JOHN JAMES ATJDUBON 127 



The colouring in Audubon's birds is 

 also often exaggerated. His purple 

 finch is as brilliant as a rose, whereas 

 at its best, this bird is a dull carmine. 



Either the Baltimore oriole has 

 changed its habits of nest-building since 

 Audubon's day, or else he was wrong in 

 his drawing of the nest of that bird, in 

 making the opening on the side near the 

 top. I have never seen an oriole 7 s nest 

 that was not open at the top. 



In his drawings of a group of robins, 

 one misses some of the most characteristic 

 poses of that bird, while some of the at- 

 titudes that are portrayed are not 

 common and familiar ones. 



But in the face of all that he accom- 

 plished, and against such odds, and tak- 

 ing into consideration also the changes 

 that may have crept in through engraver 

 and colourists, it ill becomes us to indulge 

 in captious criticisms. Let us rather re- 

 peat Audubon's own remark on realising 

 how far short his drawings came of rep- 



