696 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and prairies, which can never be restored or so well described again. 

 Having spent the winter of 1836-'37 at Charleston, with excursions 

 to the sea-islands, Savannah, and Florida, Audubon, in the spring of 

 1837, sailed in a revenue-cutter for explorations in the Gulf of Mexico, 

 of which he has left sketches of scenes in the Louisiana bayous, and 

 in Texas. In 1838 he returned to Edinburgh, where he spent several 

 months in preparing the fourth and fifth volumes of the " Ornitho- 

 logical Biography " and in finishing the drawings for the " Birds." In 

 1839 Audubon came back to the United States for the last time, bought 

 an estate on the banks of the Hudson River, which he called Minnies- 

 land now Audubon Park, and within the city of New York and 

 engaged in the preparation of an edition of the " Birds " in volumes 

 of a reduced size. In this edition the matter was classified, a feature 

 which had not been found practicable in the method of publication of 

 the original edition. He had also had in hand for some time a book on 

 the " Quadrupeds of America," for which he, his sons, Victor Gifford 

 and John Woodhouse Audubon, and the Rev. John Bachman, of 

 Charleston, South Carolina, had gathered much material. A trip to 

 the Rocky Mountains had been planned in connection with this work, 

 but Audubon was induced to give it up, after having gone as far as 

 the Yellowstone River, on account of his age. The first volume of 

 the " Quadrupeds," which was largely the work of his collaborators, 

 was published in 1846, and the last volume in 1854, after Audubon's 

 death. During the last four years of his life, Audubon became weak 

 in mind, and not able to do any regular work. " The interval of 

 about three years," says Mrs. Audubon, " which passed between the 

 time of Audubon's return from the West and the period when his 

 mind began to fail, was a short and sweet twilight to his adventurous 

 career. His habits were simple. Rising almost with the sun, he pro- 

 ceeded to the woods to view his feathered favorites till the hour at 

 which the family usually breakfasted, except when he had drawing to 

 do, when he sat closely to his work. After breakfast he drew till 

 noon, and then took a long walk. At nine in the evening he generally 

 retired. . . . He was very fond of his grandchildren, and used often 

 to take them on his knees and sing to them amusing French songs 

 that he had learned in France when he was a boy. . . . After 1848 

 the naturalist's mind entirely failed him, and during the last years of 

 his life his eye lost its brightness, and he had to be led to his daily 

 walks by the hand of a servant." 



Various estimates of Audubon's character and work, and accounts 

 of his appearance have been given us, all to his praise. Dr. Griswold 

 says, in his " Prose- Writers of America," that his highest claim to ad- 

 miration " is founded upon his drawings in natural history, in which 

 he has exhibited a perfection never before attempted. In all our cli- 

 mates in the clear atmosphere, by the dashing waters, amid the grand 

 old forests, with their peculiar and many-tinted foliage, by him first 



