SKETCH OF LIFE AND WORK 35 



in Edinburgh in 1830. Audubon writes in his journal, 

 recently published by his grand-daughter, Miss Marion 

 R. Audubon : "I know I am a poor writer, that I 

 scarcely can manage to scribble a tolerable English letter 

 and not a much better one in French, though that is 

 easier to me. I know I am not a scholar, but, mean- 

 time, I am aware that no man living knows better 

 than I do the habits of our birds ; no man living has 

 studied them so much as I have done, and, with the 

 assistance of my old journals and memorandum books, 

 which were written on the spot, I can at least put 

 down plain truths which may be useful and perhaps 

 interesting, so I shall set to at once. I cannot, how- 

 ever, give scientific descriptions and here must have 

 assistance." 



Thus Audubon wrote on 16th October 1830 in 

 his lodgings, 26 George Street, his residence during 

 all the time he was in Edinburgh. 



The co-operation of Audubon and MacGillivray 

 in the production of the Ornithological Biographies is 

 thus referred to by Mr. D. G. Elliot in an address 

 to the New York Academy of Sciences on 16th 

 April 1893. He says : " No better or more fortunate 

 choice could have been made. Audubon worked 

 incessantly, MacGillivray keeping abreast of him ; 

 and Mrs. Audubon rewrote the entire manuscript to 

 send to America to secure the copyright." 



The late Dr. Coues, in his Key to North American 

 Birds, second edition, 1884, says of Audubon : " Vivid 

 and ardent was his genius ; matchless he was, both in 



