•2 7 J. Deane, Unpublished Extracts from Audubon' s Journal. \\»\y 



EXTRACTS FROM AN UNPUBLISHED JOURNAL OF 

 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 



BY RUTHVEN DEANE. 



The Journal from which these extracts are taken, covers the 

 period from October 12, 1820, to December 30, 182 1. This 

 would have been included in ' Audubon and his Journals ' but un- 

 fortunately it did not fall into the hands of the author until more 

 than a year after this work had been completed and published. 

 I am under many obligations to Miss M. R. Audubon for the 

 privilege of publishing fourteen days of this diary, covering dates 

 between October 12, 1820, and November 25, 1821. As there is 

 now but little unpublished Auduboniana, excepting family letters, 

 this portion of the Journal is of peculiar interest. It shows that 

 period of the great naturalist's life, eleven years before the publi- 

 cation of the first volume of his 'Ornithological Biography,' when, 

 without money and living where his talents were not appreciated, 

 he was making a fight in which few could have conquered under 

 similar conditions. To fully appreciate the 'Birds of America' 

 one must read the early life of the author. 



From Audubon's Journal. 



Oct. i2th, 1820 {On the Ohio). Shot an Autumnal Warbler^ 

 as Mr. A. Wilson is pleased to designate the young of the Yellow 

 rumped Warbler ; this was a young male in beautiful plumage for 

 the season, and I drew it, as I feel perfectly convinced Mr. Wilson 

 has made an error in presenting the bird as a new species. 



1 As is well known, Wilson's Autumnal Warbler {Sylvia autttmualis) is 

 the Bay-breasted Warbler {Dendroica castanea) or the Black-poll Warbler 

 {Dendroica striata), according to different authors, in first winter plumage, 

 while Audubon, detecting the fact that it was a young bird of a known spe- 

 cies, failed to identify it correctly. This was not at all strange, for at that 

 early date much had to be learned of the immature plumages of our birds. 

 I have good cause to state that some people are too ready to call Audubon 

 careless when it was not carelessness but ignorance, which was perfectly natu- 

 ral and excusable in those days, and which he had neither time nor opportu- 

 nity to correct until later. 



