SKETCH OF J. J. AUDUBON. 693 



the fruit of years of labor and of almost exclusive preoccupation 

 during the whole time, were destroyed in a single night by rats. He 

 went to work at once, however, to restore his drawings, and did so. 

 Mr. McMurtrie, the conchologist, advised him to take his drawings to 

 England. Prince Canino advised him to go to France. He proceed- 

 ed to New York, having left Philadelphia " free from debt and free 

 from anxiety about the future." In New York he visited the museum 

 and " found the specimens of stuffed birds set up in unnatural and con- 

 strained attitudes. This appears to be tbe universal practice, and the 

 world owes to me the adoption of the plan of drawings from animated 

 nature. Wilson is the only one who has in any tolerable degree 

 adopted my plan." 



The prospect for having his drawings published in New York did 

 not appear very encouraging, although it seemed more hopeful than 

 it had been in Philadelphia. He visited the Lyceum, and his port- 

 folio was examined by the members of the Institute, among whom, he 

 writes, "I felt awkward and uncomfortable." After living among 

 such people I felt clouded and depressed ; remember that I have done 

 nothing, and fear that I may die unknown. I feel I am strange to all 

 but the birds of America. In a few days I shall be in the woods and 

 quite forgotten." On the next day : " My spirits low, and I long for 

 the woods again ; but the prospect of becoming known prompts me 

 to remain another day." He was invited by the artist, Vanderlyn, to 

 sit for a portrait of General Jackson, whom his figure was thought to 

 resemble considerably. 



From New York he proceeded up the Hudson and into the lake- 

 region, visiting Niagara, but not crossing over to Goat Island on ac- 

 count of the low state of his finances ; then returned by way of Erie, 

 Pittsburg, and the rivers, to his home in Bayou Sara. His wife was 

 receiving an income of nearly three thousand dollars a year from her 

 labors in teaching, and he took charge of a class in dancing by which 

 he cleared two thousand dollars ; and with this capital and his wife's 

 savings he was now able to foresee a successful issue to his great 

 ornithological work. 



He had determined upon going to England where, although he 

 knew no one, he hoped that he might find a way to get his plates en- 

 graved. He sailed from New Orleans in May, 1826, and arrived in 

 Liverpool on the 20th of July. He exhibited his pictures, with satis- 

 faction to his visitors at Liverpool and Manchester, to their admira- 

 tion at Edinburgh. He made friends of Herschel, Sir Walter Scott, 

 and " Christopher North," who has left the record of his warm admi- 

 ration for the man and his work in two of his essays, and of Cuvier, 

 Humboldt, and Saint-Hilaire in France. He resolved to go on with 

 the publication of his works, although his friends advised him that 

 the risk was too great to venture upon. In 1827 he issued the pro- 

 spectus of " The Birds of America," to be published in numbers of 



