AUDUBON IN LONDON 397 



however, that you beat me all to pieces in that art." 

 The first winter in London dragged heavily for the 

 naturalist, who exclaimed in January, 1828: "How 

 long am I to be confined in this immense jail"; when 

 Daniel Lizars reported from Edinburgh the loss of four 

 of his subscribers, he writes, "I am dull as a beetle. 

 Why do I dislike London? Is it because the constant 

 evidence of the contrast between the rich and the poor 

 is a constant torment to me, or is it because of its size 

 and crowd? I know not, but I long for sights and 

 sounds of a different nature," such, we might add, as 

 the flocks of wild duck which were occasionally seen 

 from Regent's Park as they passed over the city and 

 made him more homesick than ever. Audubon 

 hated the city quite as cordially as Charles Lamb ever 

 affected to detest the country, and when leaving it ? 

 afoot or by stage, it seemed as if he could never be 

 rid of it. "What a place is London," he would say, but 

 naively add: "many persons live there solely because 

 they like it." 



On February 4, 1828, Audubon was elected to mem- 

 bership in the Linnaean Society, and in November he 

 presented it with a copy of his work, which was then 

 well under way. This was noticed in a letter to Swain- 

 son, written on November 7, when no acknowledgment 

 of the gift had then been received; and he mentioned 

 also the sale of his picture of "Blue Jays" for ten 

 guineas. At a meeting of the Linnaean Society not 

 long after his election, copies of Selby's Illustrations of 

 British Ornithology and of his own work were placed 

 side by side for inspection, and "very unfair compari- 

 sons were drawn between the two"; had Selby, Audu- 

 bon reflected, been given "the same opportunities that 

 my curious life has granted me, his work would have 



