2 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



drawn with the pen, can be read with as much pleasure 

 as when the last volume of his Ornithological Biography 

 left the press in 1839. This appears the more remark- 

 able when we reflect that Audubon's greatest working 

 period, from 1820 to 1840, belonged essentially to the 

 eighteenth century, for the real transition to the nine- 

 teenth century did not begin in England before 1837; 

 then came the dawn of the newer day that was to wit- 

 ness those momentous changes in communication and 

 travel, in education, democracy and ideas, which char- 

 acterize life in the modern world. 



When Audubon left London for Paris on Septem- 

 ber 1, 1828, it took him four days by coach, boat and 

 diligence to reach the French capital, a journey which 

 in normal times is now made in less than eight hours. 

 Mail then left the Continent for England on but four 

 days in the week, and to post a single letter cost twenty- 

 four sous. Writing at Edinburgh a little earlier (De- 

 cember 21, 1826), Audubon recorded that on that day 

 he had received from De Witt Clinton and Thomas 

 Sully, in America, letters in answer to his own, in forty- 

 two days, and added that it seemed absolutely impossi- 

 ble that the distance could be covered so rapidly. This 

 was indeed remarkable, since the first vessel to cross 

 the Atlantic wholly under its own steam, in 1838, re- 

 quired seventeen days to make the passage from New 

 York to Queenstown. 



"Walking in Paris," said Audubon in 1828, "is disa- 

 greeable in the extreme; the streets are paved, but with 

 scarcely a sidewalk, and a large gutter filled with dirty 

 black water runs through the middle of each, and peo- 

 ple go about without any kind of order, in the center, 

 or near the houses." The Paris of that day contained 

 but one-fourth the number of its present population. 



