40 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 

 artist ; lie cared not for money, he 

 wanted to be alone with Nature. The 

 forests called to him, the birds haunted 

 his dreams. 



His father dying in 1818, left him a 

 valuable estate in France, and seventeen 

 thousand dollars, deposited with a mer- 

 chant in Eichmond, Virginia; but 

 Audubon was so dilatory in proving 

 his identity and his legal right to this 

 cash, that the merchant finally died in- 

 solvent, and the legatee never received 

 a cent of it. The French estate he 

 transferred in after years to his sister 

 Eosa. 



