4 IN THE DAYS OF AUDUBON 



" I give my life to the study of birds. I picture birds, 

 and I have a collection of pictures which I wish to sell. I 

 want your subscription to my book on birds." 



Audubon was greatly surprised. He may not at that 

 time have definitely planned his own great work on birds 

 to be sold by subscriptions. But here was a man who had 

 his own passion for revealing to the world the birds of the 

 American forests. 



" Who are you, stranger? Where were you born? " 



" At Paisley, in Scotland, in 1776. My people were 

 simple folk, and they wished me to become a minister. I 

 was apprenticed to a weaver. I used to write poetry and 

 sell my poems by subscription, and I knew Robert Burns, 

 and my poems were often taken for his. Poetry kept me 

 poor, and I became despondent; so I came to the New 

 World, and worked in a printer's shop in Philadelphia. 



" There, as I wandered along the Schuylkill, I found 

 something about which the great world did not know. 

 Birds. They are poets of the air, poets of the trees, and 

 my heart went out to the birds. Then I became a pedler, 

 and wandered through the forests from town to town, 

 studying the ways of birds. Birds can sing the poetry 

 that I can not write. 



" I made up for my poor education by teaching. Then 

 I studied botany. I visited the Mohawk Valley. I found 

 new birds. I heard new songs. I began to paint birds. I 

 have printed a collection of bird pictures, and am trying 



