274 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



but that a copy would be ordered from Europe at once. 

 In those days Charleston was farther removed in time 

 from New York than California is now from Boston; 

 two weeks was required for a letter of one naturalist 

 to reach the other, and the difficulties of cooperation 

 were correspondingly great. On May 31 Audubon ac- 

 knowledged the return of the skins, but said : "Judge of 

 my astonishment, when I could not find a single one of 

 the small animals, Shrews, and Scalops argentatus, the 

 latter of which I am anxious to draw at once." 



The summer and autumn of 1846 bore heavily on 

 John Bachman, subject as he then was to a "thousand 

 calls and interruptions," and "bowed down, and almost 

 distracted, with anxieties and grief." ^^ But the first 

 volume of the letterpress which had given him so much 

 trouble was finished in November, and was published by 

 Audubon at the close of this year. It was at once recog- 

 nized as a standard and authoritative work, which was 

 then without a competitor in America, and as Louis 

 Agassiz affirmed, without an equal in Europe. At the 

 time of its issue the twentieth number of the folio illus- 

 trations was nearly ready; the text itself had 271 sub- 

 scribers, calling for 281 copies,^* though only the eastern 

 cities had then been canvassed. 



Early in 1846 Baird wrote to Audubon:^® "I have 

 made drawings of the sculls of our quadrupeds which 

 are at your service if you want them. They are Mink, 



"Mrs. Harriet Bachman died in July, 1846, and almost immediately 

 a daughter was stricken with a fatal disease; "It seizes," said the father, 

 "with a deadly hold, weakens the cords of life; and only relinquishes its 

 fatal grasp, when life is extinct." (See C. L. Bachman, op. cit.) 



"New York City furnished (for vol. i) 82 subscribers, who took 86 

 copies; Philadelphia, 33; Boston, 27 (28 copies); and Baltimore, 15. In 

 1854 Victor Audubon obtained 129 subscribers for the second edition (pub- 

 lished with reduced plates) in three days. 



"For this and the following extract, see Ruthven Deane (Bibl. No, 

 51), loc. cit., p. 65. 



