694 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



five folio plates each, the whole to be included in four volumes, and to 

 be sold for one thousand dollars a copy. The entire cost of the work 

 would exceed one hundred thousand dollars ; yet when the pro- 

 spectus was published he had not money enough to pay for getting 

 out the first number. With the aid of Sir Thomas Lawrence he sold 

 some pictures, and was enabled to carry himself over this difficulty ; 

 and this led the way to his finding a regular means of support while 

 his enterprise was going on, by painting. He visited Paris in 1828, 

 canvassing for subscribers, and experienced an admiration from illus- 

 trious men parallel with that which had greeted him in England. 

 But he does not appear to have appreciated the money value of 

 this admiration as highly as what he found in England, for he wrote : 

 " France is poor indeed ! This day I have attended the Royal Acad- 

 emy of Sciences, and had my plates examined by about one hundred 

 persons. * Fine, very fine,' issued from many mouths ; but they said, 

 also, ' What a work ! what a price ! who can pay it ? ' I recollected 

 that I had thirty subscribers at Manchester, and mentioned it. They 

 stared and seemed surprised ; but acknowledged that England, the 

 little island of England, alone was able to support poor Audubon. . . . 

 Now it is that I plainly see how happy, or lucky, it was in me not to 

 have come to France first ; for if I had, my work now would not 

 have had even a beginning. It would have perished like a flower in 

 October ; and I should have returned to my woods, without the hope 

 of leaving behind that eternal fame which my ambition, industry, and 

 perseverance long to enjoy." Baron Cuvier was requested by the 

 Academy of Sciences to make a verbal report on Audubon's " Birds," 

 and he responded, describing the work "as the most magnificent 

 monument which has yet been erected to ornithology." The author, 

 having returned to his own country after his schooling in France, 

 " thought he could not make a better use of his talents than by repre- 

 senting the most brilliant productions of that hemisphere. The accu- 

 rate observation necessary for such representations as he wished to 

 make soon rendered him a naturalist. . . . Formerly the European 

 naturalists were obliged to make known to America the riches she 

 possessed ; but now Mitchell, Ilarler, and Bonaparte give back with 

 interest to Europe what America had received. Wilson's history of 

 the ' Birds of the United States ' equals in elegance our most beauti- 

 ful works on ornithology. If that of Mr. Audubon should be com- 

 pleted, we shall be obliged to acknowledge that America, in magnifi- 

 cence of execution, has surpassed the Old World." After spending 

 the winter in London, Audubon returned to the United States in April, 

 1829, and made his way, interrupted by excursions in quest of birds, 

 to Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, and the " Great Pine Swamp " in 

 Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, to his home in Louisiana, which 

 he reached in November. His book, in the mean time, was going 

 steadily on, and the first volume was published in London in 1830. It 



