SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 273 



§i>titnXitit %iXtxvitnxt* 



SPECIAL BOOKS. 



In the brief biography with which she prefaces the journals of her 

 grtindfather,* Miss Audubon believes that she has given the only correct 

 account of his life that has been written. She complains of the manner in 

 which the editor of a previous biography has treated the material furnished 

 by Audubon's widow, and particularly of ascriptions in his notes of vanity 

 and selfishness to the great naturalist, of which she finds no trace; but 

 that in the nine journals "and in the one hundred or so of letters — written 

 under many skies, and in many conditions of life, by a man whose educa- 

 tion was wholly French, one of the journals dating as far back as 1822, 

 and some of the letters even earlier— there is not one sentence, one expres- 

 sion, that is other than that of a refined and cultivated gentleman. More 

 than that, there is not one utterance of 'anger, hatred, or malice.' " She 

 has tried only to put Audubon the man before her readers, and in his 

 own words so far as possible, " that they may know what he was, not what 

 others thought he was." Since the journals of the Missouri and Labrador 

 journeys came into the author's hands, about twelve years ago, others have 

 been added which had been virtually lost for years. These documents, 

 which furnish her chief sources of information, have been verified and 

 supplemented by every means — by researches in Santo Domingo, New 

 Orleans, and France, and by comparison. The biography of seventy-two 

 pages which precedes the journals includes the sketch of his life to the 

 time of his fiatboat journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans in 1820, 

 which Audubon wrote for his sons, and was printed in Scribner's Maga- 

 zine in 1893, from a manuscript found in a barn on Staten Island. The 

 first of the journals to be printed is the European, recording the story of 

 his journey in 1826 and his visits to Edinburgh, London, and Paris in 

 the interests of his book — a story full of incident and notices of the men 

 distinguished in literature and science whom he met, and shrewd com- 

 ment. The modest simplicity of his nature is revealed in this journal in 

 a remark that he found his situation in Edinburgh bordering " almost on 

 the miraculous. With scai'ce one of those qualities necessary to render 

 a man able to pass through the throng of the learned people here, I am 

 positively looked upon by all the professors and many of the principal 

 pei'sons here as a very exti'aordinary man. I can not comprehend this in 

 the least." The journal of the Labrador journey follows. This trip was 

 made in 1833 for the purpose of procuring birds and making drawings of 

 them for the continuation of the Birds of America. Its interest is that of 

 science and of adventure in regions not even yet familiar. The narrative 

 of the Missouri River journeys in 1843 is now for the first time published 

 in full, the manuscript of the latter part of it, from September 16th to 

 November 6th, having been lost and supposed to be no longer in existence 

 till it was found in August, 1896, in the back of an old secretary where 

 Audubon had put it 011 his return. This narrative is perhaps the most 

 interesting of all, and is valuable from the point of view of the naturalist) 



* Audubon and bis Journals. By Maria R. Audubon, with Zoological and other Notes by Elliott 

 Cones. Two volumes. !New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Price, $7.50. 



VOL. LIII. — 20 



