AUDUBON AND MACGILLIVRAY 143 



please the taste for novelty's sake. However my work will I 

 hope be finished ere I leave this world, and must be appreciated 

 in years to come, when perhaps my childrens' children will feel 

 proud of their gone ancestor, "The American Woodsman." 

 You see my Dear Friend how far enthusiasm and a portion of 

 the like for standing fame carries even your humble servant a 

 man with no other means than his industry and prudence as a 

 means of support, and one with scarce the motive of education. 

 There are moments, and they are not far between, when thinking 

 of my present enormous undertaking, I wonder how I have been 

 able to support the extraordinary amount of monies paid for 

 the work alone, without taking cognizance of my family and my 

 expeditions, which ever and anon travelling as we are from place 

 to place and country to country are also very great. When 

 I publish my Life and let the world know that Audubon like 

 Wilson, was at Phila. without the half of a Dollar, and that 

 had it not been for benevolent generosity of a certain Gentleman 

 whose name is Edward Harris, Audubon must have walked off 

 from one of the fairest of our Cities like a beggar does in poor 

 Ireland, left destitute of all things save his humble talents, and 

 his determination to produce something worthy of the soul of 

 man : I say my dear Harris will not the world stare ! Poor 

 Wilson was only better off than I on account of his superior 

 talents over me at driving the goose quill, but much similarity 

 still seems to have [existed] in both of us, as I could drive the 

 pencil, the brush, the Fiddle bow and even the "Fleuret" 

 [better] than he. 



Audubon wrote to Harris again from Edinburgh, 

 on September 5, when he said : 



Between you and I the measurements of different Birds given 

 by Wilson are hardly to be depended upon, as I constantly 

 discover a great deficiency in this part of his descriptions which 

 indeed in some cases are otherwise slack, and given as if when 

 fatigued or vexed. Nay I even think at times that he has 

 copied Authors and not nature? as in the instance of the Oyster 



