JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. ^3 



" Shepherd. Where's the exhibition now ? 



" North. At Glasgow, I believe where I have no doubt it 

 will attract thousands of delighted spectators. I must get 

 the friend who gave a glance over Selby's Ornithology to tell 

 the world at large more of Audubon. He is the greatest artist 

 in his own walk that ever lived, and can not fail to reap the 

 reward of his genius and perseverance and adventurous zeal 

 in his own beautiful branch of natural history, both in fame 

 and fortune." 



John James Audubon was born near New Orleans, May 4, 

 1780, and died at the present Audubon Park, New York city, 

 January 27, 1851. His father, the son of a fisherman of La 

 Vendee, was a French naval officer, who rose to the rank of ad- 

 miral and came to America with Rochambeau and De Grasse, 

 was present at the siege of Yorktown, and became an enthu- 

 siastic American himself. He had purchased a plantation in 

 Louisiana, then a French province, while the American Revo- 

 lution was still in progress. A few years later he removed to 

 Santo Domingo, where his wife* was murdered in an uprising 

 of the blacks. He then returned to Louisiana, where he mar- 

 ried a lady of that colony, of Spanish descent, named Anne 

 Moynette, and not long after took his family to France. The 

 son imbibed a love of Nature at an extremely early age. 

 This was probably strengthened by his short residence on the 

 West Indian plantation, and was not repressed, but mastered 

 the situation when he was taken to France to be educated. It 

 is recorded of him that he was accustomed to amuse himself 

 when a mere child by trying to draw the birds he saw around 

 him; and that, his crude efforts not being satisfactory, he 

 used to make a bonfire of them at each birthday. His father 

 desired him to be qualified for some occupation connected with 

 the navy or with engineering, and having bought an estate 

 near Nantes, left him there in charge of his stepmother to be 

 taught mathematics, drawing, geography, fencing, and music. 

 His drawing master was the celebrated artist David, who set 

 him to drawing " horses' heads and the limbs of giants," but 

 he preferred birds, and improved such opportunities as he 

 could get to exercise himself upon them, and spent much of 



* Little is known about the naturalist's mother. It is thought that she was 

 a Mile. La Foret. 

 II 



