TO AMERICA IN SEARCH OF BIRDS 421 



me in comfort here, and I need not tell thee I long for thee 

 every hour I am absent from thee. If I fail, America will still 

 be my country, and thou, I will still feel, my friend. I will 

 return to both and forget forever the troubles and expenses 

 I have had ; when walking together, arm in arm, we can see 

 our sons before us, and listen to the mellow sounding thrush, 

 so plentiful in our woods of magnolia. 1 



A little later in 1829 he also wrote: "I have finished 

 the two first years of publication, the two most difficult 

 to be encountered." At that time he fully expected 

 that fourteen years would be required for the comple- 

 tion of his task, owing to the many difficulties experi- 

 enced, especially in securing competent workmen, as 

 well as the necessity of distributing the expense for the 

 benefit of his subscribers. 



When Havell had been provided with all the draw- 

 ings needed for the remainder of the year 1829 and the 

 first issue of 1830, Audubon sailed from Portsmouth on 

 the 1st of April, 1829, in the packet ship Columbia, 

 which reached New York on the opening day of May. 

 "I chose the ship," he said, "on account of her name, and 

 paid thirty pounds for my passage." 



He paused in New York to exhibit his drawings 

 at the Lyceum of Natural History, of which he had 

 become a member in 1824, but soon hurried to Phila- 

 delphia, and finally settled down for work at Camden, 

 in New Jersey, later known to fame as the home of 

 "the good gray poet." There, at a boarding house kept 

 by a Mr. Armstrong, he remained three weeks, from 

 about May 23 to June 13, hunting and painting every 

 day. From Camden he went to Great Egg Harbor, 

 then a famous resort of both land and water birds in 

 great variety, and for three weeks more he lived and 



!Mary F. Bradford, Audubon (Bibl. No. 85). 



