2 Oil Rece77t Literature. I April 



'Omega.' Fort Union was reached June I3. Of this slow, tedious 

 journey, with the most primitive facilities for navigation, Audubon 

 writes : " Our trip to this place has been the quickest on record, though 

 our boat is the slowest that ever undertook to reach the Yellowstone. 

 Including all stoppages and detentions, we have made the trip in forty- 

 eight days and seven hours from St. Louis. We left St. Louis April 25th, 

 at noon; reaching Fort Union June 12th, at seven in the evening.'" On 

 the return journey the start was made August 16 from Fort Union, and 

 St. Louis was reached Oct. 19, Audubon arriving at his home in New 

 York Nov. 6. 



On this journey Audubon took with him as assistants and companions 

 his friend Edward Harris of Philadelphia, John G. Bell, the well-known 

 New York taxidermist, the botanical artist Isaac Sprague, and Lewis 

 Squires. Bell, Harris and Sprague are each commemorated in the 

 names of new birds discovered during the journey — in Bell's Vireo, 

 Harris's Finch, and Sprague's Lark. The narrative of the expedition 

 gives a vivid pictvu^e of frontier life a half a century ago, with much valu- 

 able information resp.ecting the character and habits of the Indians and 

 half-breeds met with, in addition to the natural historj^ notes and hunting 

 episodes, of which the journal is largely composed. This was in the 

 early days when Parrakeets were common as far north as Nebraska, and 

 were met with by Audubon as far up the Missouri as Great Bend, South 

 Dakota; wolves, elk, deer, antelope and bison abounded. Valuable obser- 

 vations are recorded on the general character of the country, as well as 

 on the birds and mammals. 



Volume II concludes with the ' Episodes,' fifty-eight in number. All 

 but one were published in the first three volumes of the ' Ornithological 

 Biographies,' but as they were not republished in the later ' Birds of 

 America,' nor elsewhere till now, they will prove of special -interest, as 

 well to the general reader as to the naturalist. They treat of a great 

 variety of subjects, including incidents of personal adventure, and often 

 show Audubon at his best as a strong and versatile writer, and reveal, 

 quite as much as his 'Journals,' his kind-heartedness and keen apprecia- 

 tion of the fancies and foibles of his fellowmen. 



Audubon was blessed with a strong constitution and remarkable phj'si- 

 cal vigor and endurance. As early, however, as the Labrador journey he 

 speaks of realizing that he was no longer young, and that he could not 

 draw steadily for fourteen hours a day, as was formerly his custom. Yet 

 ten years later, at the age of seventy, he undertook the arduous journey 

 to the Yellowstone, and returned apparently none the worse for its inci- 

 dents. In his younger days and till long after his return fi-om England, 

 his usual allowance of sleep was four hours per day ; he Avas an early 

 riser, and seemed rarely to experience fatigue. After a life of great activ- 

 ity and varied experiences, his later days were spent in the quiet of his 

 family in New York. To the last, says his biographer, "his enthusiasm, 

 freshness, and keenness of enjoyment and pain were never blunted. His 



