154 



PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA. 



his time in excursions into the woods, collecting specimens, 

 and making drawings of them. The real supervision of his 

 operations was with his indulgent stepmother, who gave him 

 ample scope for the exercise of his own tastes. When Audu- 

 bon's father returned from sea he was astonished at the large 

 collection his son had made, and then asked what progress he 

 had made in his other studies. The reply not being satisfac- 

 tory, he took the youth in hand himself, and kept him for a 

 year in the close study of mathematics. But every opportunity 

 for natural history rambles was still improved. 



Either at this time or during a later stay of a year at 

 Nantes, young Audubon is credited with having made a hun- 

 dred drawings of European birds. Three specimens of these 

 works have come into the hands of Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, who 

 has described them in The Auk. They are all drawn in a 

 combination of crayon and water colours, on a thin kind of 

 drawing paper; are numbered 44, 77, and 96, and represent the 

 magpie, the coot, and the green woodpecker. The earliest of 

 the sketches is the magpie, represented as of life-size and 

 standing on the ground. " The execution is quite crude, 

 though the naturalist ' sticks out ' in it, for, notwithstanding 

 the somewhat awkward position the bird is in, there is life 

 in it." The second picture, that of a coot, "is a marked im- 

 provement on the magpie. Far more pains have been taken 

 with the feet, legs, bill, and eye, though little has been gained 

 in the natural attitude of the bird. . . . Except very faintly in 

 the wing, no attempt has been made to individualize the feath- 

 ers, the entire body being of a dead black, worked in either by 

 burned cork or crayon." Dr. Shufeldt also remarks that, "as 

 is usually the case among juvenile artists, both this bird and 

 the magpie are represented upon direct lateral view, and no 

 evidence has yet appeared to hint to us of the wonderful power 

 Audubon eventually came to possess in figuring his. birds in 

 their every attitude." The green woodpecker "is a wonderful 

 improvement, in every particular, upon both of the others. 

 The details of the plumage and other structures are brought 

 out with great delicacy, and refinement of touch ; while the 

 attitude of the bird, an old male, is even better than many of 

 those published in his famous work. The colours are soft, and 

 have been so handled as to lend to the plumage a very flossy 

 and natural appearance, while the old trunk, upon the side of 



