AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 195 



asserted itself. Aside from the first crude washes, put on by 

 artists or colorists employed for the purpose, he himself ap- 

 plied the salient tones and all the more delicate tints. 



Much misunderstanding has arisen in regard to the 

 engraving and publication of Audubon's earlier plates 

 owing to the complex relations which existed between 

 Lizars, the two Havells of the same name, and the nat- 

 uralist himself; this involved the reissue of the first two 

 numbers of the work, and a confusing series of legends 

 upon the plates themselves, occasioned partly by a divi- 

 sion of labor between father and son, and by the death 

 of Robert Havell, Senior, in 1832. The errors into 

 which some commentators have fallen, however, are due 

 to their examination of but one set of plates. The 

 account which follows is based upon a collation of com- 

 plete copies at the British Museum, the Radcliffe Li- 

 brary, Oxford, the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and the 

 Boston Society of Natural History, and of numerous 

 scattered plates. Lizars engraved the first ten plates 

 only of the large folio, but before the summer of 1827 

 a considerable number of these early impressions had 

 been distributed. The Havells, as we have seen, started 

 the work anew, and Robert, the younger, retouched the 

 greater part of Lizars' plates, so that their reissue in 

 London constitutes for the bibliophile a second, and in 

 some cases a third, edition. Moreover, the plates which 

 were eventually executed by the younger Havell, to the 

 number of 425, were repeatedly printed from to meet 

 the requirements of new subscribers; on such occasions 

 errors were corrected, minor changes in the artist's or 

 engraver's name introduced, and the nomenclature of 

 the birds and plants more or less completely revised. 

 Frequently the Whatman water-marks, or, indirectly, 



