AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 129 



purplebreasted swallow." "I have often thought," he 

 continued, "that your stories would sell very well by 

 themselves, and I am sure that with your celebrity, 

 knowledge, and enthusiasm, you have it in your power 

 to become more popular than your glorious pictures 

 can ever make you of themselves, they being too aristo- 

 cratic and exclusive." 



Audubon kept MacGillivray supplied with materials, 

 while he remained in London during the summer of 

 1834. On the 25th of August he wrote Bachman that 

 he had sold bird skins to the British Museum to the 

 amount of fifty-two pounds sterling, and again for 

 twenty-five pounds, while Havell had disposed of a 

 goodly number more, so that "he would not be a loser 

 in that way"; he added: "My own double collection I 

 have in drawers at home." Acting evidently upon 

 Swainson's advice, Audubon began to accumulate a 

 large and valuable collection of the skins of American 

 birds, which he brought with him to America in 1839. 4 

 Though rightly criticized for not having deposited in 

 some museum a complete series of the forms which he 

 described, Elliott Coues certainly was not justified in 

 remarking that his interest in a bird ceased from the 

 moment he had made a drawing of it; on the contrary, 

 he spent no end of time and lavished large sums of 

 money on collections to illustrate variation of every de- 

 scription, as well as for anatomical dissection. 



A hint thrown out by MacGillivray seems to have 

 been well taken, for in the letter just quoted Audubon 

 said: "This coming winter I will spend at writing my 

 own Biography, to be published as soon as possible, and 

 to be continued, as God may be pleased to grant me 

 life." As already noticed, 5 this effort resulted only in 



4 See Vol. II, p. 264. 6 See Vol. I, p. 16. 



