688 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more of Audubon. He is the greatest artist in his own walk that ever 

 lived, and can not fail to reap the reward of his genius and perseverance 

 and adventurous zeal in his own beautiful branch of natural history, 

 both in fame and fortune." 



John James Audubon was born near New Orleans, May 4, 1780, 

 and died at the present Audubon Park, New York city, January 27, 

 1851. His father, the son of a fisherman of La Vendee, was a French 

 naval officer, who, having become wealthy, had acquired a plantation 

 in Louisiana, and married a lady of that colony, of Spanish descent. 

 The son imbibed a love of Nature at an extremely early age, which was 

 probably strengthened by his short residence on his father's planta- 

 tion in Santo Domingo, and was not repressed, but mastered the situ- 

 ation when he was sent to France to be educated. It is recorded of 

 him that he was accustomed to amuse himself when a mere child by 

 trying to draw the birds he saw around him ; and that, his crude 

 efforts not being satisfactory, he used to make a bonfire of them at each 

 birthday. His father desired him to be qualified for some occupation 

 connected with the navy, or with engineering. He was sent to France, 

 where the father had bought an estate near Nantes, on which his 

 step-mother was living, to be taught mathematics, drawing, geog- 

 raphy, fencing, and music. His drawing-master was the celebrated 

 artist David, who set him to drawing " horses' heads and the limbs of 

 giants," but he preferred birds, and improved such opportunities as 

 he could get to exercise himself upon them, and spent much of his 

 time in excursions into the woods, collecting specimens, and making 

 drawings of them. The real supervision of his operations was with 

 his indulgent step-mother, who gave him ample scope for the exercise 

 of his own tastes. When Audubon's father returned from sea he was 

 astonished at the large collection his son had made, and then asked 

 what progress he had made in his other studies. The reply not being 

 satisfactory, he took the youth in hand himself, and kept him for a 

 year in the close study of mathematics. But every opportunity for 

 natural history rambles was still improved. Audubon spent another 

 year at Nantes, when he went over after having returned to America, 

 and settled at Mill Grove, to expose the unfaithfulness of an agent 

 whom his father had intrusted with the charge of one of his enter- 

 prises, and to consult his parents respecting marriage. During one of 

 these residences in Nantes he is credited with having made a hundred 

 drawings of European birds. Three specimens of these works have 

 recently come into the hands of Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, who has described 

 them in "The Auk." They are all drawn *in a combination of crayon 

 and water-colors, on a thin and not expensive kind of drawing-paper ; 

 are numbered 44, 77, and 96, and represent the magpie, the coot, and 

 the green woodpecker. The earliest of the sketches is the magpie, 

 represented as of life-size and standing on the ground. " The execu- 

 tion is quite crude, though the naturalist ' sticks out ' in it, for, not- 



