128 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



believe, be necessary for you to stay more than three weeks or 

 so. ... To be methodical I should like twenty-five birds, that 

 is description of birds, by your first parcel ; but I cannot state 

 precisely at what time they might be revised, only I think were 

 you to send them, you might make a trip to France and be 

 back before I should be done. 3 



By the 9th of July MacGillivray had received the 

 twenty-five descriptions of birds called for, and on the 

 18th of that month he wrote to report progress as fol- 

 lows: 



I commenced my operations on the 1 st of July, and have 

 transcribed and corrected eighteen articles, one for each day, 

 but not one on each, the work of Sunday being transferred to 

 Monday. This volume will certainly be much richer and more 

 interesting. . . . You wish to know my opinion as to the 

 improvement of your style. It seems to me to be much the 

 same as before, but the information which you give is more 

 diversified & more satisfactory. 



On more than one occasion MacGillivray urged Au- 

 dubon to reduce the size of his text, and in the letter 

 just quoted he said: "Had it been of the post 8 vo size, 

 in two volumes it would have gone off in style; but 

 your imperial size and regal price do not answer for 

 radicals, or republicans either. Could you sacrifice the 

 first volume, reprint it of a small size and continue the 

 series to the end?" He remarked that if twenty wood- 

 cuts or engravings were added to each volume, "it would 

 spread over the land like a flock of migratory pigeons. 

 Even without the embellishments it would fly, but were 

 you to give it those additional wings, it would sweep 

 along in beautiful curves, like the nighthawk or the 



8 For this and extracts in the two following paragraphs, see Ruthven 

 Deane (Bibl. No. 209), The Auk, vol. xviii (1901). 



