40 Andrew Fackson Grayson. [ZOE 
chanted. His early love of birds and his first attempts to draw 
them came crowding before his memory. Then he bitterly regretted 
that he had not been permitted to learn to draw when young, that 
he too might create such a work. That eventful day decided his 
life and turned it into its proper channel. He at once made up his 
mind to accomplish a similar work and call it the ‘Birds of the 
Pacific Slope,” and if necessary devote the balance of his life to the 
task. Once his ambition had been crushed by a heartless school- 
master, now there was no one to prevent him, and there was one to 
whose interest in his plans and encouragement of the first attempts 
made possible the achievement which places him to-day second only 
with the artist-ornithologists of the country. He caught the spirit 
of the study as others except the gifted Audubon, have not done. 
He went to work at once to learn to draw from nature and to color. 
His friends were surprised at the progress which he made and could 
not be convinced that he was but self-taught. — 
After a short residence in Marin County, he decided that he 
would be more happy at San Jose, and accordingly purchased a 
piece of land, unimproved, upon which he built his ‘‘ Bird’s Nest 
Cottage,”’ as he and his wife named their home. Fruit trees and 
vines were planted and in this pleasant home he continued the 
practice of drawing. 
In 1855 his wife and a lady friend sent, without his knowledge, 
some of his paintings to the State Fair at Sacramento, where they _ 
were awarded a special premium, a silver cup, upon which was | 
inscribed: 
“Awarded to A. J. Grayson, Esq., for Superior Drawings of the 
Native Birds of California, Exhibited at the Fair, 1855.’’ 
Surprised and greatly encouraged he went to work with renewed 
zeal, and the following year received first premium for water colors 
at the fair in San Jose. However well his drawings pleased the less 
critical observers, they were far from reaching his own idea of the 
perfection for which he strived. pee 
A short residence was made, in the spring of 1859, in Napa Val- 
ley, from whence came most of his notes and drawings of California 
birds, and where the famous drawing of mountain quail which has © 
since been lithographed, life size was made. ae 
Mr. Grayson and wife sailed for Tehuantepec in 1857. It was his 
intention to make Tehuantepec the most southern point for his pro- | 
