EARLY DRAWINGS 179 



and a Green Woodpecker, the latter especially, which 

 bore the number "96," showing evidence of care and 

 skill. The year passed at "Mill Grove" was not par- 

 ticularly fruitful, but during the Coueron visit which 

 followed in 1805 and 1806, Audubon said that he made 

 drawings of "about two hundred species of birds," all 

 of which he brought to America and gave to his Lucy. 

 After finally reaching this country in the latter year, 

 these studies were continued, with an alacrity that sel- 

 dom failed, until 1822, when he began to revise much 

 of his earlier work, substituting water colors more com- 

 pletely for pastels, pencil and crayon point. 



In writing to Bachman in 1836, Audubon thus 

 referred to the work of his apprenticeship: 'Some of 

 my early drawings of European birds are still in our 

 possession, but many have been given away, and the 

 greatest number were destroyed, not by the rats that 

 gnawed my collection of the 'Birds of America,' but 

 by the great fire." 7 When the naturalist was in Phila- 

 delphia in 1824, in search of a publisher and sadly in 

 need of funds, he made the acquaintance of Edward 

 Harris, 8 who looked at the drawings he had for sale 

 and said at once that he would take them all and at 

 Audubon's own prices. Upon his leaving that city, this 

 generous friend, we are told, pressed a $100 bill in his 

 hand, saying: "Mr. Audubon, accept this from me; 

 men like you ought not to want for money." "I could 

 only express my gratitude," continues the naturalist, 

 "by insisting on his receiving the drawings of all my 

 French birds." The worthy Harris cherished this large 

 series of Audubon's early studies and added to it many 

 specimens of his later work. The entire collection re- 



7 Referring to the fire of 1835, in New York. 



8 See Chapter XXI. 



