172 Retrospective Criticism, 



enjoyed of making a decision, I do not hesitate to state that 

 Audubon is the author of the book to which his name is 

 attached ; and that the second volume will not fall short of 

 the first in purity, vigour, and originality of style ; and that 

 it will contain the additional experience and observation of 

 three of the most active years of his life. 



Some details of the habits and pursuits of this gentleman 

 may not be uninteresting to your readers, and will account for 

 the manner in which he has been enabled successfully to 

 carry on so large, expensive, and laborious a work as that 

 which is now in the progress of publication. 



He rises with the earliest dawn, and devotes the whole of 

 the day, in intense industry, to his favourite pursuit. The 

 specimens from which he makes his drawings are all from 

 nature ; carefully noting the colours of the eye, bill, and 

 legs ; measuring, with great accuracy, every part of the bird. 

 Where differences exist, either in the sexes or young, several 

 figures are given on the same plate : sparing no labour in 

 retouching old drawings or in making new ones, in all cases 

 where he conceives there may be a possibility of making an 

 improvement. In this way, he has already succeeded in 

 figuring nearly the whole of the birds necessary to complete 

 his splendid and important work. 



He keeps a journal, and regularly notes down every thing 

 connected with natural history. This journal is always kept 

 in English : a language which, it must be acknowledged, he 

 writes very correctly, when it is taken into consideration that 

 he spent nearly the first seventeen years of his life in France. 

 Besides this, he keeps separate journals, in which he notes 

 every thing that he learns each day on the habits of every 

 bird. In all his travels, he carries these journals with him; 

 and he never suffers business, fatigue, or pleasure to prevent 

 him each evening from noting down every interesting observ- 

 ation. In this way, a mass of information has been accu- 

 mulated from year to year. When he sits down to write the 

 history of a bird (which is usually in the evening), he first 

 reads over all the memoranda which he has made with 

 regard to its habits ; and he is generally able to write an inter- 

 esting paper on the subject in the course of the evening. At 

 some leisure moment this is again reviewed and corrected : 

 the scientific details he leaves to the last. In America there 

 are few private or public libraries that can furnish a writer on 

 ornithology with all the information he is desirous of obtain- 

 ing on this subject. Mr. Audubon does not hesitate about 

 consulting with other naturalists in regard to all that may be 

 written or known on the birds of America. He wishes to 



