AUDUBON THE HUNTER-NATURALIST. 107 



cherished object of my hopes. When I delivered the first 

 drawings to the engraver, I had not a single subscriber. 

 Those who knew me best called me rash ; some wrote to me 

 that they did not expect to see a second fasciculus ; and others 

 seemed to anticipate the total failure of my enterprise. But 

 my heart was nerved, and my reliance on that Power, on 

 whom all must depend, brought bright anticipations of success. 



Having made arrangements for meeting the first difficulties, 

 I turned my attention to the improvement of my drawings, 

 and began to collect from the pages of my journals the scat- 

 tered notes which referred to the habits of the birds repre- 

 sented by them. I worked early and late, and glad I was to 

 perceive that the more I labored the more I improved. I 

 was happy, too, to find, that in general each succeeding plate 

 was better than its predecessor, and when those who had at 

 first endeavored to dissuade me from undertaking so vast an 

 enterprise, complimented me on my more favorable prospects, 

 I could not but feel happy. Number after number appeared 

 in regular succession, until at the end of four years of anxiety, 

 my engraver, Mr. Havell, presented me with the First Volume 

 of the Birds of America. 



Convinced, from a careful comparison of the plates, that at 

 least there had been no falling off in the execution, I looked 

 forward with confidence to the termination of the next four 

 years' labor. Time passed on, and I returned from the 

 forests and wilds of the western world to congratulate my 

 friend Havell, just when the last plate of the second volume 

 was finished. 



About that time, a nobleman called upon me with his 

 family, and requested me to show them some of the original 

 drawings, which I did with the more pleasure that my visitors 

 possessed a knowledge of Ornithology. In the course of our 

 conversation, I was asked how long it might be until the 

 work should be finished. When I mentioned eight years 

 more, the nobleman shrugged up his shoulders, and sighing, 



