86 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



not personally familiar, thus making his work more nearly a 

 complete treatise on the bird life of America than any which had 

 preceded it. Wilson treated of two hundred and seventy-eight 

 species, of which two hundred and sixty-five are now recognized, 

 while Audubon treated in all five hundred and nine of which 

 four hundred and seventy-three are recognized to-day as belong- 

 ing to our fauna. Of those additional to Wilson ninety-three are 

 water birds, 1 and one hundred and seventeen land birds. Of the 

 latter only forty-six came under his own observation, no less than 

 fifty-one being furnished him by John K. Townsend, the first 

 ornithologist to cross the continent to the shores of the Pacific. 



While honored with memberships in many scientific societies, 

 Audubon took no part in their deliberations and felt himself out 

 of place in such assemblages. He says of a meeting of the Royal 

 Society of London: "The evening was spent at the Royal Society, 

 where as at all Royal Societies, I heard a dull heavy lecture." 



As has already been said Audubon was popular with almost 

 every one with whom he came in contact, interesting and vivacious 

 in conversation, a talented musician and above all with every 

 characteristic of the artist strongly marked. In person he was 

 always strikingly handsome. In his early prime he says of himself, 

 "I measured five feet ten and a half inches, was of a fair mien, 

 and quite a handsome figure, large dark and rather sunken eyes, 

 light colored eye-brows, aquiline nose, and a fine set of teeth ; hair, 

 fine texture and luxuriant, divided and passing down behind each 

 ear in luxuriant ringlets as far as the shoulders." 



He continued to wear his hair in this fashion after he reached 

 Edinburgh, nor did he seem to mind the attention that he thus at- 

 tracted. Mr. Joseph Coolidge who accompanied Audubon on his 

 Labrador expedition in 1833, gives us a picture of the naturalist, as 

 he knew him, "You had only to meet him to love him," he says, 

 "and when you had conversed with him for a moment, you looked 

 upon him as an old friend, rather than a stranger. ... To this 

 day I can see him, a magnificent gray haired man, childlike in his 

 simplicity, kind-hearted, noble-souled, lover of nature and lover of 



1 Wilson never completed his work and the water birds are very deficient. 



