^"sgS^J neccjit LllrralKie. IQQ 



material siip))licd 1)\' liis W'itiow,' puhlislicd in Londnii in 1868 and 

 republished in New York in 1869, with additions, and the omission of 

 some objectionable passafj^es, has been heretofore our principal authority 

 on the life of the threat artist-naturalist, but it is said to contain many 

 errors in dates and names, and is otherwise very unsatisfactory. 



Andubon was born in Mandeville, Parish of St. Tammany, Louisiana. 

 The date of his birth remains in obscurity; it is usually given as Maj' 5, 

 1780, though believed to be somewhat earlier. It was, however, during 

 the time Louisiana was a Spanish colony, some twenty to twenty-five 

 years before it became a part of the United States. Yet Audubon, in so 

 often referring to himself in his European Journals as the American 

 woodsman, is literally within the truth as regards the locality of his 

 birthplace; and throughout his life ail his interests and sympathies were 

 centered in the United States, v^-hich eventuallv came to include the land 

 of his birth, his "beloved Louisiana." 



At an early age he, with his mother, went with his father to Santo 

 Domingo, where the elder Audubon owned a large estate. Here his 

 mother was soon after killed in a negro insurrection , the father and 

 young Audubon, still a very young child, and some servants, escaped to 

 New Orleans and thence went to France. Here Audubon lived for some 

 years at Nantes, in the care of a fond stepmother, and later was put to 

 school. He was not, however, especially studious. He says, " My father 

 being mostly absent on dutj' [as a naval officer], my mother suffered me 

 to do much as I pleased ; it was therefore not to be wondered at that, 

 instead of applying closely to my studies, I preferred associating with 

 boys of my own age and disposition, Avho were more fond of going in 

 search of birds' nests, fishing, or shooting, than of better studies.' 

 Again, speaking of liis school days, he says: "During all these years 

 there existed withip me a tendency to follow Nature in her walks. Per- 

 haps not an hour of leisure w^as spent elsewhere than in Avoods and fields 

 and to examine either the eggs, nest, young, or parents of anv species of 

 birds constituted my delight." When he was about eighteen years old his 

 father found it necessary to send him back to his "own beloved country, 

 the United States of America," and, he adds, "I came with intense and 

 indescribable pleasure." 



From this time, with the exception of a business trip to France while 

 still a youth, and his later visits to Great Britain and the continent, he 

 lived in the United States, for which, in all his wanderings, he mani- 

 fested the greatest attachment. 



The history of the first fort}' years of Audubon's life, as here given 

 (pp. 7-38), is autobiographical, being from one of his journals ;• it brings 

 the account down to 1S19, when he left Henderson, Kentucky. This is 



' Reprinted from ' Scribner's Magazine,' for March, 1S93, with some correc- 

 tions. 



