JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 83 



thologist who crossed the continent in 1834, many new birds which 

 were figured in various volumes of his great work and he had al- 

 ways longed to see for himself some of the feathered inhabitants of 

 the wonderful country that stretched away beyond the Mississippi. 

 So in 1843, overcoming the scruples of his friends and relatives 

 who thought him too old for such an extended journey, he started 

 via St. Louis and up the Missouri, on one of the American Fur 

 Company's boats for Ft. Union on the eastern boundary of the 

 present state of Montana. His friend Harris accompanied him 

 and acted as general financial manager of the expedition. John 

 G. Bell, the taxidermist, Isaac Sprague and Lewis Squires made 

 up the party. 



Spencer F. Baird, afterward secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, but then a young man, had recently become acquainted 

 with Audubon and was asked to accompany him but decided not 

 to go. 



The expedition was eminently successful and many specimens 

 of birds and quadrupeds were secured. 



In 1846, Audubon began to show signs of physical failure. Dr. 

 Brewer says of him at this time, "The patriarch had greatly 

 changed since I had last seen him. He wore his hair longer and 

 it now hung down in locks of snowy whiteness on his shoulders. 

 His once piercing gray eyes, though still bright, had already begun 

 to fail him. He could no longer paint with his wonted accuracy, 

 and had at last most reluctantly been forced to surrender to his 

 sons the task of completing the illustrations to the Quadrupeds of 

 North America. Surrounded by his large family, including his 

 devoted wife, his two sons with their wives and a troop of grand- 

 children, his enjoyments of life seemed to leave him little to de- 

 sire. ... A pleasanter scene, or a more interesting household it 

 has never been the writer's good fortune to witness." 



His son John Woodhouse did the remaining plates of the Quad- 

 rupeds, while Bachman wrote a large portion and edited all of the 

 text of the work. 



By 1848, the mind of the ornithologist had failed. He experi- 

 enced no period of invalidism, but during the next three years his 



