72 Deane, Letter of ' Swainson to Audubon. |~^ uk 



bon's handwriting, "Answered 29th Aug. 1830, J. J. A."; so it 

 is fail to presume it was received shortly before that date. 

 This letter was written while negotiations were still in progress, 

 and a short time prior to the letter published by Dr. Coues, and 

 shows that self-importance which characterizes some of his other 

 unpublished letters. 



I am under obligations to Miss M. Eliza Audubon, who has 

 kindly allowed me to copy and publish this letter, for an exact 

 transcript of the original. 



" Thursday 



"My dear Mr. Audubon. 



" I received your letter yesterday, and hasten to reply to it. By 

 some mistake or other, of Havell's, he has not sent the birds to 

 which you allude, and I did not of course know that you had left 

 them with him, now to your two propositions. 



"First, as to boarding with us, you do not know, probably, that 

 this is never done in England, except as a matter of necessity or 

 profession, in which case the domestic establishment is framed 

 accordingly. But this consideration would have no influence with 

 me, in your case did other circumstances allow of it. It would 

 however be attended with so many changes in our everyday domes- 

 tic arrangements, that it becomes impossible. 



"Secondly, as to the proposition I once made you, I am fearful 

 you have put it out of my power to do so much as I mighthave 

 done, from your having distributed the very birds which would 

 have been the materials I was to work upon ; and upon which 

 only, any scientific observations truly original, (& therefore worth 

 putting into your book), must be founded. Fortunately, however, 

 my own collection is not poor in North American Specimens, and 

 these would still furnish a mass of interesting information to the 

 Scientific. It would be, however, highly advisable that all these 

 species which I have not, but which you have brought home, and 

 given away, should be borrowed back again, without delay. 



"Next as to plan. I have always told you that the plan you 

 mention, so far as your own narrative goes, is the very best which 

 could possibly be chosen. You have to speak of the birds as they 

 are alive, / to speak of their outward form, structure, and their 



