AUDITOR 



471 



AUGEAN STABLES 



different agents to bid against each other in 

 order to force the price upward, his action 

 would be illegal. Put differently, mock bid- 

 ding to raise the price by apparent competi- 

 tion is contrary to law. The auctioneer, or 

 person in charge of an auction, may refuse to 

 sell an article if only one bid is received, but 

 upon receiving a second bid the sale must 

 continue. When the final bid on an article 

 has been made, a binding contract for pur- 

 chase and sale has been made (see CONTRACT). 



AUDITOR, aw'diter, an officer whose duty 

 it is to examine accounts. Auditors for the 

 various departments of any government exam- 

 ine the accounts of the officials in their re- 

 spective departments who receive and pay out 

 money. The auditor for a state or province 

 lines the accounts of the state or provin- 

 cial treasurer, and in most cases approves all 

 bills before they can be paid. It is also his 

 duty to see that the expenditures for any pur- 

 pose do not exceed the specified appropria- 

 tion. 



Cities, corporations and smaller firms usu- 

 ally have auditors or they employ such men 

 periodically, who make painstaking examina- 

 tion of all books of record and base thereon 

 a report. An auditor must be an expert book- 

 keeper and also have a good knowledge of 

 finance. One who has passed state examina- 

 tions entitling him to rank as a certified pub- 

 lic accountant can command a salary of $15 

 to $30 per day. See ACCOUNTANT. 



AUDUBON, aw'doobon, SOCIETY, THE, 

 an. organization formed for the protection of 

 birds. Beautiful birds have been hunted for 

 tin ir plumage, others for sport, until there 

 has been danger of many species becoming 

 ;ict. This association, named for the great 

 biril-lovi-r, John James Audubon, has done 

 much to prevent such wanton destruction and 

 to create a sentiment against the wearing of 

 i.i! 'Is and feathers on millinery'. In almost 

 y part of North America societies exist, 

 with a membership totalling scores of thou- 

 sands, and in addition thousands of women, 

 not enrolled members, have pledged them- 

 selves to refrain from wearing any ornaments 

 which i- -]::! the killing <>r manning of birds. 

 y of the states and provinces have adopted 

 laws which forl>i<l th< killing at any time of 

 n<>n-game birds, and it is chiefly due to the 

 ibon societies that the large tracts of 

 ground have been set apart as bird reserva- 

 < which see), 

 official organ of the National Associa- 



tion of Audubon Societies is Bird-Lore, a mag- 

 azine which, because of its popular, non-tech- 

 nical character, commends itself to bird-lovers 

 who, strictly speaking, are not bird students. 

 Information as to methods of organizing a 

 society or as to the specific aims of the asso- 

 ciation may be obtained from National Audu- 

 bon Societies' headquarters, New York City. 



John James Audubon (1780-1851), an Ameri- 

 can naturalist and bird-lover, who did perhaps 

 more than any other man to interest Ameri- 

 cans in their native birds. He was born at 

 Mandeville, La., of French parents, studied in 

 France, and was taught drawing by the great 

 artist David. In 1798 he settled near Phila- 

 delphia, where he lived for ten years, devot- 

 ing himself to the study of birds; later he 

 spent much time in the West, where it was 

 his great pleasure to wander about the woods 

 and watch his feathered friends. In 1826 Au- 

 dubon went to England, exhibited his draw- 

 ings of birds, and finally published them in a 

 great work containing 435 colored plates of 

 birds the size of life, entitled The Birds oj 

 America. A copy of this complete work to-day 

 is worth about $2,000. Later there appeared 

 an accompanying text entitled Ornithological 

 Biography, partly written by William McGil- 

 livray. 



On his return to America Audubon labored 

 with Dr. Had i man on a finely illustrated work 

 entitled The Quadrupeds oj America. His 

 great merit is the accuracy and extent of his 

 original observations. Audubon never insti- 

 tuted any movement for the preservation of 

 birds, for in. his day much of the country was 

 wild and it looked as though there were no 

 danger of the birds ever becoming extinct ; but 

 his genuine love for them justifies the naming 

 of the Audubon Society for him. 



AUGEAN, awj*-'an, STABLES, in Greek 

 and Roman mythology the stables of King 

 Augeas, which, after thirty years of ; 

 lect, were cleansed in a single day. Augeas 

 kept m tin-.- -tables his famous 3,000 head 

 of oxen. Hercules, commanded to perform 

 twelve great labors as a punishment for hav- 

 ing slain his children, was given as his sixth 

 task the cleansing of the stables in one day. 

 iriuantic feat he accomplished by turning 

 into the stalls the Alpheus and Peneus n 

 whose waters entirely washed away the filth 

 that had been collecting for thirty years. At 

 the present time the expression, "cleansing 

 the Augean Stables" is often used in a figura- 

 aense, and is applied to a reformer who 



