2 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
drawn with the pen, can be read with as much pleasure 
as when the last volume of his Ornithological Biography 
left the press in 1839. This appears the more remark- 
able when we reflect that Audubon’s greatest working 
period, from 1820 to 1840, belonged essentially to the 
eighteenth century, for the real transition to the nine- 
teenth century did not begin in England before 1887; 
then came the dawn of the newer day that was to wit- 
ness those momentous changes in communication and 
travel, in education, democracy and ideas, which char- 
acterize life in the modern world. 
When Audubon left London for Paris on Septem- 
ber 1, 1828, it took him four days by coach, boat and 
diligence to reach the French capital, a journey which 
in normal times is now made in less than eight hours. 
Mail then left the Continent for England on but four 
days in the week, and to post a single letter cost twenty- 
four sous. Writing at Edinburgh a little earlier (De- 
cember 21, 1826), Audubon recorded that on that day 
he had received from De Witt Clinton and Thomas 
Sully, in America, letters in answer to his own, in forty- 
two days, and added that it seemed absolutely impossi- 
ble that the distance could be covered so rapidly. This 
was indeed remarkable, since the first vessel to cross 
the Atlantic wholly under its own steam, in 18388, re- 
quired seventeen days to make the passage from New 
York to Queenstown. 
“Walking in Paris,” said Audubon in 1828, “‘is disa- 
greeable in the extreme; the streets are paved, but with 
scarcely a sidewalk, and a large gutter filled with dirty 
black water runs through the middle of each, and peo- 
ple go about without any kind of order, in the center, 
or near the houses.” The Paris of that day contained 
but one-fourth the number of its present population. 
