198 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



called her husband away. "We lived," said Audubon, 

 "two years at Louisville, where we enjoyed many of the 

 best pleasures which this life can afford; and whenever 

 we have since passed that way, we have found the kind- 

 ness of our former friends unimpaired." It was while 

 they were living at Gnathway's hotel of the "Indian 

 Queen," in Louisville, that Victor Gifford Audubon, 

 who was destined to become his father's right hand in 

 the publication of his most important works, was born 

 on June 12, 1809. 



When Audubon had reached his twenty-fourth year, 

 nature, his fond nurse from infancy, was calling to him 

 more loudly than ever before, but to most of his con- 

 temporaries his devotion to natural history could have 

 seemed little else than sheer madness, or, at best, an 

 utter waste of time. By the year 1810 his portfolios 

 were swelling with upwards of two hundred pictures of 

 American birds, produced, to be sure, without any plan, 

 and far inferior to the best of his later work, but still 

 done to the size of life, in the natural colors, and far 

 excelling in fidelity and charm anything that had been 

 attempted before. At this time, however, the young 

 traders needed money for more practical affairs, and 

 Audubon's father-in-law, William Bakewell of "Fat- 

 land Ford," consented to sell a portion of this estate, 

 amounting to 170 acres, in order that his daughter, 

 Lucy, might immediately realize her interest in it. From 

 this sale nearly $8,000 was obtained; the money was 

 deposited with Messrs. Robert Kinder & Company of 

 New York, a firm with which Audubon and Rozier had 

 dealt from the opening of their business at Louisville. 

 This is clearly shown by the following interesting 

 letter: 11 



"See Note, Vol. I, p. 196. 



