SKETCH OF J. J. AUDUBON. 689 



withstanding the somewhat awkward position the bird is in, there is 

 life in it." The second picture, that of a coot, " is a marked improve- 

 ment on the magpie. Far more pains have been taken with the feet, 

 legs, bill, and eye, though little has been gained in the natural atti- 

 tude of the bird. . . . Except very faintly in the wing, no attempt 

 has been made to individualize the feathers, the entire body being of 

 a dead black, worked in either by burned cork or crayon." Dr. Shu- 

 feldt also remarks that, " as is usually the case among juvenile artists, 

 both this bird and the magpie are represented upon direct lateral view, 

 and no evidence has yet appeared to hint to us of the wonderful power 

 Audubon eventually came to possess in figuring his birds in their 

 every attitude." The green woodpecker "is a wonderful improve- 

 ment, in every particular, upon both of the others. The details of the 

 plumage and other structures are brought out with great delicacy, and 

 refinement of touch ; while the attitude of the bird, an old male, is 

 even better than many of those published in his famous work. The 

 colors are soft, and have been so handled as to lend to the plumage a 

 very flossy and natural appearance, while the old trunk, upon the side 

 of which the bird is represented, presents several evidences of an in- 

 crease of the power to paint such objects." 



When about seventeen or eighteen years old, young Audubon re- 

 turned to the United States, and his father, willing to gratify his now 

 decided tastes, settled him upon a farm which he owned near Phila- 

 delphia, " Mill Grove," at the mouth of Perkiomen Creek. Here he 

 had full opportunity for the gratification of his huntsman's and natu- 

 ralist's inclination, and improved it so industriously that he appeared 

 to be good for little else. Desiring to form a matrimonial engage- 

 ment with Lucy Bakewell, he was advised by the father of the young 

 lady to go into business, and he accordingly entered the employment 

 of a firm in New York ; but even here it was the study of Nature 

 and not trade that engaged his attention. " For a period of twenty 

 years," he confesses in the biographical preface to his " Birds," " my 

 life was a series of vicissitudes. I tried various branches of com- 

 merce, but they all proved unprofitable, doubtless because my whole 

 mind was ever filled with my passion for rambling and admiring those 

 objects of Nature from which alone I received the purest gratifica- 

 tion." It is in connection with the relation of the story of a hurri- 

 cane, while he was living at Henderson, years after his Philadelphia 

 experiences, that he says that, just before the breaking out of the 

 awful storm, his thoughts were, " for once, at least, in the course of 

 my life, entirely engaged in commercial speculations." He soon gave 

 up his New York engagement, and shortly afterward formed a part- 

 nership with Ferdinand Rosier to go into trade at Louisville, Ken- 

 tucky. His settlement at this place having been determined upon, he 

 was married to Miss Bakewell in April, 1808. This lady was a de- 

 scendant of the Peverils of the Peak, one of whom has given name to 



TOL. XXXI. 44 



