70 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 



"Pah ! it is all a hoax; save your 

 shilling for better use. I have seen 

 them ; the fellow ought to be drummed 

 out of town." 



In 1827, in Edinburgh, he seems to 

 have issued a prospectus for his work, 

 and to have opened books of subscrip- 

 tion, and now a publisher, Mr. Lizars, 

 offers to bring out the first number of 

 " Birds of America/' and on Novem- 

 ber 28, the first proof of the first engrav- 

 ing was shown him, and he was pleased 

 with it. 



"With a specimen number he proposed 

 to travel about the country in quest of 

 subscribers until he had secured three 

 hundred. In his journal under date of 

 December 10, he says: "My success 

 in Edinburgh borders on the miraculous. 

 My book is to be published in numbers 

 containing four [in another place he 

 says five] birds in each, the size of life, 

 in a style surpassing anything now ex- 

 isting, at two guineas a number. The 



