Vol. XXIJ Deane, Letters of Audubon and Baird. 255 



this and avoid the pitfalls of malobservation on the one hand and 

 those of poetic distortion on the other. Among the few may be 

 mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck in his ' Life of the Bee ' and Jules 

 Fabre in the eight incomparable volumes of his ' Souvenirs Ento- 

 mologiques.' Unfortunately only a single volume of the latter's 

 work has been translated into English, and even the original is far 

 too little known and appreciated. Those who are feeding the 

 American pubhc with false animal psychology done up in tinselled 

 English interspersed with seductive half-tones, would do well to 

 study the methods whereby the young Belgian mystic and the aged 

 French observer contrive to satisfy the reader's aesthetic sense 

 without departing from the truths of rigid observation and experi- 

 ment. While it is not given to all to succeed like these, it is cer- 

 tainly possible for any one to repress a striving for aesthetic effect 

 9,t the expense of truth. 



UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 

 AND SPENCER F. BAIRD. 



BY RUTHVEN DEANE. 



The following correspondence between John James Audubon, 

 at the age of sixty-two years, and Spencer F. Baird, a young man 

 of nineteen years, cannot fail to be of interest to the readers of 

 ' The Auk.' The letters are of peculiar interest, as they touch 

 upon Audubon's proposed trip to the Missouri River and of 

 Baird's great desire to accompany him, and show the deep interest 

 and affection each held for the other, though there was a dif- 

 ference of forty-three years in their ages. 



The original letter from Baird has come into my possession 

 through the generosity of Miss M. R. Audubon, and I am under 

 great obligation to Miss Lucy H. Baird for a copy of the original 

 Audubon letter and recommendation, which she found among her 

 father's correspondence. 



