396 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



else a replica, was in possession of the Audubon family 

 in 1898. 9 



On December 14, 1827, Audubon wrote that, acting 

 upon the advice of Mr. Maury, the American consul 

 at London, he had presented a copy of his Birds to 

 John Quincy Adams, the President of the United 

 States, and another, through Henry Clay, to the Ameri- 

 can Congress; in order that the latter should be as 

 perfect as possible, Havell was asked to do the color- 

 ing himself, but these proposed gifts do not appear to 

 have been executed. 10 



New Year's, 1828, found the naturalist in Man- 

 chester, where but a few days before he had received 

 the fifth and last number of his plates for 1827 and 

 expressed himself well pleased with it. While return- 

 ing to London by coach, he consented to take a hand 

 at cards to accommodate his fellow passengers, but 

 declined to play for money; "I never play," he con- 

 fessed, "unless obliged to by circumstances; I feel no 

 pleasure in the game, and long for other occupation." 

 "I missed my snuff," he added, and whenever his hands 

 went into his pockets in search of the box, he "discov- 

 ered the strength of habit thus acting without thought"; 

 but he remembered a resolution he had formed to give 

 up the habit and stuck to it for a time at least ; doubt- 

 less, like his later friend, John Bachman, he reformed 

 more than once, for in a letter to Victor Audubon, of 

 November 5, 1846, Bachman added this postscript: 

 "To Audubon: The snuff the snuff, it is here! I have 

 just taken a pinch, and the ladies have blown you up 

 sky-high, for teaching me such a bad practice; I say, 



9 See Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), 

 vol. i, p. 342, where the "Eagle and the Lamb" is reproduced. 



10 See Vol. I, p. 436. 



