GOBS TO EDINBURGH. 317 



them to his house, which was done directly. Number after 

 number was sent and delivered to the Baron, and after eight 

 or ten months my son made out his account and sent it by 

 Mr. Havell, my engraver, to his banking-house. The Baron 

 looked at it with amazement, and cried out, ' What, a hundred 

 pounds for birds ! Why, sir, I will give you five pounds, and not a 

 farthing more.' Representations were made to him of the 

 magnificence and expense of the work, and how pleased his 

 Baroness and wealthy children would be to have a copy ; but 

 the great financier was unrelenting. The copy of the work was 

 actually sent back to Mr. Havell's shop, and as I found that 

 instituting legal proceedings against him would cost more than 

 it would come to, I kept the work, and afterwards sold it to a 

 man with less money but a nobler heart. What a distance 

 there is between two such men as the Baron Rothschild of 

 London and the merchant of Savannah !" 



Audubon remained in London looking after his work and 

 interests there until the fall of 1834, when he went with his 

 family to Edinburgh, where he hired a house and spent a next 

 year and a half. 



There is no journal describing the incidents of that residence 

 in Edinburgh ; and it is probable, for the reason that Audubon 

 did not keep a daily record there at all. The journal was 

 written chiefly with the design to keep his wife and children 

 informed of all his doings when he was absent from them, and 

 they were with him during this period, and so there was no 

 necessity for it ; and secondly, he was daily so busily occupied 

 with other writing that he had no time to devote to that, or 

 even his favourite work of drawing and painting. Some idea 

 of the amount of his labour at that period may be inferred 

 from the fact, that the introduction to volume second of his 

 " American Ornithological Biography," which contains five hun- 

 dred and eighty-five pages of closely-printed matter, is dated 

 December 1st, 1834 ; and that in just one year from that date, 

 the third volume, containing six hundred and thirty-eight pages, 

 was printed and published. 



In the summer of 1836 he removed his family to London, 

 and having settled them in Wimpole-street, Cavendish Square, 

 he again made his preparations to return to America, and 



