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EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



of all who saw them, by their evident fidelity 

 and excellent execution. He was received 

 with open arms by all men of letter3. Pro- 

 fessor Wilson, then editor of " Blackwood," 

 brought him forward as prominently as he 

 could, and thus describes him : " The hearts 

 of all warmed towards Audubon, who were 

 capable of conceiving the difficulties, dangers, 

 and sacrifices that must have been encoun- 

 tered, endured, and overcome, before genius 

 could have embodied these (drawings), the 



glory of its innumerable triumphs 



The man himself is just what you would ex- 

 pect from his productions —full of fine enthu- 

 siasm and intelligence, most interesting in 

 his looks and manners, a perfect gentleman, 

 and esteemed by all who know him for the 

 simplicity and frankness of his nature. He 

 is the greatest artist in his own walk that 

 ever lived." Ciivier also said that his works 

 " were the most splendid monuments which 

 art had erected in honour of ornithology." 



Audubon then set about getting his works 

 into the hands of the engravers. To produce 

 them he found that at least ten or a dozen 

 years were necessary ; but neither time nor 

 expense deterred him. He had not one sub- 

 scriber at first, but his friends of the great 

 Sepublic of Letters came forward, and in 

 Paris, Cuvier and Humboldt rendered him 

 every assistance. "My heart," he writes, 

 " was nerved, and my energies braced by the 

 reliance on that Power upon whom all must 

 depend." He was not deceived. The Kings 

 of England and France enrolled their names 

 as the first on his list. All the learned So- 

 cieties took copies, and the great naturalists 

 of each country, especially Humboldt, Cuvier, 

 Swainson, and Wilson, besides Herschel and 

 Scott, were the warmest in the praise of 

 his work. 



In 1828 Audubon again went to America, 

 again to explore the vast forests. Not only 

 in the day did he watch, but in the nights 

 also. " Often," says he, speaking of the 

 giant night-owl of America, "when snugly 



settled under the boughs of my temporary 

 encampment, and preparing to roast a venison 

 steak, or the body of a squirrel, on a wooden 

 spit, have I been disturbed by the exulting 

 bursts of this nightly disturber of the peace 

 that, had it not been for him, would have 

 prevailed round my lonely retreat. He would 

 expose his whole body to the glare of my 

 fire, within a few yards of me. The liveli- 

 ness of his motions, joined to their oddness, 

 often made me desire to ask him to supper, 

 and made me think his society would be at 

 least as agreeable as that of many of the 

 buffoons we meet with in the world." He 

 also exposes Buffon's mistake as to the dull- 

 ness of owls, and the "misery" of wood- 

 peckers in the same passage, and says of cer- 

 tain ornithologists, " that to one who has 

 lived long in the woods, they might have 

 seemed to have lived only in their libraries." 



In 1830 Audubon came again to England, 

 and towards the end of that year his first 

 volume of the "Birds of America" appeared. 

 It would be useless here to follow the order 

 of publication of his works. Suffice it, there- 

 fore, to indicate them. His great work was 

 completed in eighty-seven parts, elephant 

 folio, containing 448 plates of birds of the 

 natural size, beautifully coloured. It was 

 published at the price of £182 14*. In Ame- 

 rica it cost one thousand dollars. It em- 

 braced five folio volumes of plates, and five 

 of letterpress, entitled " The American Or- 

 nithological Biography." There have been 

 also various new and revised editions of this 

 work. 



Audubon also prepared an edition of 

 " The Quadrupeds of North America," 3 vols, 

 double medium folio, 150 plates, and 3 vols. 

 8vo letterpress. In this latter he was as- 

 sisted by his sons, Victor Gifibrd, and John 

 Woodhouse. His style is picturesque, 

 bold, and free; in fact, he tells what he 

 knows, and what he has gained, from study- 

 ing Nature, and tells it well. His works were 

 chiefly published at Edinburgh. 



