344 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



possess all the specimens necessary, I arranged them as well as 

 I could into parcels of five plates — I improved the whole as 

 much as was in my power; and as I daily retired farther from 

 the haunts of man, determined to leave nothing undone, which 

 my labor, my time, or my purse could accomplish. 19 



Audubon's journal kept on the lakes has been lost, 

 but that journey was fresh in mind when he wrote the 

 following letter to Edward Harris. 20 



Audubon to Edward Harris 



Beechwoods. Near Bayou Sara, La. 

 Jany. 31 1825. 



Surely I have not dismerited your esteem; when on the 

 Lakes, both Ontario and Champlain, I wrote to you — again 

 from Pittsburgh, all without any answer, and I am sorry to 

 say that I have been either abandoned or forgotten by all those 

 other persons who had promised to keep up a correspondence 

 with me. . . . 



The country I visited was new, in great measure, to me. I 

 have been delighted with the tour, but will forever regret that 

 your sister's indisposition could not allow you time to augment 

 my pleasure by your company. 



[Audubon offers to send his friend shrubs and fruits from 

 the South, and concludes;] In fact, my dear Mr. Harris, I am 

 yet the same man you knew at the corner of 5th, and Minor 

 Streets [in Philadelphia], and will continue forever the same. 



After his tour of the Lakes Audubon returned to 

 Pittsburgh, and on October 24, 1824, started down the 

 Ohio in a skiff, intending to descend to the Mississippi 

 and thence reach his family in Louisiana. Bad weather 

 and lack of funds interfered with this plan, and ere long 

 he was once more stranded in Cincinnati, where he was 



19 Ornithological Biography, vol. i, p. xi. 



20 The Jeanes MSS.; see Note, Vol. I, p. 180. 



