236 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



a quarter of a mile to the east of his house, while at a 

 short distance below, on the river, lay Manhattanville, 

 at the present One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street, 

 from which men frequently came on summer evenings 

 to help handle the seine, fish then being plentiful in that 

 part of the Hudson. The place came to possess a good 

 garden and orchar^, with stable, dairy, and poultry 

 yards; enclosures also were made for deer, elk, wolves, 

 foxes and other wild animals. The old barn of the Au- 

 dubon place stood higher on the slope where the natu- 

 ralist built his studio or painting house, but no traces of 

 either now exist. Though standing low, the house com- 

 manded a wide sweep of the river with the Palisades 

 on its opposite shore, and such attractive surroundings 

 were a never failing source of delight and inspiration to 

 the naturalist to his dying day. 



In describing Audubon's activities, Parke Godwin 

 made this note in the spring of 1842: 



13 



During the last winter, which he spent in this city, he has 

 worked on an average fourteen hours a day, preparing a work 

 on the Quadrupeds of America, similar to his work on the 

 Birds. The drawings already finished, of the size of life, are 

 master-pieces in their way, surpassing if that be possible, in 

 fidelity and brilliancy, all that he has done before. Early in 

 the summer he will depart to continue his labors in the woods. 



Before we glance at the half-submerged relic of 

 Audubon's old house as it stands today in upper New 

 York, 14 we shall follow the same writer in a visit which 

 he made to "Minnie's Land" in the summer of 1842 but 

 did not describe until eleven years later; 15 we will only 



13 See Bibliography, No. 60. 



14 See Chapter XXXVI. 



16 Parke Godwin, The Homes of American Authors (Bibl. No. 68) 

 (1853). 



