8 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



Audubon in collecting materials for his work. In a 

 letter written at Charleston, January 1, 1837, to young 

 Thomas M. Brewer, Audubon said: "Please to call on 

 my good friend David Eckley, Esq., present to him and 

 to his family my very best regards, and ask of him 

 whether he has collected any hawks or owls for me. If 

 so, take them from him, and place them in the general 

 receptacle of 'pale-faced rum.' Another copy is said 

 to be in possession of the Public Library of Manchester, 

 England, and to have been bequeathed to that institu- 

 tion by the Earl of Crawford. A complete set of the 

 Birds was also presented to his friends, the Rathbones 

 of Liverpool, and is still in possession of the family. 

 We shall now return to our narrative and fulfill our 

 promise of reproducing Audubon's own account of his 

 journey from Richmond to Florida: 6 



Audubon to G. W. F 'eather stonhaugh 



I am now seated in earnest to give you an unceremonious 

 summary of my proceedings up to this time, since we left Rich- 

 mond, in Virginia. As a geologist, I venture to suppose you 

 Would have been but indifferently amused, if you had been with 

 us in our journey from this latter place to Charleston, in 

 South Carolina ; and as an ornithologist, I cannot boast of the 



The plates thus dedicated were unbound, and apparently in their 

 original covers, which consisted of plain brown sheets. They passed 

 through the hands of Messrs. Burrows Brothers' Company, Cleveland, to 

 Mr. Robert H. Sayre of South Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and were 

 originally received by the American dealers from the Messrs. Sotheran & 

 Company of London. Possibly this was the set mentioned by Coues, who 

 says "Triibner . . . quotes the work with plain plates. I have never 

 seen one in that condition" (Birds of the Colorado Valley, p. 612; Bibl. No. 

 181). After Mr. Sayre's death, his library was dispersed by public auction 

 at Philadelphia, when this complete set of Audubon plates, though in an 

 uncolored state, brought .^3,200; see Public Ledger, November 9, 1907. But 

 according to Ruthven Deane the Sayre plates were colored. 



6 Letter (No. 1) from Audubon to the editor of the Monthly Ameri- 

 can Journal of Geology arid Natural Science (Bibl. No. 34), published in 

 vol. i, p. 358 (1832) ; dated "St. Augustine, East Florida, Dec. 7, 1831." 



