lxxii AUDUBON THE NATURALIST 



person of importance in his Settlements in the Hudson Bay 

 country, very probably the Earl's wife met that person before 

 embarkation ; or perhaps she gave him hospitality in her home, 

 as was common in those days when England was the first des- 

 tination of terror stricken French refugees." 



"And that other Audubon of La Rochelle, who apparently 

 had been with him in Selkirk's Settlements, was he the person 

 entrusted to convey and guard that little boy of eleven years, 

 on the long perilous journey to Hudson Bay?" Mrs. Tyler 

 seems to have confused Hudson Bay with the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, which drew its furs from a vast region, but none of 

 Selkirk's Settlements was anywhere near Hudson Bay. 



Audubon's claim that he was bound under a solemn oath to 

 his father not to reveal his own identity Mrs. Tyler thinks 

 explains many things about the early history of Audubon the 

 naturalist. "Does it not explain why the wily old sea captain, 

 Jean Audubon, adopted two children on the same day, to give 

 a semblance of paternity to both acts? And does it not suggest 

 why he registered the name of the mother of the girl, and 

 omitted to register the name of the mother of the boy, whose 

 recorded age almost paralleled that of Marie Antoinette's son, 

 who had vanished from the Temple just forty-odd days before 

 the date of this adoption?" 



It is my opinion that Jean Audubon, who was only forty- 

 nine years old when this act of adoption was drawn, and who 

 was but just then getting a breathing-spell after perilous times, 

 knew what he was talking about, that he was no perjurer, but 

 was perfectly honest in every statement sworn to and witnessed 

 in this act. That he was a few days out in his memory of birth 

 dates is not important. There is no evidence that he failed to 

 mention the name of the mother of his son in order to conceal 

 the woman's name. The surest way of doing this would have 

 been to use a fictitious one. Judge Fougere, as quoted by Mr. 

 Arthur, offers another explanation : since Mademoiselle Rabin 

 was dead and could not enter a legal objection, it was not 

 necessary to give her name ; "but, on the contrary, Mile. Cath- 



