Notice of Audubon^ s Birds of America. 131 



present, render it unnecessary that we should devote much space 

 or time to the vohime before us. To praise it is no longer neces- 

 sary ; for since we essayed our feeble tribute in commendation of 

 the undertaking of our enterprising and gifted countryman, the 

 public have given indubitable assurance that his labors have been 

 appreciated, in a manner alike satisfactory to the publishers, as it 

 insures the liberal remuneration of the publication, and to the 

 author, showing as it does, that it can hardly be said of him that 

 he " is not without honor save in his own land." Since the com- 

 pletion of his first volume he has received no less than three hun- 

 dred and ninety live new subscribers, of whom nearly one half 

 are in the single city of Boston ; a fact highly creditable to the 

 liberality and intelligence of that city. Mr. Audubon has now 

 nearly a thousand subscribers to his work ; an instance of liberal 

 support of a work on natural history certainly without a parallel 

 in the New World, and hardly with one in the Old. This insures 

 the success of the undertaking far beyond the most sanguine an- 

 ticipation of the author, and enables him to continue to make 

 marked and decided improvements in the publication as it advan- 

 ces. Although severe domestic afflictions have meanwhile bow- 

 ed him to the earth, under the visitation of an overruling Provi- 

 dence ; although the hand of sickness and disease, added to the 

 combined death of two of his children by marriage, have con- 

 tributed to render the task rather a means of relief from painful 

 thoughts than the pleasant employment it once was, we witness 

 no abatement in the interest or the value of the work. The text 

 is, as ever, replete with a vast amount of new and important facts, 

 while the plates, except in one or two instances, continue to im- 

 prove as the work advances. 



The second volume contains seventy plates, one hundred and 

 thirty six figures of birds, besides a very large number of draw- 

 ings of plants, insects, nests, &c. &c. ; all this, with the text, 

 furnished for the low sum of fourteen dollars — less than the cost 

 would be for a single plate ! The birds represented in the pres- 

 ent volume are of seventy species, embraced in families of the 

 wood-warblers, creepers, (including wrens,) titmice, warblers 

 and thrushes. These families are those adopted by Mr. Audubon, 

 and are like those of no other work, but are nearly similar to 

 those of Mr. Swainson. We have already expressed our disap- 

 probation of the system by which the present work is arranged. 



