to Swainson, i, 405-407; request for
further contributions to magazines
refused, i, 407; visit to Paris with
the Swainsons and Parker, i, 408-
413; his picture of Cuvier at fifty-
nine, i, 411; patronage of the Duke
of Orleans, i, 411; exchange of
works with Redoute, i, 412; with
Cuvier at the Royal Academy, i,
412; Cuvier's report on his work,
i, 413; correspondence with Swain-
son, i, 413-415; Bonaparte to, i,
416-419; first journey from Eng-
land to America, i, 420-436;
to his wife, i, 420; exhibi-
tion of drawings in New York,
i, 421; painting at Camden and
Great Egg Harbor, i, 421; Swain-
son to, i, 422; sojourn in the
Great Pine Forest, i, 423, 425-426;
to Victor Audubon, i, 424; "Epi-
sodes" and record of work, i, 425;
visits his sons and joins his wife at
"Beechgrove" (St. Francisville) in
Louisiana, i, 427; to Harlan, i, 427-
430; Swainson to, i, 430; occupa-
tions at "Beechgrove," i, 432;
preparations to return, with Mrs.
Audubon, to England, i, 432; to
Havell, i, 433; proposition for a
successor to the position held by
his wife, i, 434; reception at Wash-
ington, and accessions of subscrib-
ers, i, 435; aid of Edward Everett,
i, 435; his letterpress and its ri-
vals, i, 437-451 ; membership in the
Royal Society, i, 437; settlement in
Edinburgh and publication of the
Ornithological Biography,'\A37; en-
gages William MacGillivray to as-
sist him, i, 438; rival publications,
i, 439, 442-445; issue of his first
volume of letterpress, i, 439; Sir
William Jardine to, i, 441 ; MacGil-

livray as his reviewer, i, 445; un-
dertakes a Natural History Gal-
lery of paintings with Kidd, i, 446;
notices and final abandonment of
the enterprise, i, 446; to London
and Paris, i, 447; Edward Everett
to, i, 448-451 ; financial difficulties
overcome, i, 451 ; explorations in
Florida and the South Atlantic,
ii, 1-25; returns to America with
his wife, and a taxidermist as as-
sistant, ii, 1; to Kidd, ii, 1; his
obituary in the London Literary
Gazette, ii, 2; Abert and Feather-
stonhaugh announce his plans, ii,
3; promise of governmental aid at
Washington, ii, 4; visits Charleston
and meets John Bachman, ii, 5;
sails from Charleston for Florida
with two assistants, ii, 5; Bachman
on, ii, 5; dedication to Bachman of
a copy of his Birds, ii, 7; his Birds
of America as gifts to others, ii, 7;
his journey described in Feather-
stonhaugh's Journal, ii, 8-14; ac-
count of meeting with Bachman,
ii, 9 ; hospitality of the Charleston-
ians, ii, 10; impressions of St.
Augustine, ii, 12; methods of work,
ii, 12; Harlan to his wife, ii, 14;
misadventures at Bulowville, ii, 15-
20; shooting birds at Live Oak
Landing, ii, 16; narrow escape
from the marshes, ii, 17-19; as a
prophet on the future of eastern
Florida, ii, 20; the ibis of Orange
Grove Island, ii, 21; his plans de-
layed, ii, 22-24; journey from St.
Augustine to Key West, ii, 24; re-
turn to Savannah and Charleston,
ii, 25; eastern visit and explora-
tions in the North Atlantic, ii, 26-
66; settles again in Camden, ii, 26;
an experiment in lithography, ii, 26 ;
correspondence of Harlan, ii, 28;
his welcome at Boston, ii, 29; to
Edward Harris, ii, 29; journey to

INDEX

471

Maine coast and New Brunswick,
ii, 30; winter and illness in Boston,
ii, 31, 34-35; sends his son to Eng-
land to take charge of his publi-
cations, and plans an expedition to
Labrador, ii, 31; Bachman to, ii,
32; to Victor Audubon, ii, 33;
drawing of the Golden Eagle, ii,
34; to his son, ii, 35-40; financial
affairs, ii, 37-38, 65; on his portrait
by Inman, ii, 39; his American
subscribers, ii, 39-41 ; letters to
Harris, ii, 40; organization of his
proposed expedition, ii, 42-44;
George Parkman to, ii, 43; sails
in the Ripley for Labrador, ii,
44; journal of his experiences, ii,
44-50; at Bird Rock, ii, 45; dis-
covers a new finch, ii, 45 ; scenes of
work at Wapitagun, ii, 46-48; his
efforts and accomplishments, ii,
48; return to Eastport and Bos-
ton, ii, 49; editorial comment, ii,
50; letter from Havell, ii, 51 ;
Thomas L. McKenney on, ii, 52;
arrested in Philadelphia, ii, 52;
Washington Irving's aid in Wash-
ington, ii, 53; itinerary from Rich-
mond, ii, 53; winter at Bachman's,
ii, 54; letter to his son, ii, 55-62;
on Ord and Waterton, ii, 55, 61;
on his buzzard experiments, ii, 55;
on Syme's portrait, ii, 57; his fam-
ily alliance, ii, 58; on his American
subscribers, ii, 59, 62; on Robert
Havell, ii, 59; on growing old, ii,
60; on self-improvement, ii, 61;
on Kidd, ii, 57, 62; Bachman, on
his working habits, ii, 62; to Har-
ris, ii, 64; echo of his early busi-
ness troubles, ii, 64; his statement
of the case, ii, 65; return to Eng-
land, ii, 65; gratitude to Edward
Harris, ii, 66; as target of critics
and detractors, ii, 67-92; question-
able essays, ii, 68; his reply to
Sully, ii, 68-71; the rattlesnake

controversy, ii, 71-80; charges of
an editor, ii, 72; his original draw-
ing and account of the rattle-
snake, ii, 74-76; his errors and
vindication, ii, 76-80; letter of
Thomas Cooper, ii, 78; on the bend
of the rattlesnake's fang, ii, 79;
rediscovery of his discredited lily,
ii, 80; on the buzzard's sense of
smell, and present state of the
controversy, ii, 81-84; his cham-
pions of the scientific and literary
press, ii, 84; on his snake stories,
ii, 85; his most persistent heckler,
ii, 86-92; Waterton and Swainson,
on the authorship of his Ornitho-
logical Biography, ii, 87; on the
rivalries of contemporaries, ii, 93-
124; to Swainson, ii, 95-97, 99-100,
101-103, 112; Swainson to, ii, 97-
99, 103-108; his appeal to Swainson
for assistance on his letterpress,
ii, 94, 98, 102-103, 104-107; check
in friendship and engagement of
MacGillivray, ii, 108; resulting
controversy over the authorship of
the Ornithological Biography , ii,
87-88, 109; on the craze for de-
scribing new species, ii, 110; "Or-
nithophilus" on, ii, 111; Swain-
son as biographer of, ii, 113-115;
his reference to Bonaparte re-
sented, ii, 118; his letter to Bona-
parte and their subsequent rela-
tions, ii, 119-121; comment on
Gould, ii, 121-124; return to Eng-
land in 1834, ii, 125; to Edward
Harris, ii, 125; on his relations to
William MacGillivray, ii, 125-138;
MacGillivray to, ii, 126-128, 130-
132, 134; his ornithological col-
lection, ii, 129; completion of the
second volume of his letterpress,
ii, 132; to Harris, on the alligator
and the American edition of his
Ornithological Biography, ii, 132,
134; MacGillivray's contract with,

472

INDEX

ii, 134; MacGillivray' s assistance
and friendship, ii, 134-137; his
acknowledgments and dedication
to MacGillivray, ii, 137; to John
Wilson, ii, 139; on the effects of
overwork, ii, 140; letters to Har-
ris, ii, 141-144; on Alexander Wil-
son, ii, 143; issue of his third vol-
ume of the Ornithological Biogra-
phy, ii, 144; on his journey, ii, 144;
third American tour, ii, 146; land-
ing in New York, ii, 146; efforts to
secure the Nuttall-Townsend col-
lection of western birds, ii, 147-
149, 153-154; thwarted in Phila-
delphia, ii, 149; in Boston and Sa-
lem, ii, 149-151 ; meets Brewer and
Nuttall, ii, 150; friendship and
recommendation of Daniel Web-
ster, ii, 151; success of canvassing
in New York, ii, 153; efforts to
obtain the collections in Philadel-
phia renewed, ii, 153; rivalry of
priority seekers, ii, 155; plans an
expedition to Florida, and visits
Washington for governmental aid,
ii, 155; entertained at the White
House, ii, 156; on Andrew Jack-
son, ii, 156; winter spent with Bach-
man, ii, 156; overland with Ed-
ward Harris and his younger son
to New Orleans, ii, 157; experi-
ences in the Gulf of Mexico and
Texas, ii, 157-165; adventures with
the Crusader, ii, 158-163; at Gal-
veston Bay, ii, 163; visit to Hous-
ton, ii, 164; his party disbands at
Charleston, ii, 165; his son's mar-
riage, and return to England, ii,
166; to Thomas Brewer, ii, 168;
extension of his Birds and revolt
of British patrons, ii, 170, 174; to
Harris on Townsend's second col-
lection of western birds, ii, 170-
173; eagerness to render his work
as complete as possible, ii, 173;
on extra plates and partial sub-

scribers, ii, 174; to William Swain-
son, ii, 176; his day of greatest tri-
umph, ii, 177; return to Edinburgh
and completion of his letterpress,
ii, 178-186; to his son, ii, 178-181;
at work with MacGillivray. ii, 178-
181 ; publication of the fourth vol-
ume of the Ornithological Biogra-
phy, ii, 181 ; impairment of the
health of his wife, ii, 181, 183, 186;
their tour in the Scottish High-
lands, ii, 182; to Edward Harris,
ii, 184-186; completion of his la-
bors in England, ii, 186; number
of American species of birds rec-
ognized in 1839, ii, 186; valedic-
tory to the "gentle reader," ii, 187 ;
prepares to return with his family
to America; directions to Havell,
ii, 188-191 ; intimate history of the
work of his engraver, with manual
for collectors, ii, 191-199; the
Athencpum on, ii, 199; Peabody on,
ii, 200; on the original and exist-
ing numbers of copies of his Birds,
ii, 201-203; on his own and Ha-
vell's copy of The Birds of
America, ii, 203; original and
present prices of his works, ii,
204; singular attest of J. P. Hall
regarding, ii, 205; Audubon's ac-
count of the Rothschild incident,
ii, 206-208; settles in New York,
and immediately undertakes two
new works, ii, 208 ; Bachman to, on
a revised edition of The Birds of
America, and the Quadrupeds, ii,
208; to Brewer on the Quadrupeds
of North America, ii, 209; mar-
riage of his elder son, ii, 210;
Bachman, on his cooperation in
the Quadrupeds, ii, 210; prospec-
tus of the octavo edition of the
Birds, ii, 211-212, 214; its compo-
sition and number of American
species of birds recognized, ii, 214-
215; to his family while canvassing

INDEX

473

in Baltimore, ii, 215-217; original
account book of, ii, 217; extraordi-
nary success of his Birds in "min-
iature," ii, 217; bereavements of
his family, ii, 218; his friendship
with a rising young naturalist, ii,
218; opening correspondence with
Spencer Fullarton Baird, ii, 219-
223; William Yarrell to, ii, 223-
225; new birds from Baird, ii, 219,
225; their correspondence contin-
ued, ii, 226; letter to George Park-
man, and the "Parkman Wren," ii,
227-229; to W. O. Ayres on col-
lecting quadrupeds, ii, 229; on the
expenses of his publication, ii, 230;
Baird on his first visit to his
friend, ii, 230-232; consolation and
advice to his pupil, ii, 232; pur-
chase of land and house-building,
ii, 234; "Minnie's Land" on the
Hudson, ii, 235; his activities, ii,
235; Parke Godwin on Audubon
and "Minnie's Land," in 1842, ii,
236-238; in 1845, ii, 238; his expe-
dition to the Upper Missouri, ii,
239-258 ; correspondence with Baird,
ii, 239-241; credentials from the
Government, ii, 242; Daniel Web-
ster's letter, ii, 242; his letter from
President Tyler, ii, 243; Bachman
on the Quadrupeds, ii, 243; can-
vassing tour to Canada, ii, 244; de-
scription of Canadian visit in let-
ter to Benjamin Phillips, ii, 244-
246; William Yarrell to, ii, 246;
overtures to Baird to join his
western expedition fail, ii, 248-
250, 252; Edward Harris to, ii,
251; his party, ii, 252; rendezvous
at Philadelphia and beginning of
journey, ii, 252; ascent of the Mis-
souri in the Magnet, ii, 252; his
journal of their experiences, ii,
253; discovery of new birds, ii,
253; on George Catlin, ii, 254; at
Fort Union, ii, 254-256; first ex-

perience with buffalo, ii, 254;
forecast of its fate, ii, 255; in a
wilderness that howls, ii, 256; his
return, ii, 256; on a canal boat
homeward bound, ii, 257; mistaken
for a Dunker, ii, 258; portrait by
his son, ii, 258; to Baird, ii, 258;
completion of his Birds in octavo,
and dedication to Baird, ii, 259;
his final work on the Quadrupeds,
ii, 261 ; on Pennant's marten, ii,
263; to Bachman on mischief mak-
ers, and letterpress of the Quadru-
peds, ii, 264-267; his copper-plates
of The Birds of America pass
through fire in New York, ii, 267;
as a spectator at the ruins, ii, 267;
reply to Baird on the results of
the fire, ii, 268; Bachman's visit
in 1845, ii, 268; Bachman's com-
plaints and ultimatum through
Harris, ii, 269; Bachman on his
Missouri River Journal, ii, 271 ;
correspondence with Baird, ii, 272-
273, 275-278, 279; recommendation
of Baird, ii, 279; his son visits
England to paint for the Quadru-
peds, ii, 280; manuscript of the
Quadrupeds of North America, ii,
283; illustrations and completion
of plates of the Quadrupeds, ii,
285; Brewer on a visit to "Minnie's
Land" in 1846, ii, 286-288 ; letter to
Harris in 1847, ii, 287; Baird's
note of last visit in 1847, ii, 288;
Bachman on his visit of 1848, ii,
288; last days and death at "Min-
nie's Land," ii, 290; work of his
sons, and his family in America,
ii, 291-312; appropriation by the
Government to procure copies of
Audubon's works for presentation
to foreign countries, ii, 293; man-
uscript notes and legends on orig-
inal drawings of the Birds, ii,
305.
Audubon, Mrs. John James, as edi-

474

INDEX

tor of a Life of her husband, i,
18, 22; her girlhood home, i, 108;
Audubon's account of their meet-
ing and his debt to, i, 109; her
father and uncle as proteges of
Audubon, i, 125; Audubon on, i,
160; her marriage and journey
West, i, 194; her children, i, 198,
247, 248; her realization in her
father's estate, i, 198-200; her fa-
ther and family, i, 199, 253-254 ; as
spur and balance wheel, i, 301 ; at
Cincinnati, i, 303, 306, 307, 320; the
Western Museum incident, i, 304;
at New Orleans, i, 320, 322; en-
gagements at Natchez and St.
Francisville, i, 322; her "Beech-
woods" school, i, 322; Audubon to,
i, 370-372, 420-421, 424, 428; at
"Beechgrove," i, 431-435; accom-
panies her husband to England, i,
435-436; ii, 1; John Bachman to,
ii, 5; Richard Harlan to, ii, 14;
her activities and school at "Min-
nie's Land," ii, 299; breaking up
of her home and the Life of her
husband, ii, 300; to a relative on
her family's affairs, ii, 301 ; to Wil-
liam R. Dorian on her husband's
autograph, ii, 302; her last years
and death, ii, 302; a eulogy, ii,
303; disposal of the original draw-
ings of The Birds of America, ii,
304; ascription of drawing to, ii,
306.
Audubon, John Woodhouse, his birth,
ii, 248; 323, 371; his father to,
ii, 373, 390; ii, 43, 44, 54, 56-57,
156; marriage to Bachman's
daughter, ii, 166; journey to Texas,
ii, 272; goes to England to paint
for the Quadrupeds, ii, 273, 280;
dedication to John Edward Gray,
ii, 280; J. E. Gray to, ii, 281; part
in painting the originals of the
folio plates of the Quadrupeds of
North America, ii, 285; his unfor-

tunate California venture, ii, 289,
290; his marriage to Caroline Hall,
ii, 294; children and descendants,
ii, 294; his house at "Minnie's
Land," ii, 295, 311-312; his illness
and death, ii, 295-296, 297; his
project for reproducing the orig-
inal folio of The Birds of America
in America, checked by the War,
ii, 296, 389-391; residual stock of
the incomplete work, ii, 296; as his
father's aid, ii, 297, 299; activities
and characteristics as boy arid
man, ii, 297-299, 309-310; his
Western Journal, ii, 299; death of
his second wife, ii, 303.

Audubon, Mrs. John Woodhouse
(Maria Rebecca Bachman), her
marriage, ii, 166; her death, ii,
218; her children, ii, 294.

Audubon, Mrs. John Woodhouse
(Caroline Hall), her marriage,
children and descendants, ii, 294;
her death, ii, 294.

Audubon, Lucy, death of, i, 247.

Audubon, Maria Rebecca, publica-
tion of Audubon's Autobiography
by, i, 16; Audubon and his Jour-
nals by, i, 22, 28, 63, 66, 106, 153,
270, 369.

Audubon, Marie Rosa (Mme. de
Vaugeon), i, 27; suit by, i, 28,
263.

Audubon, Pierre, service in the
French merchant marine, i, 26; his
son, Jean, and his family, i, 27; at
siege of Louisburg, i, 28.

Audubon, Rosa (Mme. Gabriel Loy-
en du Puigaudeau, see Muguet),
her birth, i, 56; taken to France, i,
57; act of adoption, i, 59; as god-
mother, i, 128; marriage contract
and marriage of, i, 131; her home,
children and death, i, 269.

Audubon, Rosa, i, 247.

Audubon, Victor Gifford, his birth,
i, 198; 269, 325, 371, 396, 427;

INDEX

475

takes charge of his father's publi-
cations in England, ii, 31; his fa-
ther to, ii, 33-40, 43-44, 55-62; in
his father's defense, ii, 55, 88; 65,
81, 119, 178, 189; on the number
of sets of The Birds of America
issued, ii, 202; married to Mary
Eliza Bachman, ii, 210; on "Min-
nie's Land," ii, 235; John Bach-
man to, ii, 261-263, 281-283; to
Spencer F. Baird, ii, 278; Baird
to, ii, 278; as amanuensis to Bach-
man, ii, 283, 291; to Bachman, ii,
289; success in canvassing, ii, 292;
Bachman's recommendation, ii,
292; his issues of the Quadrupeds
and Birds, ii, 293, 295; his second
marriage and children, ii, 294; his
house at "Minnie's Land," ii, 295,
311; his illness and death, ii, 295;
death of his wife, ii, 303.

Audubon, Mrs. Victor Gifford
(Mary Eliza Bachman), her
marriage, ii, 210; her death, ii, 218.

Audubon, Mrs. Victor Gifford
(Georgianna Richards Mallory), ii,
258; her marriage and children, ii,
294; her death, ii, 294.

"Audubon of La Rochelle," i, 27,
270, 271.

Audubon (Montgomery County,
Pennsylvania), i, 102.

Audubon and his Journals, i, 22.

Audubon Association and Societies,
history and aims of, i, 14.

Audubonian Epoch and Period in
American ornithology, i, 10.

Aukland, Sir J. D., i, 377.

Ayres, W. O., Audubon, on collect-
ing quadrupeds, to, ii, 229-230;
277.

Bachman, Rev. John, i, 291, 293;
meeting and friendship with Au-
dubon, ii, 5, 9; to Mrs. Audubon,
ii, 5; Audubon's gift of his Birds
of America to, ii, 7; as canvasser

for Audubon, ii, 27; Audubon to,
ii, 27; to Audubon, ii, 32-33, 51;
buzzard experiments, ii, 55-56; 57,
59, 61 ; publication of his paper on
the Turkey Buzzard, ii, 56; on
Audubon's working habits, ii, 63-
65; account of experiments on the
sense of sight and smell in vul-
tures, ii, 81-83; Audubon to, on
the effects of overwork, ii, 140-
141; 146; on conditions in the
South, ii, 148; Audubon's winter
with, ii, 156; marriage of daughter
of, ii, 166; in London, ii, 178, 179;
184; to Audubon on his "Small
Edition of Birds" and Quadru-
peds, ii, 208-209; marriage of the
daughter of, ii, 210; on his co-
operation with Audubon in the
Quadrupeds, ii, 210-211; 216, 220;
to Audubon on the Quadrupeds, ii,
243-244; 258-259; on the Quadru-
peds of North America, ii, 261-
263, 269-272, 281-283; calls for
help, ii, 262; Audubon to, on mis-
chief-making of a "mutual friend,"
and the letterpress of the Quad-
rupeds, ii, 264-267; on Audubon in
1845, ii, 268; his ultimatum to
Edward Harris as mediator, ii,
268-270; on Audubon's Missouri
River Journal, ii, 271 ; difficulties
of cooperation, ii, 273; domestic
bereavement, ii, 274; his second
marriage, ii, 281; working meth-
ods, ii, 281; facsimile letter, ii,
282; manuscript on the Quadru-
peds, ii, 283; early life and career,
ii, 284; on Alexander von Hum-
boldt, ii, 284; on Audubon in 1848,
ii, 288; completion of the text of
the Quadrupeds, ii, 291; recom-
mendation of Victor Audubon and
statement of his part and interest
in the work, ii, 292-293; 311.
Bachman, Mrs. John (Harriet Mar-
tin), death of, ii, 274.

476

INDEX

Bachman, Mrs. John (Maria Mar-
tin), marriage of, ii, 281.
Bachman, Maria Rebecca. See Mrs.

John Woodhouse Audubon.
Bachman, Mary Eliza. See Mrs.

Victor Gifford Audubon.
Baco, mayor of Nantes, proclama-
tion of, i, 74.
Baird, Spencer Fullarton, his friend-
ship with Audubon, ii, 218-220;
Audubon to, ii, 219-222, 232-233;
discovers new birds, ii, 219, 221,
225; visits Audubon in New York,
ii, 230; to Audubon, ii, 231-232,
235; correspondence with Audubon
on the Missouri expedition, ii, 239-
241, 248-250, 252; 259; dedication
of Audubon to, ii, 259-260; Coues
on, ii, 260; correspondence with
Audubon on quadrupeds, ii, 263,
264, 2T2-273, 274-278; on Pen-
nant's marten, ii, 263; first visit
to Audubon, ii, 264; on fate of
Audubon's copper-plates, ii, 267;
his marriage and appointment in
Dickenson College, ii, 276; on
Victor Audubon's gift, ii, 278; on
the curatorship of the Smithson-
ian Institution, ii, 279; his recom-
mendations by Audubon, ii, 279;
last letter and visit to Audubon,
ii, 288.
Bakewell, Benjamin, as proteg6 of
young Audubon, i, 125; Audubon's
engagement with, i, 153, 154-155,
171-172; his establishment, corre-
spondents and clerks, i, 153-154;
his residence and previous business
career, i, 154; his New York busi-
ness and correspondents, i, 155; deal-
ings with Claude Francois Rozier,as
told in Audubon's letters, i, 156-
158, 161-163, 164-166; ruin of his
trade by the Embargo Act, i, 172;
his business dealings with Audu-
bon and Rozier, i, 186, 193; emi-
gration to America and establish-

ment in New Haven, i, 201; Wil-
son at his glass works in Pitts-
burgh, i, 204.
Bakewell, Eliza. See Mrs. Nicholas

Augustus Berthoud.
Bakewell, Rev. Gordon, on Audu-
bon's birth, i, 69; Audubon's por-
trait of, i, 69.
Bakewell, G. W., on William Bake-
well, i, 99.
Bakewell, John, i, 200.
Bakewell, Joseph, i, 200.
Bakewell, Lucy Green. See Mrs.

John James Audubon.
Bakewell, Robert, i, 200, 377.
Bakewell, Thomas Woodhouse (of

Crith, Derbyshire), i, 200.
Bakewell, Thomas Woodhouse, i, 153;
statement of accounts of Audubon
& Rozier with his uncle's estate, i,
193; see also ii, 354-355; letter to
Audubon & Rozier, i, 196; failure
of his commission business with
Audubon at New Orleans, i, 248;
second partnership with Audubon,
and history of their mill enterprise
at Henderson, i, 254-255; 259;
lease of land, i, 254; investment
in mill, i, 255; withdrawal from
business partnership, i, 256; sub-
sequent successful career at Pitts-
burgh and Cincinnati, i, 259; his
financial reverses, fortitude and
death, i, 259.
Bakewell, William, his purchase of
"Fatland Ford" and settlement
upon this estate, i, 99, 108; his
daughter, Lucy Green, i, 108-110;
his private accounts and aid to
Audubon and Rozier, i, 125; sale
of a portion of his farm in the
interests of his daughter, i, 198;
to Audubon and Rozier regarding
the sale, i, 199 ; his family and his-
tory, i, 200; emigration to the
United States and business at New
Haven, i, 201; death of his first

INDEX

477

wife, i, 201; his second marriage,
i, 201; his death, i, 201; death of
his second wife, i, 201 ; financial
assistance to son by, i, 255.

Bakewell, William Gifford, record of
a visit to "Mill Grove," i, 111-112;
427; ii, 252.

Bakewell, Mrs. William Gifford, ii,
302.

Banks, Sir Joseph, ii, 117.

Barraband, Pierre Paul (1767-1809),
his method of drawing birds, i,
184, 404.

Bartram, Anne, i, 215.

Bartram, John, and his Botanic
Gardens, i, 215.

Bartram, William, as mentor to Al-
exander Wilson, i, 212; Wilson, in
letter to, i, 213; his hospitality, i,
214, 216; his niece, and the Botanic
Gardens of his father, i, 215; on
numbers of American birds, ii,
214.

Bascanion. See Black snake.

Bayou Sara, introduction of Audu-
bon to, i, 309; life of Audubon at,
i, 314-318; village and origin of
name of, i, 314.

Bazin, Eugene, translations by, i,
360.

Beates, Frederick, purchase and sale
of "Mill Grove" by, i, 169.

Beer, William, i, 143, 155.

Bell, John, ii, 252; dedication of
Audubon to, ii, 253.

Benedict, Jennett, Audubon's itiner-
ant portrait of, i, 342.

Benedict, Jesse, ii, 311.

Berthoud, Mine., death of, i, 326.

Berthoud, Nicholas Augustus, i, 197,
256, 303, 309 ; engagement of Vic-
tor G. Audubon with, i, 325;
mother and family name of, i, 326;
427; ii, 27, 28, 33, 36, 37, 38,
130.

Berthoud, Mrs. Nicholas Augustus,
i, 326; ii, 303.

Besant, Sir Walter, on London in
1837, i, 355, 395.

Best, Robert, and the Western Mu-
seum, i, 303, 306.

Bewick, Thomas, Audubon's visit to,
i, 375; ii, 142.

Bibliography, i, 15; ii, 401-456.

Bien, J., and Company, ii, 396.

"Bird of Washington" ("Aquila
washinfftonii'''), Audubon's sup-
posed discovery of, i, 241, 400,
406; ii, 185.

Birds of America (folio), cost and
rarity of, i, 4; defects in drawings
of, i, 174, 184-185; destruction of
drawings designed for, i, 179, 320-
321; in embryo, i, 180-183; presen-
tation copies of, i, 356; plans of
publication, i, 343; first subscriber
to, i, 353; first engraved plate of,
i, 359; Lizars' part in engraving
of, i, 359; issue of first number of,
i, 362; first prospectus of, i, 373,
see also ii, 386-388; title of, i, 381;
the Havells in relation to, i, 380-
385; rebirth of, in London, i, 384;
the singular history of plate No.
hi, i, 384; difficulties with color-
ists, i, 389; the Queen as patron-
ess, i, 392; revision of drawings,
i, 398; Swainson's review, i, 403;
progress of, i, 405; Cuvier's re-
port, i, 413; Bachman as canvas-
ser for, ii, 27; Thomas H. Per-
kins' copy, ii, 29; Audubon's di-
rections for dispatch of parts of,
ii, 37; his financial accounts with, ii,
37; American subscribers, ii,
36-41; insurance of drawings for,
ii, 40; editorial comment, ii, 41;
revolt of patrons at extension of
plan, ii, 170, 174; Audubon on ex-
tra plates and partial subscribers
to, ii, 174; completion of, ii, 177;
Audubon on residual stock of
plates, ii, 188-190; uncolored plates
of, ii, 190; on insurance of cop-

478

INDEX

per-plates of, ii, 191 ; intimate
history of the engravers and
plates, with manual for collectors,
ii, 191-199; story told in artists'
and engravers' captions or leg-
ends, ii, 196-198; dates, errors and
editions in plates, ii, 196-198; ori-
ginal and present known numbers
of complete sets, ii, 201; Audu-
bon's and HavelPs copies of, ii, 204;
original and present prices, ii, 204 ;
curious attest of J. P. Hall, ii,
205; original drawings for plates,
ii, 304; manuscript records and
legends on original drawings, ii,
305; story of fate of original cop-
per-plates of, ii, 295, 306-309;
final lists of subscribers, ii, 380-
385; prospectus of 1828, ii, 386-
388.

Birds of America (ki octavo), pros-
pectus, ii, 208-212, 214; agents'
original and present prices of, ii,
211; titles on original parts, ii,
213; beginning of publication, ii,
214; number of birds and doubtful
species, ii, 214; Audubon as can-
vasser for, ii, 215-217; remarkable
success of, ii, 217; account-book
of Audubon in business of, ii, 217;
William Yarrell on, ii, 223; "Park-
man's Wren" in, ii, 228; expense
of publication of, ii, 230.

Birds of America (partial American
issue in folio), ii, 296; residual
stock of plates of, ii, 297; original
prospectus of, ii, 389-391.

Birds of Europe, ii, 122; anecdote
of, ii, 123.

Blackbird, Red-winged (Angelaivs
phoeniceus), Ord's charge concern-
ing Audubon's drawing of, i, 228.

Blackcocks (Tetrao tetrix), original
painting of, i, 363, 366.

Black snake, "blue racer" (Bascan-
ion constrictor), confused with rat-
tlesnake, ii, 76.

Blackwood's Magazine, John Wilson
on Audubon and Kidd, i, 447;
John Wilson on Audubon, ii,
139.

Blanchard, Jean Francois, as at-
torney of Jean Audubon at Les
Cayes, i, 85.

Blue Jays (Cyanocitta cristata),
painting of, i, 397.

Bohn, Henry G., on Audubon's
drawings, i, 357.

Bonaparte, Charles Lucien, intro-
duces Audubon at Philadelphia, i,
328; his career and work as an
ornithologist, i, 329-331; his artist
and engravers, i, 330; Audubon's
contribution to his American Or-
nithology, i, 330; his account of
the Wild Turkey, i, 331; charac-
terization by a contemporary, i,
334; his subscription to The Birds
of America, i, 380, 385; to Audu-
bon, i, 416-419; 423; ii, 40, 49-50;
96, 98, 106, 107, 108, 110, 112, 118;
Audubon to, ii, 119; his list of
American birds, ii, 120; his com-
ment on Audubon's work, ii,
120, 169; on publication of new
species by, ii, 173; 176, 184, 214,
224.

Bonnabel, Antonio, acquisition of
lands from, by Bernard Marigny,
i, 70.

Boone, Daniel, Audubon's charac-
terization of, criticized, i, 281.

Bossals and Creoles in Santo Domin-
go, i, 42, 47.

Boston Patriot, ii, 50.

Bouffard, Catharine, designation of,
in legal documents, i, 56; mother
of Muguet (Rosa Audubon), i, 56;
her appearance in France, i, 56;
mother of Louise, i, 56.

Bouffard, Louise, inquiry concern-
ing, i, 56; her birth, i, 57, 130.

Boulart (General), letter to Citizen
Audubon, i, 80.

INDEX

479

Bowen, Samuel Adams, his steam-
boat at Henderson, i, 236; Audu-
bon's encounter with, i, 257-259;
suit against Audubon by, i, 258;
conclusion of bench in action
brought by, i, 259.

Bradford, Mrs. J. L., i, 13.

Bradford, Samuel F., as publisher of
Wilson's American Ornithology, i,
217, 219.

Bragdon, Sam L., i, 348.

Brand, William, Audubon as teach-
er in family of, i, 318; Mrs. Audu-
bon's engagement with family of,
i, 322.

Brewer, Thomas Mayo, ii, 8; Audu-
bon on the rattlesnake, ii, 79, 150;
Audubon to, ii, 152-153, 165-166,
168-169, 175, 209; on Audubon in
1846, ii, 286-288.

Brewster, Sir David, i, 362; ii, 84.

Brilliant, Jean Audubon's encounter
with, i, 82.

Broadnax, Henry P., judge in case
of Samuel Adams Bowen and oth-
ers vs. Audubon, i, 258; his de-
cision in a case of assault, i, 259.

Brown, Capt. Thomas, curious his-
tory of Illustrations of the Ameri-
can Ornithology by, i, 443-445;
limited circulation, rarity and
piratical character of the work, i,
443-445; his Illustrations of the
Genera of Birds, i, 444; contem-
porary and later notices of his at-
las, i, 444.

Buchanan, Robert Williams, true
story of his Life of Audubon, i,
18-22; his struggles, talents, idio-
syncrasies and death, i, 19, 21, 22.

Buckland, William, D.D., i, 377.

Buffalo (New York), Audubon's vis-
it to, in 1824, i, 340.

Buffalo hunting on the Upper Mis-
souri and Yellowstone in 1843, ii,
254-256.

Bullen, George E., i, 400, 403.

Bulow, John, welcome of Audubon
and their adventures at his planta-
tion, ii, 15-20.

Bunting, Henslow's (Passerherbulus
henslowi), i, 354.

Burchell, William John, ii, 97, 105.

Bureau, Louis, i, 143, 149; manu-
script letters of, i, 154.

Burns, Robert, relations of Alexan-
der Wilson with, i, 208.

Butler, Benjamin F., ii, 153.

Butterflies, as food of birds, i, 358.

Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Swainson in, ii,
113.

Caire, Louis P., to Lafayette, i, 352.

Caledonian Mercury, Notice of
Jameson's edition of Wilson and
Bonaparte's Ornithology in, i, 442;
notice of Jardine's edition in, i,
442-443, 446; Audubon to Kidd in,
ii, 2; on the Wilson- Audubon
obituary, ii, 3.

Call, Richard Ellsworth, i, 287, 299.

Camden (New Jersey), work of Au-
dubon at, i, 421, 426; ii, 26-27, 30.

Campbell, Sir Archibald, ii, 30.

Cap, P. A., i, 360.

Caporal, Le petit, date of original
drawing of, i, 180.

Carolina Paroquet (Conuropsis caro-
linensis), early drawing of, i, 180.

Carrier, Jean Baptiste, mission and
infamy of, i, 75; denounced by Ju-
lien, i, 76; reign of terror at
Nantes under, i, 75; recall of, i,
76.

Cass, Lewis, ii, 52.

Catlin, George, ii, 254.

Cayes (Les Cayes), delivery of
slaves at, i, 31 ; Jean Audubon's
business interests in, i, 39; its pre-
revolutionary importance, i, 38;
corruption of its name, i, 38; slave
trade at, i, 39-41; first touched by
the Revolution, i, 50; birth of Fou-
gere (John James Audubon), and

480

INDEX

Muguet (Rosa Audubon), at, i,
52-53, 56; Jean Audubon's fortune
and financial losses at, i, 82; final
settlement of Jean Audubon's es-
tate at, i, 268.
Cedar-bird (Bombycilla cedrorum),

habits of, i, 423.
Central Committee (at Nantes), ex-
tract from register of, i, 134.
Century of Birds, ii, 121.
Cerberus, Jean Audubon's command

of, and encounter in, i, 82.
Chapelain, Doctor, as witness, i, 153.
Charette, siege of Nantes under, i,

74; execution of, i, 76.
Charles X, patronage of, i, 3-4, 27.
Charleston, meeting of Audubon and
Bachman at, ii, 5, 9; Audubon's
tribute to hospitality of people at,
ii, 10; bird-hunting at, ii, 10; re-
turn of Audubon's party, ii, 25;
Bachman's services at, ii, 284.
Chat, Yellow-breasted (Icteria vi-
rens), Audubon's original drawing
of, i, 425.
Chevalier, J. B., ii, 211, 216, 222, 226,

234.
Children, John George, i, 377; his ca-
reer and friendship with Audubon,
i, 379-380, 420, 437; ii, 34, 56, 59,
199.
Chouanerie, i, 27.

Chuck-will's-widow (Antrostomus
carolinensis) , Audubon's early
drawing of, i, 182.
Cincinnati (Ohio), in 1810, i, 205;
record of earthquakes at, i, 280;
settlement of Audubon at, i, 303;
Dr. Drake and the Western Mu-
seum, i, 303-306; early "Notice
concerning," and activities of Dr.
Drake, i, 304-306; organization of
a college and medical school, i,
305; Audubon stranded at, i, 344.
Cincinnati College, relations of Dr.
Daniel Drake to, i, 304; founda-
tion and first president of, i, 305.

Clapp, Wellington, ii, 310.

Clay, Henry, i, 307, 372, 378, 396.

Clifford, John O., i 290.

Clinton, De Witt, i, 2, 218, 339.
Cochereau, Matthew, painting of Da-
vid's studio by, i, 177.

Coirond Brothers, i, 33, 38.

Coirond (Coyron), Mme., i, 86.

Coit, Rev. Dr. Henry Augustus, ii,
43.

Coit, Rev. Dr. Joseph, ii, 43.

Coleman, William A., Audubon to, ii,
174.

Colles, George W., on Audubon's
account of the rattlesnake, ii,
76.

Collett, Tobias, i, 103.

Colnaghi and Company, i, 383.

Colson, Augustus, i, 342.

Columbus, incident on voyage of, i,
312.

Combe, Andrew, i, 361.

Cook, Capt. James, i, 377.

Coolidge, Joseph, ii, 43, 50.

Cooper, Thomas, and the climbing
habits of the rattlesnake, ii, 53-
54, 77-78; to Audubon, ii, 78.

Coot, Audubon's early drawing of,
i, 178.

Coueron, discovery of documents at,
i, 53; settlement of Jean Audubon
at, i, 57, 83; condition in 1793, i,
80, 137; the D'Orbignys at, i, 127-
128, 130; history and characteris-
tics of, 136-140; present industry
and population of, 137; record of
visit to, in 1913, i, 138-140; grand
calvaire at, i, 139; history of Au-
dubon's boyhood home at, i, 140-
145.
Coues, Elliott, on Audubon, i, 110;
on Alexander Wilson, i, 213; ii,
129.
Count of Artois (Le Comte d'Ar-
tois), encounter of Jean Audubon
and his capture in, i, 32; arma-
ment and fate of, i, 33; bill of

INDEX

481

sale of, i, 33; unsettled claims con-
cerning, i, 121, 265.

Couper, William, bust of Audubon,
by, i, 13.

Cowles, Charles A., story of his res-
cue of a remnant of Audubon's
copper-plates, ii, 307.

Crane, Whooping (Grus americana),
i, 227.

Crosby, Fortunatus (Judge), court
record under, i, 260.

Crusader, Audubon's adventures in,
ii, 157-163.

Culbertson, Alexander, ii, 271.

Cummings, Capt. James, i, 307; ii,
69, 258.

Cushing, Caleb, ii, 241.

Cuvier, Baron Georges, his eulogy on
Audubon's Birds, i, 1; his patro-
nage, i, 2; his death, i, 4; report
at the Royal Academy of Sciences,
i, 174, 412-413; Audubon's descrip-
tion of, i, 410-411; ii, 101, 142, 448.

Cyclopaedia, New American, Wilson's
editorial work on, i, 216-217, 219.

Dacosta, Francis, and the Prevost
mortgage, i, 106; first appearance
at "Mill Grove," and his interest in
its mine, i, 113; early exploitation,
i, 114; as Lieutenant Audubon's
attorney and guardian of his son,
i, 114; his purchase of a one-half
interest, i, 114; his salary and
grievances, i, 115; difficulties with
young Audubon and with the mine,
i, 115; correspondence of Lieuten-
ant Audubon, i, 116-123; Lieuten-
ant Audubon's appeal in answer to
complaints, i, 118; instructions for
settlement of claims, i, 121-123;
rebellion of young Audubon, i,
123; his praise of Audubon's draw-
ings, i, 124; succeeded by Audu-
bon and Rozier, i, 132; called to
account, i, 146; acquisition of the
remaining Audubon and Rozier in-

terests, i, 148-150; his "role of chi-
caner," i, 151, 158; his failure and
disputed claim, i, 168; award of
arbitrators in case, i, 168; repro-
duction of his contested accounts,
ii, 355-358.

"Dalmahoy," Audubon's visit to, i,
363.

Darwin, Charles, i, 354, 399.

Darwin, Erasmus, i, 200.

David, Jacques Louis, i, 3, 174, 175,
176; his revolutionary ardor, patri-
otism and popularity,i, 174, 176; his
exile and death, i, 174; his portrait
of the mayor of Nantes, i, 174-
176; his reception at Nantes, i,
175; his address to the Municipal
Assembly, i, 175; his studios and
pupils at the Louvre, i, 177; his
works and influence, i, 177; in-
fluence on Audubon's style, i, 178.

Davis, Isaac P., ii, 151 ; on Webster's
copy of The Birds of America, ii,
152.

Davy, Sir Humphry, i, 356, 377,
379.

Deane, Ruthven, i, 246, 444, 448; ii,
14, 188; on copies of The Birds of
America in America, ii, 203, 204;
211, 263, 293; on the copper-plates
of The Birds of America, ii, 307-
309.

Debtors, terrors of, in England, i,
395.

Declaration of Rights, voted by the
National Assembly of France, and
its effect upon Santo Domingo, i,
37, 49.

De Genlis, Stephanie-Felicite, i, 163.

De Kervegan, Daniel, popularity and
portrait of, as mayor of Nantes,
i, 175.

De La Luzerne, his recommendation
of Jean Audubon, i, 32, 34.

Delos, Audubon's voyage on, i, 347-
350; subsequent fate of, 348.

De Marigny, Ecuyer Sieur, and his

482

INDEX

family, i, 69; true story of his
family, and of "Fontainebleau,"
which has been erroneously at-
tributed to him, i, 69; his summer
house at Mandeville, i, 71.

Derby, Earl of, ii, 146.

De Vaugeon, Mme. Le Jeune, i, 28;
suit by, i, 263.

De Vaugeon, Pierre, i, 27.

De Wimpffen, Baron. See Francis
Alexander Stanilaus.

Dickenson College, Baird's appoint-
ment and position at, ii, 268, 276.

Dodge, William E., ii, 307.

D'Orbigny, Alcide Charles Victor, i,
128.

D'Orbigny, Dr. Charles Marie, as
friend of young Audubon, i, 120,
127-128; his family, i, 128; Audu-
bon as godfather to son of, i, 128;
financial troubles of, i, 128-130;
Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau to,
i, 129 ; as debtor to Lieutenant Au-
dubon's estate, i, 129; inquiries
concerning, i, 130; as witness, i,
153 ; Audubon's correspondence
with, i, 160, 163, 171.

D'Orbigny, Charles (the younger),
i, 128.

D'Orbigny, Gaston Edouard, birth
and baptism of, i, 128.

Dorian, William R., ii, 302.

Drake, Dr. Daniel, and Alexander
Wilson, i, 205; record of earth-
quakes at Cincinnati by, i, 280;
his engagement of Audubon as
taxidermist, i, 303; his foundation
of the Western Museum and Au-
dubon's connection with it, i, 304-
306; his varied activities, i, 304;
his early "Notice concerning Cin-
cinnati," i, 304; his organization
of the Cincinnati College and med-
ical school, i, 305; his troubles with
rivals, i, 306; his appointment at
the Transylvania University, 1,
306.

Duck, Labrador (Camptorhynchus
labradorius), at Bradore Bay, ii,
48; extinction of, ii, 48, 152.

Duck, "Velvet," White-winged Sco-
ter (Oidemia deglandi), Audu-
bon's early drawing of, i, 182; de-
scription of, i, 182.

Duncan, William, i, 208; ii, 284.

Dunkin, Judge, i, 260; ii, 64.

Dupre (Tete-Caree), raid of Nantes
by, i, 77.

Du Puigaudeau, Gabriel Loyen, Au-
dubon's power of attorney to, i,
64; to D'Orbigny, i, 128-130; to J.
Cornet, i, 130; his marriage, i, 131;
his family, occupation and resi-
dence, i, 132; to Audubon, i, 266-
269.

Du Puigaudeau, Mme. Gabriel Loy-
en. See Rosa Audubon.

Du Puigaudeau, Gabriel Loyen (the
Second), death of at "Les Tour-
terelles," i, 269.

Eagle, "Brown." See "Bird of
Washington."

Eagle, Golden (Aquila chrysaetos),
Audubon's drawing of, ii, 35.

Eagle, "Washington's." See "Bird
of Washington."

Eagle, White-headed (Haliceetus
leucocephalus), Audubon's origi-
nal drawing of, i, 310.

Eagle and Lamb, original painting
of, i, 394-396, 405, 406.

Earthquakes in the Ohio and Missis-
sippi Valleys, 1811-1813; casual
and exact records of, i, 279.

Eckley, David, dedication of copy
of The Birds of America to, ii,
7; history of copy formerly owned
by, ii, 7; ii, 150.

Ecton Consolidated Mining Com-
pany, i, 169.

Edinburgh, first visit and success of
Audubon at, i, 357-373; beginning
of The Birds of America at, i,

INDEX

483

358; exhibition of Audubon's
drawings at, i, 359; meeting with
Sir Walter Scott at, i, 365; issue
of Audubon's Prospectus at, i, 373.

Edinburgh Literary Journal, notice
of Brown's Illustrations of the
American Ornithology in, i, 443.

Edinburgh New Philosophical Jour-
nal, ii, 111.

Edward (Ezekiel Edwards ?), unset-
tled claim of Jean Audubon
against, i, 121.

Edwards, Bryan, on the products
and wealth of French Santo Do-
mingo, i, 30; on the Santo Domin-
go blacks, i, 43.

Edwards, Ezekiel, i, 121.

Eggleston, Thomas, i, 13.

Elaps. See Coral snake.

Embargo Act, of President Jeffer-
son, effect of, on Audubon and
Rozier, i, 193.

"Episodes." See Ornithological
Biography.

Evans, Roland, acquisition of "Mill
Grove" by, i, 105.

Everett, Edward, patronage and aid
of, i, 435; letters of, i, 436, 448-
451 ; his efforts for the removal of
import duties on The Birds of
America, i, 448; his nomination of
Audubon to fellowship in the
American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, i, 450; ii, 5, 23, 64.

Falco Cooperii (Accipiter cooperi),
i, 330, 417. See "Stanley Hawk."

"Fatland Ford," William Bakewell's
acquisition of, i, 98, 108, 201 ; man-
sion house and farm of, i, 108;
Audubon's introduction to, i, 108;
Generals Washington and Howe
at, i, 108; marriage of Lucy Bake-
well at, i, 194; realization of Mrs.
Audubon in, i, 198.

Faxon Walter, i, 444.

Featherstonhaugh, G. W., Rafines-

que's reply to, i, 294; on Audu-
bon's plans, ii, 4; Audubon's
Florida letters to, ii, 8-14, 15-22;
suspension of Journal of, ii, 23,
28, 84.
Feliciana, West, characteristics of, i,
314-315; former prosperity of, i,
323.

Finch, MacGillivray's, MacGillivray's
Seaside Sparrow (Passerhebulus
maritimus macgillivraii), i, 354.

Fisher, Miers, as Jean Audubon's at-
torney and protege of his son, i,
99; Jean Audubon to, i, 100; resi-
dence in Philadelphia, i, 106; and
the Prevost mortgage, i, 106, 122;
succeeded by Dacosta, i, 113-114;
120-122; as counselor of Audubon
and Rozier, i, 148, 149, 160, 167;
resumption of duties as agent and
attorney by, i, 168.

Fitzpatrick, T. J., i, 287, 292, 299.

Flatboats, on the Ohio River in 1810,
i, 234; convenience of, i, 234; cost
of, at Pittsburgh, i, 235; time of
passage of, from Pittsburgh to
New Orleans, i, 235; floating trade
of, i, 234.

Flicker (Colaptes auratus), orig-
inal painting of, i, 363.

Florida, Audubon's explorations in,
ii, 12-25; Audubon, on the future
of the east coast of, ii, 20.

Floyd, John, ii, 5.

Flycatcher, Least (Empidonax mini'
mus), discovery by the Baird
brothers, in 1843, ii, 225.

Flycatcher, "Selby's," i, 354.

Flycatcher, "Small Green-crested," i,
425.

Flycatcher, "Small-headed," curious
history of, i, 218, 226-227; refer-
ence to, by Thomas Nuttal, i, 227;
identifications of, by Cowes and
Baird, i, 227; ii, 215.

Flycatcher, Traill's (Empidonax
trailli), i, 354.

484

INDEX

"Fontainebleau," myth and true
story of, i, 69, 71.

Formon de Boisclair, Jean Audu-
bon's dealings with, and claims
against, i, 33-34, 121, 265, 338. Sec
Lacroix, Formon & Jacques.

Fort Union, Audubon's experiences
at, ii, 254-256.

Fougere, i, 53, 57, 59, 61 ; ii, 328, 329.
See Jean Jacques Fougere Audu-
bon.

Francis, C. S., and Company, ii,
203.

Francis, David G., ii, 204.

Franklin Journal, Audubon's article,
and Jones' "Romance of the Rat-
tlesnake" in, ii, 72.

Fulton, Robert, first steamer on the
Ohio River, built by, i, 236.

Gallatin, Albert, i, 377; Audubon's
interview with, i, 390.

Gait, W. C, i, 197.

Gannet Rock, Audubon's account of
approach to, i, 9.

Gannets (Sula bassana), i, 10.

Gaston, William, aid rendered Au-
dubon by, at Savannah, ii, 25, 59.

General Assembly (Santo Domingo),
new Constitution of, i, 49.

GeofFroy Saint-Hilaire, i, 411.

George IV, Gallatin on, i, 390.

George Street (Edinburgh), Audu-
bon's apartments in, i, 437.

Gill, Theodore, i, 444; ii, 113.

Girard, Stephen, his reputed interest
in Dacosia's mining enterprises at
"Mill Grove," i, 149.

Godwin, Parke, on Audubon's draw-
ing of quadrupeds, ii, 236; on a
visit to Audubon at "Minnie's
Land," ii, 236-238; on Audubon in
1845, ii, 238.

Goodspeed, Charles E., i, 384, ii, 26,
190.

Gordon, Mrs. Alexander, ii, 302.

Gould, John, Bonaparte on, ii, 121;

Audubon on, ii, 121 ; works of, ii,
121; charges against, ii, 122; anec-
dote of, ii, 123; financial success
of publications of, ii, 124; 224-225.

Gould, Mrs. John, Audubon on, ii,
121.

Grackle, Boat-tailed (Megaquiscalus
major), Audubon's drawing in
Bonaparte's Ornithology, i, 330.

Gray, Asa, ii, 81.

Gray, John Edward, i, 354, 380, 444;
dedication to, ii, 280; to J. W. Au-
dubon, ii, 281.

Gray's Ferry (now Philadelphia),
settlement of Alexander Wilson as
teacher at, i, 210, 211, 212, 216.

Great Bend (of the Mississippi),
Audubon's and Rozier's experience
at, in 1810, i, 240.

Great Egg Harbor, work of Audu-
bon at, i, 421, 424; visit of Wilson
and Ord, i, 422; drawings of Au-
dubon, i, 425.

Great Pine Forest (Mauch Chunk),
sojourn and work of Audubon at,
i, 423, 425-426.

Great Russell Street (London), old
print dealer of, i, 11-12, 377.

Great Western, ii, 190.

Grinnell, George Bird, ii, 283, 299,
309.

Groundhog, Audubon's early draw-
ing of, i, 181.

Guepin, M. A., i, 73, 77.

Gunther, Albert, on Rafinesque's let-
ters and character, i, 297; on
Swainson and his correspondence,
i, 400-403.

Hackberry, in the Ohio River basin,

i, 188.
Haines, Reuben, visit of Audubon

to "Mill Grove" with, i, 335, 339.
Haiti, i, 38, 52.
Hall, Capt. Basil, on the Leander, i,

364; as Audubon's friend, i, 365,

367; to John Murray, i, 378; re-

INDEX

485

turn to England from the United
States, i, 407.

Hall, Harrison, publication of, i, 329;
ii, 98.

Hall, James, notorious review of, i,
329 ; ii, 98.

Hall, J. Preseott, memorandum re-
garding The Birds of America, ii,
204.

Hardin, John, ii, 295.

Harlan, Richard, i, 328; on Ord, i,
328-329; 333, 334, 407, 439; ii, 9;
on Abert, ii, 3; Audubon to, ii,
14; to Mrs. Audubon, ii, 14; to
Audubon, ii, 28-29; 58.

Harris, Edward, meeting with Au-
dubon, i, 331 ; his friendships and
career, i, 331, 333; early letters to
Audubon, i, 332, 344; Audubon to,
i, 448; Audubon to, ii, 26-27, 30,
31, 40-41; memento to, ii, 49; Au-
dubon to, ii, 64-66, 125, 132, 134,
141-144, 147-148; 149, 151,155,157,
165; Audubon to, ii, 170-173; 175;
Audubon to, ii, 182, 184-186; 234;
to Audubon, ii, 251; dedication to,
ii, 253; Bachman's ultimatum to,
ii, 268-270; in role of mediator, ii,
270; Audubon to, ii, 287; Bach-
man to, ii, 291.

Harrison, William Henry, i, 307.

Harvard University, drawings and
manuscripts at, i, 180, 307-308.

Haskell, Rev. John, ii, 271, 283.

Hatch, Capt. Joseph E., i, 347.

Havell, Daniel, i, 382.

Havell, George, i, 382.

Havell Henry Augustus, i, 382; ii,
189, 190, 191-192.

Havell, Robert, Senior, his family,
i, 381-383; his shop in Newman
Street, i, 382; partnership with his
son, i, 383; their enterprise in un-
dertaking The Birds of America,
i, 384; his death, i, 384; their re-
lationship as read in the legends
of Audubon's plates, ii, 195-198.

Havell, Robert, Junior, i, 12; Audu-
bon's discovery of, i, 382; a family
of artists, i, 382; partnership with
his father and rebirth of The
Birds of America in London, i,
384; his "Zoological Gallery," i,
384; advertisement of his business,
i, 386; story of the Prothonotary
Warbler, i, 383-384, 405; Swain-
son on, i, 414; Audubon to, i, 433;
ii, 33, 34, 35, 38; to Audubon, ii,
51, 57, 58, 62, 174, 180, 186; Audu-
bon on closing up his business, ii,
188-191; settlement in the United
States, ii, 191-192; his work, char-
acteristics and death, ii, 192; Au-
dubon's memento to, ii, 192; his
genius and mastery of aquatint,
ii, 193-195; as Audubon's engraver,
ii, 195; history of his engravings
of Audubon's Birds, ii, 196-198;
his copy of the work, ii, 203.

Havell, Robert, & Son, i, 12.

Havell, William, i, 383.

Haverhill (New Hampshire), expe-
rience of Alexander Wilson at, i,
219.

Hawk, Cooper's. See Falco Cooperii.

Hawk, Great-footed, Duck Hawk
(Falco peregrinus anatum), origi-
nal drawing of, i, 311.

Hawk, Harlan's (Buteo borealis har-
lani), i, 311.

Hay, Robert William, i, 377, 379.

Henderson (Kentucky), removal of
Audubon and Rozier to, i, 236;
settlement, early name and popu-
lation of, i, 236; game and char-
acter of the country at, in 1810, i,
236; first Kentucky steamer built
at, i, 236; Audubon's activities in
1810, i, 237; return of Audubon
to, in 1811, i, 242; houses of Dr.
Adam Rankin, i, 248; original plot
of town, i, 250, 252; his purchase
of land at, i, 250, 252; his log
bouse and store, i, 252; town rec-

486

INDEX

ords, i, 252; record of earthquakes,
i, 280; Rafinesque's visit, i, 285-
287.

Hendersonville. See Henderson.

Henry, Joseph, ii, 279.

Henshaw, Samuel, i, 308; ii, 197.

Henslow, John Stevens, i, 354, 399.

Heppenstall, John, i, 394.

Herschel, Sir William, i, 377.

"Highfield Hall," residence of Wil-
liam Swainson near Tyttenhanger
Green, i, 403.

Hirundo serripennis (Stelgidopteryx
serripennis), ii, 186.

Historical Society (New York), un-
published drawing in collections
of, i, 228; original drawings of
The Birds of America at, ii, 304-
306.

History of British Birds (MacGil-
livray), ii, 113, 114, 130, 135;
(Yarrell), ii, 223; on his comple-
tion of, ii, 225.

Holden, Edward, to George Rams-
den, i, 351.

Holland, Dr. Henry, i, 377.

Hollander, Edward, i, 276.

Hope, Audubon's voyage in, i, 125.

Hopkins, Rev. John Henry, Audu-
bon's acquaintance with, at Pitts-
burgh, i, 343.

Hopkins, Samuel, i, 252; Audubon's

purchase of land, i, 252.
Hopkinson, John, i, 400.

Houston, Sam, Audubon's visit to, ii,

163; his characterization of, ii, 164.

Howe, General William, visit at

"Fatland Ford," i, 108.
Humboldt, Baron Alexander von, i,
356; and Bachman, ii, 284; Bach-
man's account of dinner to, ii,
284.
Huntington, Archer M., ii, 310.
Huron, Laurence, engagement of
Ferdinand Rozier, with, i, 153; his
business relations with the Bake-
well firm and with Rozier, the eld-

er, i, 156-157, 159-161, 165; his
award in the settlement of the con-
tested accounts of Francis Dacos-
ta, i, 168; dealings of Audubon &
Rozier, i, 186.

Ingalls, William, Parkman's recom-
mendation of, ii, 42.

Indigo, history of Audubon's invest-
ment in, i, 193.

Indians (Shawnee), feather hunting
of, i, 238; incident at camp of,
i, 239; (Osage), Audubon's expe-
rience with, i, 240.

Irish, Jedediah, i, 425.

Irving, Washington, ii, 53, 153.

Jackson, Andrew, Audubon as model
for portrait of, i, 338; 378; ii,
155; Audubon on, ii, 156.

Jackson, Daydon, i, 400.

Jameson, Robert, i, 357; edition of
Wilson's and Bonaparte's Orni-
thology, i, 439, 442; ii, 84.

Jaquemel (Santo Domingo), plant-
er's experience at, i, 44-48.

Jardine, Sir William, to Audubon,
440; edition of Wilson and Bona-
parte's Ornithology, i, 442; ii, 102.

Jay, Harriet, on Robert Buchanan,
i, 21.

Jeanes, Joseph Y., his collection of
original Audubon drawings and
manuscripts, i, 180, 181 ; ii, 50, 375-
379.

Jefferson, Thomas, Embargo Act of,
i, 193; on the numbers of species
of American birds, ii, 214.

Jenner, Edward, announcement of
discovery of vaccination, i, 55; ac-
count of behavior of young cuckoo
(Cuculus canorus) discredited by
Waterton, ii, 90.

Johnson, John, ii, 203.

Johnson, Samuel, on biography, i, 7.

Johnson, William Garrett, Audubon
at home of, i, 427, 432; engage-

INDEX

487

ment of Mrs. Audubon by, i, 431;

authorization to fill position at

home of, i, 434.
Jordan, David Starr, i, 287, 291.
Joue, i, 54.
Julien (of Paris), heroic conduct of,

i, 76.
Juniata River, i, 274, 277.

Keel boats, on the Ohio and Missis-
sippi, i, 234; Audubon's journey
by, in 1810, i, 238-241.

Kidd, Dr. John, i, 399.

Kidd, Joseph Bartholomew, i, 363,
373, 443; and the "Ornithological
Gallery," i, 446; Audubon to, ii,
1; 35, 57, 61, 62.

Kinder, Robert & Company, dealings
of Audubon and Rozier with, i,
186, 197-199; ii, 355.

King, Thomas Butler, ii, 11-12, 14.

Kingfisher {Ceryle alcyon), Audu-
bon's early drawing of, i, 180.

Kirtland, Dr. Jared P., i, 291 ; "Note
Book" of, i, 292.

Kite, Mississippi (Ictinia mississip-
piensis), Ord's charge concerning,
i, 228; similarity in one of Wilson's
and Audubon's figures of, i, 228;
misnaming of sex in, i, 229; Au-
dubon's legends on original draw-
ing of, i, 229; Wilson's and Audu-
bon's first experience with, i, 229-
230; 316.

Knox, Dr. John, i, 358.

Koster, Henry, ii, 117.

Krudener, Baron, i, 436; ii, 38.

Labrador, Audubon's experiences in,
ii, 45-49; expense and results of
expedition to, ii, 50.

La Caille, i, 29.

Lacroix, Formon de Boisclair &
Jacques, Jean Audubon's claims
against, i, 33; bills of slaves of, ii,
331-333; 338.

La Dauphine, i, 31.

Lafayette, Marquis de, Louis P.
Caire to, i, 351.

"La Gerbetiere," i, 85, 96, 120, 126;
as boyhood home of Audubon, i,
136-137, 144-145; Audubon's last
visit to, i, 137; situation of, i, 136-
138; in 1913, i, 138-143; Jean Au-
dubon's restoration of, i, 143;
description in old deed of, i, 144;
changes of a century, i, 144.

Lake Champlain, tour of Audubon
to, in 1824, i, 343.

Lake Ontario, tour of Audubon to,
in 1824, i, 343.

Lamarck, Jean Baptiste Antoine de
Monet, i, 13.

La Marianne, Jean Audubon as
cabin boy in, i, 28; at Louisburg,
i, 28; Jean Audubon as lieutenant
of, i, 29.

Landsdowne, Marquis of, i, 398.

Landseer, Sir Edwin, criticism of
painting by, i, 366.

Lanman, Charles, proposal of, i, 17.

L' Annette, Jean Audubon's com-
mand of and interest in, i, 34; con-
cerning sale and settlement of
claims in, i, 121, 265.

La Rochelle, as port of Jean Audu-
bon's ships, i, 29, 277. See "Audu-
bon of."

Laval, John, award in the settlement
of Dacosta's disputed accounts, i,
168.

Lavigne, L., i, 34, 46, 57, 83, 87, 116,
128, 144, 269.

Lavigne, Mme. L., i, 269.

Lawrence, Sir Thomas, i, 356, 377,
380, 393-394.

Lawson, Alexander, Wilson to, i,
212; Wilson's debt to, as the en-
graver of his Ornithology, i, 213;
the daughter of, i, 219; his state-
ment regarding the mysterious fly-
catcher, i, 227; as Bonaparte's en-
graver, i, 330; report of his inter-
view with Audubon, i, 330.

488

INDEX

Lawson, Malvinia, on Wilson's pub-
lisher, i, 219.

Lea, Isaac, on Rafinesque, i, 297; ii,
4, 56, 95, 98, 422.

Leach, William Elford, i, 353.

Le Comte d'Artois. See Count of
Artois.

Le Conte, Joseph, i, 171.

Lehman, George, ii, 2, 9, 12, 25.

Le Marquis de Levy, Jean Audu-
bon's command of, i, 31.

Le Printemps, i, 29.

Le Propre, i, 30.

Les Sables d'Olonne, Pierre Audu-
bon's family at, i, 26; its hostility
to the Revolution, i, 27; as home
port of Jean Audubon's ships, i,
28; mission of Jean Audubon to,
i, 80-81; 83.

Leslie, Charles Robert, comment on
the American Ornithology, i, 217.

"Les Tourterelles," death of Mme.
Audubon at, i, 263; death of Rosa
Audubon at, i, 269.

Le Sueur, Charles Alexandre, i, 294,
328; appearance of, i, 333; ii, 157.

Letters in facsimile, "Audubon &
Bakewell" to Rozier, i, 251 ; Audu-
bon to Edward Harris, i, 332;
Samuel Latham Mitchell to Dr.
Barnes, i, 337; William Swainson
to Audubon, i, 402; Charles Lu-
cien Bonaparte to Audubon, i, 417;
George Parkman to Audubon, ii,
43; Robert Havell to Audubon, ii,
51 ; William MacGillivray to Au-
dubon, ii, 132; Edward Harris to
Audubon, ii, 251 ; John Bachman
to George Oates, ii, 282; Audubon
to Edward Harris, ii, 287.

L'Eveille, Jean Audubon's command
of, i, 82.

Lincoln, Thomas, ii, 43; "Lincoln's
Finch," ii, 45, 50.

Linnaean Society, Audubon's election
to, i, 397; manuscripts in posses-
sion of, i, 400.

L'Instituteur, Jean Audubon's com-
mand of, i, 82.

Lissabe, Mme. Jean Louis, suit by,
i, 28, 263.

Literary Gazette (London), on
Brown's Illustrations, i, 444; an-
nouncement of publication of the
Ornithological Biography, i, 444;
Audubon's premature obituary in,
ii, 2.

Little and Brown, Messrs., ii, 230.

Liverpool, arrival of Audubon at, in
1826, i, 350; his reception and
friends at, i, 352-355; exhibition
of Audubon's drawings at, i, 354.

Livingston, Robert M., first steamer
on the Ohio River, built by, i, 236.

Lizars, Daniel, Audubon to, i, 385.

Lizars, William Home, as Audubon's
engraver, i, 358-359, 361, 375, 384,
442-443; his plates of The Birds of
America, i, 195-199.

Lockhart, John Gibson, i, 445.

London Colney, residence of William
Swainson at, i, 403; death of Mrs.
Swainson at, i, 403.

London, recollections of Audubon in,
i, 11; site of Havell's engraving
establishment in, i, 12; Audubon
in, i, 377-419; his first impressions
of, i, 377; rebirth of The Birds of
America in, i, 384; his dislike of,
i, 397; completion of his Birds in,
ii, 177.

Loon (Gavia immer), "Great North-
ern Diver," original drawing of,
ii, 47.

Loudon, John C, editorial enterprise
of, i, 399.

Louisburg, Jean Audubon made
prisoner at, i, 28.

Louisville (Kentucky), diary of a
journey from Philadelphia to, in
1807, i, 187-192; establishment of
Audubon & Rozier at, i, 192; pros-
pects and hospitality of the peo-
ple, i, 196-198; birth of Victor

INDEX

489

Gifford Audubon at, i, 198; arriv- ?

al of Alexander Wilson at, i, 205;

a meeting of rivals at, i, 220-226;

in 1810, i, 233; Audubon's legal

troubles at, i, 260.
Lubbock, Sir John, baron Avebury,

characteristics in youth of, i, 93.
Lyceum of Natural History (New

York), activities of in 1817, i, 171;

introduction of Audubon to, i,

336.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, on
Addison, i, 6.

MacGillivray, John, ii, 298.

MacGillivray, William, i, 12; ii, 108,
113-114; his assistance to Audu-
bon, ii, 125-138; to Audubon, ii.
126-128, 130-132, 134; his methods
of work, ii, 127-129; his History of
British Birds, ii, 130, 135-136; his
contract with Audubon, ii, 134;
character and scholarship, ii, 134-
136; his writings, ii, 135; Audu-
bon's acknowledgments to, ii, 137;
his copy of the Ornithological
Biography, ii, 138; Audubon at
work with, ii, 178-180, 181; Audu-
bon's tour with, ii, 182; Audubon's
memorandum of account with, ii,
188.

MacLeay, William Sharp, ii, 94.

Magpie (Pica rustica), Audubon's
early drawing of, i, 178.

Mallory, E., on Mrs. John James
Audubon, ii, 303.

Mallory, Eliza, ii, 283.

Mallory, Georgianna Richards. See
Mrs. Victor Gifford Audubon.

Manchester, visit of Audubon at, in
1826, i, 356; Audubon's success in
canvassing at, i, 376.

Marigny, Bernard, his birth, i, 70;
acquisition of "Fontainebleau," i,
70; his service in France and re-
turn to the United States, i, 71;
act of the Government to estab-

lish his disputed claim to land, i,
71; origin of "Fontainebleau," and
description of his property, i, 71 ;
foundation of Mandeville, i, 71 ;
friendship with Audubon, i, 72; his
death, i, 72.

Marigny myth, i, 68-71.

Mark, Edward L., i, 308.

Marten, Pennant's, Fisher (Mustela
pennanti), Baird and Audubon on,
ii, 263.

Martin, Catharine, i, 27.

Martin, Maria, ii, 6, 32, 61; Audu-
bon to, ii, 65, 156; marriage of, ii,
281 ; dedication to, ii, 281, 283. See
Mrs. John Bachman.

Martin, Marie Anne, i, 26.

Martin, Pierre, Jean Audubon as
sailor under, i, 30.

Mason, Joseph R., as Audubon's
assistant in 1820-1822, i, 307, 312,
313-316; his return to Philadel-
phia, i, 321; ii, 69.

Mauch Chunk. See Great Pine For-
est.

McKenney, Thomas L., on Audubon,
ii, 52.

McLane, Louis, ii, 5 ; Levi Woodbury
to, ii, 23.

Meadville (Pennsylvania), "Episode"
of Audubon at, in 1824, i, 341-343;
and itinerant portrait at, i, 342.

Mease, Dr. William, i, 327.

Merchant-traders, means of travel
and hardships of, i, 234-236; their
journeys by flatboat and horse to
and from the West, i, 234-236.

Mill of Audubon, Bakewell and
Pears, at Henderson (Kentucky),
history of the building, operation
and failure of, i, 254-257; lease of
land for, i, 254; description of
relic of, in 1879 and 1883, i, 254;
difficulties with operation of, i,
255; cost, conversion and destruc-
tion of, i, 255; reorganization for
working of, i, 256; bill rendered

490

INDEX

for products of, i, 256; final fail-
ure and closure of, i, 257; Audu-
bon's financial and legal troubles
following failure of, i, 257-261.
"Mill Grove," Jean Audubon's pur-
chase, i, 37, 105; Audubon's ar-
rival at, i, 99-101 ; tenant and rent
of, i, 101; acquisition and preser-
vation by the Wetherills, i, 102;
situation and characteristics, i,
102; old conveyances and designa-
tion, i, 103; first miller and build-
er, i, 104; mills and farm house
at, i, 104; the Prevost mortgage, i,
105, 122; Jean Audubon's lease
and inventory, i, 105; stay of Au-
dubon at, i, 106; Jean Audubon's
portrait at, i, 106 ; bird studies at, i,
106; discovery of lead and arrival
of Dacosta, i, 113; Dacosta's one-
half interest and exploitation of
mine, i, 114; analysis of his lead
ore, i, 114; Claude Francois Ro-
zier's interest, i, 115; the Audubon,
Dacosta, Rozier partnership and
its difficulties, i, 115; instructions
concerning farmhouse at, i, 118;
Audubon and Rozier as agents for
conduct and sale of, i, 132; Au-
dubon's and Rozier's duties at, i,
146; status of house in their "Ar-
ticles," i, 147; story of later min-
ing enterprises at, i, 148-150, 152-
153, 167-170; consideration for sale
of remaining Audubon and Rozier
interests to Dacosta and Company,
i, 149; division of the property,
and sale of the Audubon and Ro-
zier rights, i, 150, 152-153; Audu-
bon's conflicting references to sale
of, i, 158, 159-160, 162, 165-168;
difficulties over conditional sale of,
i, 168; unraveling the tangle, i,
169; Dacosta's contested accounts,
and award in their settlement, i,
168; sequel to story of mine at, i,
169; products of mine at, i, 199.

Milestown (Pennsylvania), Alexan-
der Wilson, as teacher at, i, 212.

Miller, Sarah, Wilson to, i, 206.

"Minnie's Land," purchase of estate
of, ii, 234; building of house at, ii,
234; Audubon at, ii, 236-238; Au-
dubon's account of, ii, 245-246;
houses of Audubon's sons at, ii,
294-295, 311-312; the "Cave" at, ii,
295, 312; departure of Mrs. John
James Audubon from, ii, 300;
building activities and changes at,
ii, 309; present condition of origi-
nal houses at, ii, 309-311; early
representations of Audubon's
house at, ii, 311.

Miquelon Island, voyage of Jean Au-
dubon to, i, 29.

Mississippi River, Audubon's cruise
on in 1820, i, 307.

Missouri River, Audubon's expe-
riences and discoveries on, in 1843,
ii, 252-256.

Mitchell, Doctor Samuel Latham, his
friendship with Audubon, i, 171;
his repute and activities, i, 171; as
friend of Rafinesque, i, 290; his
introduction of Audubon and let-
ter to Dr. Barnes, i, 336.

Mocquard, Francoise, i, 55, 86.

Morris, George Spencer, i, 331.

Morris, Samuel C, purchase of "Mill
Grove" by, i, 105.

Morristown (New Jersey), stay of
Audubon at, i, 99.

Morse, Samuel Finley Preese, as Au-
dubon's guest, ii, 311.

Morton, Countess of, as patron and
pupil of Audubon, i, 365.

Morton, Earl of, record of a visit
to the home of, i, 363.

Morton, Samuel George, ii, 154, 171,
172.

Moynet (Moynette, Moinet), Anne.
See Mme. Jean Audubon.

Muguet, i, 56, 57, 59, 61. See Mme.
Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau.

INDEX

401

Mulattoes, numbers and plight of, in
Santo Domingo, i, 43; as slave
holders, i, 44; revolt under Oge, i,
50; first clash with whites at Les
Cayes, i, 50; union with the blacks
and beginning of general revolt,
i, 51.

Murray, John, i, 377; Basil Hall to,
i, 378.

Nantes, Jean Audubon at, i, 30-32;
his places of residence, i, 36, 57-58,
86-87; in the Revolution, i, 59, 73-
74; Committee of Public Safety
and National Guard of, i, 74; at-
tack and siege of, i, 74; accept-
ance of republican constitution by,
i, 75; reign of terror under Car-
rier at, i, 75; fate of Vendeans at,
i, 75; savior of, i, 76; victims of
Carrier and the plague at, i, 75;
execution of Charette at, i, 76;
raided by "Tete-Caree," i, 77;
restoration of peace at, i, 77; revo-
lutionary records of, i, 78; Jean
Audubon's activities, i, 78-82; his
death at, i, 87; his appreciation by,
i, 83.

Natchez (Mississippi), visit of Au-
dubon, i, 308; loss of his portfolio
at, i, 309; as teacher at, i, 321; his
first lessons in oils, i, 321 ; engage-
ment of Mrs. Audubon, i, 322; ill-
ness of Audubon, i, 324.

National Assembly of Paris, Declara-
tion of Rights, of, i, 49; vacillat-
ing policies of, i, 51.

National Gazette, on Audubon, ii,
41-42, 50-51.

Natural History of Deeside and
Braemar, ii, 136.

Neuwied, Maximillian, ii, 255.

Newark (New Jersey), Alexander
Wilson at, i, 210.

New Castle (Delaware), landing of
Alexander Wilson at, i, 209.

New Haven (Connecticut), establish-

ment of William and Benjamin
Bakewell at, i, 201.

Newman Street, Havell's shop in, i,
12.

New Orleans (Louisiana), memorial
to Audubon at, i, 13; Alexander
Wilson at, i, 207; Audubon at, i,
306-310; his struggles to gain a
footing at, i, 310-312; as teacher
at, i, 318; settlement and financial
difficulties at, i, 319; engagement
of Mrs. Audubon at, i, 322; Audu-
bon embarks for Liverpool at, i,
347; his observations at, i, 348.

Newton, Alfred, i, 444; ii, 223.

New York (New York), memorials
to Audubon at, i, 13; Jean Audu-
bon a prisoner at, i, 32; his re-
lease, i, 32, 34; disbanding of the
British army at, i, 35; Audubon's
introduction to, i, 99; pestilence
at, i, 99; 135; Audubon's original
drawings at, i, 228; Vanderlyn's
portrait of Andrew Jackson in
City Hall of, i, 338 ; Audubon's de-
scription of landing at, in 1836,
ii, 146; his success in canvassing
at, ii, 153; his old residence and
estate, ii, 234-236, 310-312.

Neio York Herald, account of "Mill
Grove" mine in, i, 114.

Niagara Falls (New York), Alex-
ander Wilson at, i, 216; Audubon
at, i, 340; ii, 167.

Nighthawk (Chordeiles virginianus) ,
Audubon's early drawing of, i, 180.

Nolte, Vincent, on Audubon in 1811,
i, 277; his journey from Pitts-
burgh to Lexington, i, 276-279;
352.

Northumberland, Duke of, i, 377.

Nuttall, Thomas, collection of west-
ern birds of, ii, 147, 149, 153-154;
156; meeting with Audubon, ii,
150; career and writings, ii,
150.

Nymphcea. See Water-lily.

492

INDEX

"Oakley," plantation and house of, i,
313-315; Audubon's pupil and his
life as tutor at, i, 315-318; his
drawings at, i, 316; ii, 74.

Oates, George, ii, 211, 218.

Oge, James, rebellion and death of,
i, 50; its effect upon the Santo
Domingan whites, i, 50.

Ohio River, Audubon's description
of journey on, i, 195; Wilson's
journey in 1810, i, 205; traffic of
the "ark" and keel boat, in 1810,
i, 234-236; first steamer, and steam
traffic on, i, 236; Audubon's expe-
rience at the mouth of, i, 238;
breaking up of the ice in, i, 241;
Rafinesque on fishes of, i, 292; Au-
dubon's descent of, in 1820, i, 307.

Ord, George, on Alexander Wilson,
i, 211; as Wilson's editor and biog-
rapher, i, 217, 223-225; his octavo
edition of Wilson, i, 223; defense
of Wilson and charge against Au-
dubon, i, 226-228; 230; basis of his
attack on Audubon, i, 227, 231-
232; his opposition to Audubon, i,
328-329; 333, 339, 422; ii, 4, 27, 55,
61, 72, 80, 83; as Waterton's corre-
spondent, ii, 87-88, 91 ; 98, 284.

Orleans, Duke of, as Audubon's pa-
tron, i, 3, 411-412.

Ornithological Biography, descrip-
tion of Bird Rock in, i, 9 ; story of
the Pewee, i, 99, 106-107; on the
Velvet Duck, i, 182; journey down
the Ohio River, i, 195; Alexander
Wilson's visit to Louisville, i, 220-
223; Wilson on the Whooping
Crane, i, 227; discrepancies in
"Episodes" in, i, 273; "Louisville
in Kentucky," i, 274; "The Prai-
rie," i, 274, 282-284; "A Wild
Horse," i, 274-276; "The Eccentric
Naturalist," i, 274, 285-300; "The
Earthquake," i, 279; "The Hurri-
cane," i, 280; "The Regulators," i,
281; "Colonel Boone," i, 281;

Natchez, i, 308; on The Birds of
America, i, 343; publication of, i,
438; MacGillivray's assistance in,
i, 438; rivals of, i, 438-439; 442-
445 ; American copyright of, i, 439 ;
publisher's announcement, i, 444-
445, 448; the Athenceum on, ii, 84-
85, 140, 142; W. B. O. Peabody
on, ii, 85; Featherstonhaugh on, ii,
85; on the authorship of, ii, 87-89,
102-103, 103-109; on new species
in, ii, 109-111; "Ornithophilus" on,
ii, 111, 112; Swainson on, ii, 113;
and MacGillivray, ii, 125-138; Au-
dubon on American Edition of, ii,
134, 141 ; MacGillivray's copy of,
ii, 138; John Wilson on, ii, 139;
third volume of, ii, 144, 178-180;
fourth volume of, ii, 181; comple-
tion of, ii, 186; valedictory to
reader, ii, 187; memorandum of
accounts with MacGillivray for
assistance in, ii, 188; Audubon on
residual stock of, ii, 189.

Ornithological Gallery, plan and
abandonment of, by Audubon and
Kidd, i, 446.

Orr, Charles, correspondence of
Alexander Wilson, with, i, 210-212.

Osprey, Fish Hawk (Pandion hali-
aetus), early drawing by Audubon,
i, 182.

Otter, original painting and exhibi-
tion of, i, 394.

Oven-bird (Seiurus aurocapillus),
"Golden-crowned Thrush," Audu-
bon's original drawing of, i, 425.

Owen, David Dale, i, 294.

Owen, Sir Richard, i, 354.

Owensboro (Kentucky), i, 236.

Oxford Street (London), i, 11.

Page, Benjamin, i, 256.
Paimboeuf, i, 32, 80, 137.
Palmer, Sarah White, i, 124.
Palmer, Theodore Sherman, ii, 293.
Pamar, R., i, 318, 348.

INDEX

493

Paris, in 1828, i, 2; Audubon at, i,
74, 408-413, 448; his reception and
patronage at, i, 410-413.

Parkman, Dr. George, ii, 29, 35, 36;
to Audubon, ii, 42-43; 57, 59, 134,
141 ; Audubon to, ii, 22T.

Patterson, W. D., i, 231 ; ii, 352.

Peabody, W. B. O., i, 231; ii, 200.

Peale, Rembrandt, i 328.

Peale, Robert, i, 328.

Peale, Titian R., his drawings of
birds, i, 330.

Pears, Thomas W., i, 124; as part-
ner of Audubon and Bakewell, i,
254; his withdrawal, i, 255, 426.

Peel, Sir Robert, i, 377.

Penal laws, in England, i, 395.

Penn, John, i, 105.

Penn, William, land purchase by, i,
103.

Percy, Capt. Robert, Mrs. Audu-
bon's school at plantation of, i,
322; Audubon at plantation of, i,
324.

Perkins, Thomas H., ii, 28, 29, 39,
150.

Perkioming Consolidated Mining
Company, i, 169.

Perkioming Creek, i, 103-104, 106.

Perry town (Sutton, New Hamp-
shire), i, 284.

Pewee, Phoebe (Sayornis phcebe),
Audubon on, i, 99; his first study
of, i, 106; original drawing of, i,
180.

Pewee, Wood (Myiochanes virens),
Audubon's original drawing of, i,
180, 425.

Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), recep-
tion of Audubon at, i, 327-335; a
meeting of the Academy of Natu-
ral Sciences at, i, 333; ii, 154.

Philarete-Chasles, impressions of Au-
dubon's exhibition at Edinburgh, i,
359.

Phillips, Dr Benjamin, ii, 144-145,
223-224; Audubon to, ii, 244-246.

Phoebe, Say's (Sayornis sayus), i,
330.

Picas auduboni, ii, 113.

Pigeon, Passenger (Ectopistes rni-
gratorius), Audubon's original
painting of, i, 363; Audubon on,
i, 368.

Pirrie, Eliza, as Audubon's pupil,
and her romantic history, i, 315,
317-318.

Pirrie, James, i, 315; Audubon's
drawings made at plantation of, i,
316.

Pirrie, Mrs. James, engagement of
Audubon by, i, 313; her home and
family, i, 313-318.

Pitois, M., i, 432.

Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania), record
of journey from Philadelphia to,
in 1807, i, 187-191; characteriza-
tion, growth and population of, i,
191; Wilson's description of, in
1810, i, 204; 343, 344.

Plaisance, Samuel, i, 123, 265.

Planters (Santo Domingo), their
prosperity and grievances, i, 42-
44; their morality and vicissitudes,
i, 44-46; their revolt, i, 49-51.

Polly, Audubon's and Rozier's voy-
age on, i, 134-135, 187.

Pope, John, i, 237.

Pornic, mission of Citizen Audubon
to, i, 79.

Porter, Dr. Edmund, to Dr. Thomas
Miner, i, 333.

Posey, Fayette, i, 258.

Presque Isle, i, 340.

Priestley, Joseph, i, 154, 200-201.

Prospectus, of American Ornithol-
ogy (Wilson), i, 217; of The Birds
of America, i, 373; of first octa-
vo edition, ii, 211-214; reproduc-
tion of (for 1828) for original fo-
lio, ii, 386-388; reproduction of
(by J. W. Audubon), for second
(partial) American edition of
original folio, ii, 389-391.

494

INDEX

Provost, Henry Augustin, i, 105-106,
122.

Quadrupeds of North America, i,
17; Bachman to Audubon on, ii,
208; Audubon to Brewer on, ii,
209; on Bachman's cooperation in,
ii, 210; Audubon to Baird on, ii,
219-221, 222, 226-227, 233; Audu-
bon to Parkman, ii, 227; to W. O.
Ayres, ii, 229; Parke Godwin on,
ii, 236; editions of, ii, 261; Bach-
man on text of, ii, 261-263, 269-
272, 281-283; Baird on materials
for, ii, 263, 264, 274, 276-277, 278;
Audubon on letterpress of, ii, 265;
Harris as mediator in difficulties
with letterpress of, ii, 269; coop-
eration of authors in, ii, 273; sub-
scribers to, ii, 274; Louis Agassiz
on, ii, 274; title of text of, ii, 275;
English edition of first volume of
text of, ii, 280; dedication copy of
first volume of text of, ii, 280; J.
E. Gray on, ii, 281; manuscript of
text of, ii, 283; Illustrations of, ii,
285; in octavo, ii, 293.

Quebec, Audubon's visit and success
in, ii, 244.

Queen, Jean Audubon's fight in, i, 35.

Queen Charlotte (La Reine Char-
lotte), Captain Jean Audubon's
command of, at Yorktown, i, 34.

Quinarianism, curious tenets and ad-
vocacy of, ii, 94, 95, 104, 109, 114,
116, 117.

Quincy, Josiah, ii, 29, 150.

Rabin, Mile., birth of son of, i, 52;
as characterized by Jean Audubon,
i, 52; record of physician of, i,
53; her feeble health and death, i,
56; suppression of her name, i, 60;
early and assumed names of her
son, i, 62; as characterized by her
son, i, 63, 66; fictitious account of
death of, i, 67.

Rabin, Jean, i, 53, 57, 61, 62, 63, 64,
263, 264; ii, 361, 362, 364. See Jean
Jacques Fougere Audubon.

Rafinesque, Constantine Samuel
(Schmaltz), i, 171; his travels,
writings and career, i, 285-300;
Audubon on, i, 285; and the bats,
i, 286; his early life and precocity,
i, 287; his bibliography, i, 287;
visit to America, i, 288; life in
Sicily, i, 288; marriage and embit-
terment, i, 289; return to America
and shipwreck, i, 290; visits Audu-
bon, i, 290; his "scarlet-headed
swallow" and fictitious fishes, i,
291; his Ichthyology of the Ohio
River and "Devil-Jack Diamond-
fish," i, 292; at Transylvania Uni-
versity, i, 294; originality and in-
dependence, i, 295; impractical
projects and inventions, i, 295-296,
298; troubles at Lexington and re-
turn to Philadelphia, i, 296; his
mania for new species, i, 296; his
letters, i, 297; his multifarious
writings, final struggles and death,
i, 297-299; his ardor and fatal ver-
satility, i, 299; contemporary no-
tice of, i, 333.

"Rafinesquiana," i, 287.

Rambler, i, 7.

Ramsden, George, Edward Holden
to, i, 351.

Rankin, Dr. Adam, i, 238, 242; his
"Meadow Brook Farm," i, 248;
birth of John Woodhouse Audu-
bon at home of, i, 248.

Rankin, William, i, 248.

Rathbone, Richard, introduction of
Audubon to, i, 352.

Rathbone, William, Sr., assistance
rendered Audubon by, i, 352.

Rathbone, Mrs. William, Sr., at
"Greenbank," i, 353; gift to Au-
dubon by, i, 355.

Rathbone, William, Jr., i, 352.

Rattlesnake, Audubon's account of

INDEX

49,5

drawing of, i, 316; climbing habits
of, ii, 53-54, 64; Audubon on, ii,
71-76; Dr. Jones' charge concern-
ing, ii, 72; Audubon's error in
description of, ii, 76-78; vindica-
tion of Audubon's drawing and
account of the fangs of, ii, 79.

Rattlesnake, encounter of the Polly
with, i, 134-135, 187.

Redbanks. See Henderson.

Redbird, Summer Tanager (Piranga
rubra), Audubon's drawing of, i,
316.

Redouts, Pierre Joseph, works and
friendship of, i, 411.

Red River (Arkansas), drawing of
the Chuck-wilPs-widow on, i, 182.

Redstart, American (Setophaga ru-
ticilla), Audubon's early drawings
of, i, 181, 316.

Rees, Abraham, i, 216.

Rees, William J., ii, 62.

"Regulus cuvieri," "Cuvier's Wren,"
i, 180, 354; ii, 215, 219.

Rhoads, Samuel N., i, 291; ii, 202.

Richardson, John, ii, 98, 105, 106.

Ricordel, Mme. See Mme. Jean Au-
dubon.

Rider, Alexander, i, 331.

Ridgely, D., ii, 38.

Ripley, the voyage of, ii, 43-50.

Robertson, John Argyle, ii, 183.

Robin, American (Planesticus rni-
gratorvus), Audubon's early draw-
ing of, i, 182.

Rochambeau, Comte de, i, 34.

Rochefort, i, 30, 83, 93, 94.

Roe Lockwood & Son, ii, 296.

Roget, Dr. Peter Mark, i, 377.

Roscoe, Edward, i, 352, 353, 354.

Roscoe, William, i, 218.

Ross, David (and Company), i, 57,
121-123, 265, 266.

Rothschild, Baron, Audubon's ac-
count of interview with, ii, 206.

Rowan, William, i, 400.

Roy, Constance (Rozier), i, 245.

Royal Society (London), Audubon's
election to membership in, i, 437;
William Swainson on his election,
ii, 97.

Rozier, Charles A., i, 146.

Rozier, Claude Francois, i, 147; Fer-
dinand Rozier to, i, 149-152; his
family, i, 152; his death, i, 152;
and Benjamin Bakewell, i, 154;
Audubon to, i, 154, 156-158, 161-
163, 164-166.

Rozier, Felix, i, 246.

Rozier, Ferdinand, i, 146; his "Ar-
ticles," i, 147; to his father, i, 149-
152; at Philadelphia, i, 153; as at-
torney for Lieutenant Audubon
and his wife, i, 153; his business
plans, i, 156-158, 161-162, 165; his
diary, i, 187-192; Thomas Bake-
well to, i, 196; William Bakewell
to, i, 199; removes from Louis-
ville to Henderson, i, 236; removes
with Audubon to Ste. Genevieve, i,
237-241 ; dissolves partnership with
Audubon, i, 241 ; Audubon to,
i, 243; career of, i, 244-246; his
death, i, 246; "Audubon & Bake-
well" to, i, 251; ii, 359.

Rozier, Firman A., i, 246.

Rozier, Francois Denis, i, 154.

Rozier (Colas), Renee Angelique,
death of, i, 152.

Rozier, Tom J., i, 196.

Rozier, Welton A., manuscripts in
possession of, i, 149, 168, 187.

Rue de Crebillon, Jean Audubon's
home in, i, 57.

Rush, Dr. Benjamin, i, 288.

Russell, W. Gurdon, ii, 204.

Saget (mayor of Nantes), i, 77.

St. Albans, i, 403.

St. Augustine, Audubon's description
of, ii, 12; hunting birds at, ii, 12.

St. Francisville (Louisiana), en-
gagement of Audubon at, i, 313;
origin of name, i, 314; character

496

INDEX

of country and abundance of
birds, i, 314; Audubon as tutor at,
i, 315-318; Mrs. Audubon's school,
i, 322; former wealth of country,
i, 323, 345.

Sainte Genevieve (Missouri), Audu-
bon's journey to, i, 237-241; dis-
solution of partnership with Ro-
sier at, i, 241 ; Audubon's subse-
quent visits, i, 242; Ferdinand Ro-
zier's career at, i, 244-247.

St. John, Mrs. Horace Roscoe Steb-
bing, i, 17.

St. Johns, ii, 244.

Saint Louis (Santo Domingo), i, 39,
41.

Sammis, Capt. S., i, 131, 156, 158,
159, 164, 187.

Sandpiper, Spotted (Actitis rnacula-
ria), Audubon's early drawing of,
i, 249.

Sanson, Dr., as Jean Audubon's
physician, i, 53; his bill of services,
resources and favorite remedies, i,
53; his inoculations for smallpox,
i, 55; his treatment of Audubon's
mother, i, 56; for complete text
of bill, with translation, see ii, 314-
327.

Santo Domingo, pre-revolutionary
lure of, i, 36; Jean Audubon's ca-
reer in, i, 36-38; effect of the
Declaration of Rights on, i, 37;
slave trade at, i, 39-41 ; cost of
slaves at, i, 40; prosperity and
praise of, i, 42; population of
whites and blacks in 1790, i, 42;
plight of mulattoes and history of
slavery in, i, 43; Baron de Wimpf-
fen's experience with society and
plantation life, i, 44-48; unjust
taxation, i, 44, 46; debasement of
morals, i, 45; bossals, Creoles and
mulattoes, i, 44-47; outbreak and
progress of the Revolution, i, 49-
51 ; the Revolution in relation to
the history of Jean and Jean

Jacques Fougere Audubon, i, 50;
Les Cayes first touched by Revo-
lution of, i, 50; first blood drawn
in the North, i, 50; Oge's futile
rebellion, i, 50; later events in ris-
ing of blacks and mulattoes
against whites, i, 50; physicians
and their remedies in, i, 54.

Sautron, i, 139.

Savenay, i, 78.

Say, Thomas, i, 294, 330, 333-334.

Sayornis say a, i, 330.

Sayre, Robert H., ii, 7.

Scott, Sir Walter, on Audubon's ex-
hibition, i, 359; Audubon on, I,
365; on Audubon, i, 366-368; 370.

Scott, Winfield, ii, 242.

Searles, Edward F., ii, 203.

Seaside Finch (Passerherbulus mari-
timus), original drawing of, i, 425.

Sedgwick, Adam, i, 399.

Selby, Prideaux John, Audubon's
visit to, i, 374; Illustrations of
British Ornithology by, i, 375; to
Audubon, i, 375; ii, 102.

Serinettes, i, 163.

Shannonville (Pennsylvania), i, 102.

Sharp, William, i, 209.

Shattuck, Dr. George C, ii, 29, 35,
43, 150, 151, 228.

Shattuck, Dr. George Cheyne, as Au-
dubon's assistant, ii, 43; as philan-
thropist, ii, 43; 228.

Shippingport (Kentucky), Audubon
as peripatetic portrait painter at,
i, 303; 326, 345.

Slack, Elijah, on Audubon's term of
service at the Western Museum, i,
304; as president of Cincinnati
College, i, 305.

Slaves (in Santo Domingo), numbers
delivered at Les Cayes, i, 31; as a
basis of wealth, i, 39; trade in, i,
39-41; numbers and mortality of,
i, 42; management of, i, 43-47;
diseases of, i, 46; cost and taxes
of, i, 46; revolt of, i, 49-51.

INDEX

497

Smallpox, i, 55-

Smith, Rebecca (Bakewell), i, 201.

Smith, Rev. Sidney, i, 369, 372.

Smvthe, Henry A., ii, 310.

Sparrow, Baird's (Emberiza bairdii,
Audubon, 1844; now Ammodramus
balrdi), ii, 259.

Sparrow, Harris's (Zonotrichia que-
rula), ii, 253.

Sparrow, Swamp (Melospiza georgi-
ana), Audubon's early drawing of,
i, 249.

Sparrow, Vesper (Pooecetes grami-
neu-s), "Bay-winged Bunting,"
original drawing of, i, 425.

Spencer, John C, ii, 242.

Sprague, Isaac, ii, 252.

Stanilaus, Francis Alexander (Baron
de WimpfFen), i, 44; his experi-
ences and observations as planter
in Santo Domingo, i, 44-48.

Stanley, Edward George Geoffrey
Smith (fourteenth Earl of Derby),
i, 354, 380, 437.

"Stanley Hawk" (Falco stanleyi,
now Accipiter cooperi), Cooper's
Hawk. See Falco.

Starling, Edmund L., i, 236, 250,
252, 256-257.

Sterling, Mrs. Frederick A., i, 342.

Stoddard, Rev. Charles Augustus,
tribute to Mrs. John James Audu-
bon, ii, 303.

Stone, Charles F., ii, 311.

Stone, Witnier, ii, 214.

Stuart, Gilbert, i, 336.

Sturnella neglecta, Western Meadow
Lark, ii, 254.

Sully, Thomas, i, 2, 328; Audubon as
pupil of, i, 334; to Audubon, i,
334; Audubon to, i, 339; ii, 68-71.

Sully, Mrs. Thomas, Audubon to, i,
389.

Swainson, William, on Rafinesque, i,
289, 377, 395; correspondence of,
i, 400; Audubon to, i, 400-401, 405-
407, 409-410; ii, 95-97, 99, 101-103,

112, 176-177, 353; to Audubon, l,
402, 413-414, 422-423, 430-431; ii,
97-101, 103-108; characteristics, i,
402; on Audubon, i, 403; Audubon
at home of, i, 404; with Audubon
in Paris, i, 408-412; 415; ii, 84; in
controversy over the Ornithological
Biography, ii, 88, 93-109; as leader
in the Quinarian movement, ii, 93-
95, 114, 116-117; Audubon's propo-
sal for assistance of, ii, 102; his re-
sponse and answer to a later letter,
ii, 103-108; their subsequent rela-
tions, ii, 111-114; as biographer,
ii, 113-116; Literary Gazette on, ii,
113; as the "British Cuvier," ii,
114; his career and adversities, ii,
117; his emigration and death, ii,
118; 173.

Sylvia (Helinaria) swainsonii, ii,
113.

Syme, John, i, 361.

Synopsis of Birds of North America,
publication of, ii, 186; number of
species recognized in, 186.

Tawapatee Bottom, i, 240.

Taylor, Richard C, ii, 77.

Thayer, John E., i, 307, 363; ii, 227,
229.

Tete-Caree. See Dupre.

Texas, Audubon's visit to Republic
of, ii, 163-165.

Thackeray, George, ii, 146.

The Foresters, i, 216.

Thomas, William, i, 101, J13, 115,
116, 117, 118, 150, 151.

Thrush, Hermit (Hylocichla ustula-
ta),\, 308.

Thrush, Wood {Hylocichla mustelv-
na), Audubon's early drawing of,
i, 180.

Title pages, in facsimile, The Birds
of America, original folio, i, 381;
prospectus of The Birds of Amer-
ica, i, 391 ; of covers of parts, of
octavo (second) edition of the

498

INDEX

Birds, ii, 213; of English edition
(Vol. I) of The Viviparous Quad-
rupeds of North America, i, 275.

Titmouse, Mountain, Audubon's ear-
ly drawing of, i, 181.

Torrey, John, i, 171.

Townsend, Dr. John Kirk, ii, 147,
149, 153-154, 156, 170-173, 179.

Traill, Dr. Thomas S., i, 353.

Transportation by steam, in the At-
lantic, i, 2; on the Ohio River, i,
236.

Transylvania Company, i, 252.

Transylvania University, i, 294-296,
306.

Treat, Mary, ii, 81.

Trinity Cemetery, i, 13.

Trudeau, James, ii, 184, 185, 186.

Turkey, Wild (Meleagris gallopavo),
i, 311, 355, 358, 363; ii, 198.

"Twizel House," i, 374.

Tyler, John, Audubon's credentials
from, ii, 242.

Tyttenhanger (or Tittenhanger),
Green, i, 403.

Valentine, Edward Virginius, i, 14.

Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), i, 102.

Van Buren, Martin, ii, 153, 166.

Vanderlyn, John, i, 312, 338.

Vaux, James, i, 108.

Vendee, La, i, 24-27.

Vendeans, characteristics and revolt
of, i, 26; Nantes besieged by, i,
74; defeat and fate of, i, 75; exe-
cution of leader of, i, 76-77; 80.

Vigors, Nathaniel Augustus, i, 377;
to Audubon, i, 407-408; 415; ii,
101, 107.

Vireo belli (V. bellii, of Audubon,
1844), Bell's Vireo, ii, 253.

Vireo, Warbling (Vireosylva gilva),
Audubon's original drawing of, i,
425.

Vireo, Yellow-throated (Lanivireo
flavifrons), Audubon's original
drawing of, i, 316.

Vulture, Turkey (Cathartes aura),
and Black, or "Carrion Crow"
(Catharista urubu), controversy
over the sense of smell in, ii, 81-
84; experiments of Audubon and
Bachman on, ii, 55-56, 61, 81-82;
memorial of the faculty of the
South Carolina Medical College on,
ii, 83; present condition of the
question, ii, 83.

Wade, Joseph M., i, 213, 264.

Wagtail, White (Motacilla alba),
Audubon's early drawing of, i,
181.

Wainwright, Rev. Dr., Edward
Everett to, i, 436.

Waller, Sir J. Walter, to Audubon,
i, 392; 406.

Walton, Isaac, i, 206.

Warbler (Sylvia trochilus delicata,
sylvia delicata), Audubon's unpub-
lished drawing of, i, 228.

Warbler, Bay-breasted (Dendroica
castanea), "Autumnal Warbler,"
Audubon's original drawing of, i,
426.

Warbler, Blackburnian (Dendroica
fusca), "Hemlock Warbler," Au-
dubon's original drawing of, i, 180,
426.

Warbler, Black-poll (Dendroica
striata), Audubon's original draw-
ing of, i, 425; ii, 50.

Warbler, Black-throated Blue (Den-
droica carulescens), "Pine Swamp
Warbler," Audubon's original
drawing of, i, 425.

Warbler, Canada (Wilsonki canaden-
sis), "Canada Flycatcher," Audu-
bon's original drawing of, i, 425.

Warbler, Carbonated (Dendroica
carbonata), Audubon's original
drawing of, i, 180.

Warbler, Chestnut-sided (Dendroica
pennsylvanica) , Audubon's orig-
inal drawing of, i, 180.

INDEX

499

Warbler, "Children's," Yellow Warb-
ler (Dendroica (pstiva), i, 354.

Warbler, Connecticut (Oporornis
agilis), Audubon's original draw-
ing of, i, 426.

Warbler, Magnolia {Dendroica mag-
nolia), "Black and Yellow Warb-
ler," Audubon's original drawing
of, i, 425.

Warbler, Pine-creeping (Dendroica
vigorsi), Audubon's original draw-
ing of, i, 316.

Warbler, Prairie (Dendroica dis-
color), Audubon's original draw-
ing of, i, 316.

Warbler, "Rathbone," i, 180, 354.

Warbler, Tennessee (Vermivora per-
egrina), Audubon's original draw-
ing of, i, 316.

Warbler, Yellow-rumped, Myrtle
Warbler (Dendroica coronata),
Audubon's original drawing of, i,
180.

Ward, Henry, ii, 2, 4, 9, 12, 25, 32,
59.

Washington, General George, at Val-
ley Forge, i, 102; Polk's portrait
of, i, 106; at "Fatland Ford," i,
108.

Water-lily, yellow (Nymphcea lu-
tea), ii, 80.

Waterton, Charles, i, 12, 224-232,
415; ii, 55, 61, 73; on Audubon's
drawing of the rattlesnake, ii, 79;
on the vulture's olfactory sense, ii,
82; to George Ord, ii, 83; his
Wanderings, polemics and life at
Walton Hall, ii, 86-92; on Alex-
ander Wilson's diary, ii, 87; on
the Ornithological Biography, ii,
87; on the young Cuckoo and
Hummingbird's nest, ii, 90-91 ;
142.

Watty and Meg, i, 208.

Webster, Daniel, as Audubon's pa-
tron, ii, 151; his letter of recom-
mendation and promise of ducks,

ii, 152; Audubon's credentials
from, ii, 242.

Wellington, ii, 189, 191.

Wernerian Society, i, 183; ii, 72.

Westerman, General, to Citizen Au-
dubon, i, 80.

Western Journal, ii, 298.

Western Museum, Audubon as its
taxidermist, and story of its foun-
dation, i, 303-306.

Wetherill, Samuel, Junior, i, 102,
169; ii, 14.

Wetherill, Samuel Price, i, 102.

Wetherill, Dr. William, i, 201.

Wetherill, W. H., i, 99, 102, 149.

Wheelock, John, i, 218.

Whewell, William, i, 399.

Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vocif-
erws), Audubon's early drawings
of, i, 180, 249.

Whitehall (New York), ii, 244.

White-throated Sparrow (Zonotri-
chia albicollis), Audubon's early
drawing of, i, 249.

Wilkie, David, i, 377.

Williams, George Alfred, on the an-
cestry and achievements of Robert
Havell, Junior, i, 382; ii, 193-195.

Wilson, Alexander, i, 107; his life
and accomplishments, i, 202-220;
his journey of 1810, i, 202; his re-
buke to a judge, i, 203; descrip-
tion of Pittsburgh, i, 204; descends
the Ohio, i, 205; impressions of
Cincinnati and Louisville, i, 205;
success in New Orleans, i, 207; his
meeting with Audubon, i, 207;
early life and struggles, i, 208;
success as a dialect poet, i, 208;
champions the oppressed weavers,
is fined and sent to jail, i, 208;
emigrates to America, i, 209; un-
fortunate love affairs, i, 209, 212,
215, 216; to Charles Orr, i, 210-
212; George Ord on, i, 211; friend-
ship with Bartram and Lawson, i,
212; his poverty and thrift, i, 214-

500

INDEX

216; his talents and genius, i, 214;
The Foresters, i, 216; his Ameri-
can Ornithology begun, i, 216; his
prospectus and first volume, i, 217;
canvasses New England, i, 218;
journey South and extension of his
work, i, 218; second New England
tour, and his arrest as a spy, i,
219; completion of his seventh vol-
ume and his premature death, i,
219; his character, i, 219; Audu-
bon's account of their meeting in
Louisville, i, 220-223; Ord's revival
of the incident, i, 223; his diary in
light of later events, i, 224-232;
his evasive flycatcher, i, 226; the
"twin" Mississippi Kites, i, 227-
230; as a later "rival" of Audu-
bon, i, 231-232, 234-235, 311, 422;
mistaken obituary of, ii, 2; Audu-
bon on, ii, 143; number of species
of American birds recognized, ii,
214; and Bachman, ii, 284.

Wilson, James, i, 438.

Wilson, John, i, 362, 385, 447; ii, 84;
Audubon to, ii, 139.

Winterfield, Charles, ii, 121, 256-258;
on Audubon at the ruins of a fire,
ii, 267.

Wollaston, Dr. William Hyde, i, 377.

Wood, Rev. J. G., on Waterton, ii,

89.
Woodbury, Levi, ii, 5; to Louis Mc-

Lane, ii, 23.
Woodpecker, Green, Audubon's early

drawing of, i, 178, 181.
Woodpecker, Red-cockaded (Dryo-

bates borealis), Audubon's early

drawing of, i, 316.
Wren, "Cuvier's." See "Regulus."
Wren, Bewick's (Thryomanes be-

wicki), Audubon's original draw-
ing of, i, 180.
Wren, Marsh (Telmatodytes palus-

tris), original drawing of, i, 425.
Wren, Parkman's (Troglodytes ae-

don parkmani), original specimen,

ii, 227.

Yarrell, William, ii, 58 ; to Audubon,
ii, 223-225, 246-247.

Yellow-throat, "Roscoe's," Maryland
Yellow-throat (Oeothlypis trichas),
i, 354.

Yorktown (Virginia), Jean Audu-
bon's command at, i, 24.

Zoological Gallery, i, 12, 382, 394.
Zoological Society (London), i, 398.
444.

(2)