AUDUBON—THE HUNTER-NATURALIST. 107 
cherished object of my hopes. When I delivered the first 
drawings to the engraver, I had not a single subscriber. 
Those who knew me best called me rash; some wrote to me 
that they did not expect to see a second fasciculus ; and others 
seemed to anticipate the total failure of my enterprise. But 
my heart was nerved, and my reliance on that Power, on 
whom all must depend, brought bright anticipations of success. 
Having made arrangements for meeting the first difficulties, 
I turned my attention to the improvement of my drawings, 
and began to collect from the pages of my journals the scat- 
tered notes which referred to the habits of the birds repre- 
sented by them. I worked early and late, and glad I was to 
perceive that the more I labored the more I improved. I 
was happy, too, to find, that in general each succeeding plate 
was better than its predecessor, and when those who had at 
first endeavored to dissuade me from undertaking so vast an 
enterprise, complimented me on my more favorable prospects, 
I couldenot but feel happy. Number after number appeared 
in regular succession, until at the end of four years of anxiety, 
my engraver, Mr. Havell, presented me with the First Volume 
of the Birds of America. 
Convinced, from a careful comparison of the plates, that at 
least there had been no falling off in the execution, I looked 
forward with confidence to the termination of the next four 
years’ labor. Time passed on, and I returned from the 
forests and wilds of the western world to congratulate my 
friend Havell, just when the last plate of the second volume 
was finished. 
About that time, a nobleman called upon me with his 
family, and requested me to show them some of the original 
drawings, which I did with the more pleasure that my visitors 
possessed a knowledge of Ornithology. In the course of our 
conversation, I was asked how long it might be until the 
work should be finished. When I mentioned eight years 
more, the nobleman shrugged up his shoulders, and sighing, 
