^°9o^^] Correspondence. 24 1 



later at night. . . . ; and so the manuscripts went on increasing in bulk, 

 like the rising of a stream after abundant rains, and before three months 

 had passed the first volume was finished. . . . 



'''■ March 13, 1831. Mj book is now on the eve of being presented to the 

 world. The printing will be completed in a few dajs.''^ 



What became of the royal octavo plates and of the 18° series intended to 

 bind up with the little Jameson edition of Wilson and Bonaparte, both of 

 which were announced in the 'Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal ' for 



183 1, as cited above.'' I think it probable that the former were appropri- 

 ated by Sir William Jardine, that they were in fact the plates which 

 adorn his octavo edition of Wilson and Bonaparte, which appeared in 



1832. Otherwise they are unaccounted for. If, too, one examines even 

 an untrimmed copy of Jardine's original issue, he will perceive that the 

 plates are cut down nearly to the quick, indeed quite to the plate mark; 

 as if originally designed for a royal octavo atlas and doomed by an after- 

 thought to be the accompaniment of a small octavo text. 



The fate of the 18'^ plates appears to have been even more disastrous 

 than that of the folio series edited by Capt. Brown. After diligent 

 enquiry I find but two indications of the existence of any of these plates 

 at the present time. Some jears ago Professor Newton furnished Dr. 

 Coues with an account of the first part of a set of little plates illustrating 

 WMlson and Bonaparte's Ornithology, issued by the publishers of 

 Jameson's edition and uniform in size with that edition. The title as 

 given by Coues (' Birds Col. Valley,' p. 600) was as follows: 



"American Ornithology. | Illustrations | of | American Ornithology; | 

 reduced from the | original work of Alexander Wilson. | London : | pub- 

 lished by William Spooner, 259, Regent Street, | Oxford Street; | Hurst, 

 Chance, and Co., 65 St. Paul's Church-Yard; | and Constable and Co., 

 Edinburgh. | [No date.] i6mo.'' iSmo? (say 4X6 inches). No. i, con- 

 taining 8 plates." 



Finally, Mr. Witmer Stone has a copy of Jameson's edition of Wilson 

 and Bonaparte which contains nineteen colored plates (3! X 54 in.) 

 scattered through the first two of the four volumes. That these plates 

 were made for the book in which they are found is proved by the fact 

 that many of them bear the appropriate page-references to the text of 

 that edition. I have little doubt that they represent a fuller set of the 

 series Professor Newton saw, and that they belong to the small 18° 

 edition announced in the 'New Edinburgh Philosophical Journal' in 1831. 

 Yours very truly, 



Walter Faxon, 

 Feb. 17, 1903. Caynhridge^ Mass. 



' The Life and Adventures of John James Audubon, the Naturalist. Edited, 

 from materials supplied by his Widow, by Robert Buchanan. London, 1868. 

 Pp. 172, 173. 



