JOHN JAMES AUDUBON. 197 



through my hands for the completion of the first 

 volume. Who would believe that a lonely indi- 

 vidual, who landed in England without a friend 

 in the whole country, and with only sufficient pecu- 

 niary means to travel through it as a visitor, could 

 have accomplished such a task as this publication ! 

 Who would believe that once, in London, Audubon 

 had only one sovereign left in his pocket, and did 

 not know of a single individual to whom he could 

 apply to borrow another, when he was on the verge 

 of failure in the very beginning of his undertaking ! 

 And, above all, who would believe that he extricated 

 himself from all his difficulties, not by borrowing 

 money, but by rising at four o'clock in the morn- 

 ing, working hard all day, and disposing of his 

 works at a price which a common laborer would 

 have thought little more than sufficient remunera- 

 tion for his work ! " 



In the four years required to bring out the work, 

 fifty-six of his subscribers, representing the sum of 

 fifty-six thousand dollars, abandoned him, and he 

 was obliged to leave London, and go into the 

 provinces to supply their places. 



September 3, 1831, Audubon returned to America, 

 spent the winter in Eastern Florida, searching for 

 birds and animals, and then some months in Labra- 

 dor, having sent Victor to England to superintend 

 the engraving of the drawings. In Labrador he 

 collected one hundred and seventy-three skins of 

 birds, and studied carefully the habits of the eider- 

 duck, loons, wild geese, and other birds. Some- 



