COUES : " Behind the Veil." 



199 



of various pieces of papei* peer curious faces of Owls, in all stages of 

 incompleteness, showing how he practised di'awing these difficult 

 subjects. 



Wilson's school-house, near geat's fekry, Philadelphia. 



From a drawing by M. S. Weaver, Oct. 22, 1841, received by Elliott Coues, February, 1879, 

 from Malvina Lawson, daughter of Alexander Lawson, AVilson's engraver. See article in the 

 " Penn Monthly,'' June, 1879, p. 44.3. The drawing was first engraved on wood, and published 

 by Thomas Meehan, in the " Gardeners Monthly," August, 1880, p. 248. The present impres- 

 sion is from an electrotype of that wood-cut. The size of the original is 5.10 X 3.95 inches. 



Quite a diflferent " presence " seemed about me as I turned from 

 these precious relics to the no less valuable and interesting collec- 

 tion of Audubon letters aud drawings. The coirespondence — 

 much if not all of it inedited — in Mr. Wade's possession is volumi- 

 nous, and supplies many missing links in the inside history of the 

 ever-splendid " Birds of America." The mai-vellous genius of Audu- 

 bon, with its grand achievements, could not but excite envy and set 

 slander abroad in some quarters. The documents, of course, are 

 mainly on the side of the author, and some of them show certain 

 high names in no favorable light. There are some unpublished de- 

 fences of Audubon from the attacks of "the eccentric AVatertou " ; 

 some matters which no friend of George Ord (Wilson's editor, it will 



