32 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



pedition to the coast of Labrador. Meantime Bachman, 

 who was keenly interested in his success, was urging him 

 to return to Charleston; on October 20, 1832, he wrote: 

 "A month in your society would afford me greater pleas- 

 ure than the highest prize in a lottery. I cannot, I find, 

 feel myself at home with new birds without having the 

 skins to refer to. My cabinet is enlarging every day. 

 Henry Ward now prepares the skins — a pair of each. 

 . . . What ducks, that are not likely to be obtained for 

 you in Boston, would you like Maria to draw for you?" 

 Writing again on the 26th of October, he said: ® 



I wish to know what you are doing — what progress your 

 work is making; and, whilst I feel deeply interested for your 

 fame. ... I feel also a particular interest in your personal 

 welfare, and that of all that belongs to you; . . . Besides, I 

 want to see you once more to ascertain whether you have stuck 

 to your good resolutions, viz., never to swear (which is a vul- 

 gar practice for one who is conversant with the most beauti- 

 ful of God's works, the feathered race), and never to work on 

 Sundays. However, you are now under the tutorage of your 

 good wife, and, I doubt not, you are as obedient to her in 

 these things, as you ought to be. . . . You say new birds are 

 scarce. So they are, and yet, in my opinion, we will occasion- 

 ally find them for half a century to come. (November 11) 

 Maria has figured for you the "White Hibiscus," and, also, a 

 red one, both natives and beautiful ; a Euonymus in seed, in 

 which our Sylvia is placed; the white Nondescript Rose; the 

 Gordonica, a Begonia. . . . She is prepared to send them to 

 you; shall she ship them at once to Boston.'' . . . Your resolu- 

 tion to publish the 3 rd. Vol. of Water Birds, you will recol- 

 lect was partly entered into here, and from that moment, my 

 mind was at ease. It wiU give you four or five years in ad- 

 vance, and will enable you, in a 5th. Vol., to add all recent 



»C. L. Bachman, John Bachman, D.D., LL.D., Ph.D. (Bibl. No. 191). 



