66 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
ments, and there is no reason to suppose that knowledge 
of his age was ever withheld from him. Nevertheless, 
Audubon was inclined to overestimate his years, a char- 
acteristic rare in these days; when at Oxford in 1828 
he was asked for his autograph, and was begged to in- 
scribe also the date of his birth; “‘that,”’ he said in record- 
ing the incident, “I could not do, except approximately,” 
and his hostess was greatly amused that he should not 
know. 
While going down the Ohio River in 1820, bound for 
New Orleans, Audubon took advantage of a rainy day 
to write in his journal something about himself that he 
thought his children at some future time might desire 
to know. This brief record may or may not have been 
at hand when in 1835 he wrote the more extended ver- 
sion that finally saw the light in 1893." Since the manu- 
script of the later sketch was presumably in possession 
of Mrs. Audubon when the biography of her husband 
was prepared in New York about the year 1866, that 
account in its various versions has furnished biograph- 
ers with practically all of the available material, not 
purely conjectural, concerning the naturalist’s early life. 
Such additions as were made subsequently have proved 
to be very inaccurate. 
In the first of these sketches, which, so far as it goes, 
is more in strict accord with facts, Audubon said nothing 
of his birth, and of his mother remarked only that he 
had been told that she was “an extraordinary beauti- 
ful woman,” who died shortly after he was born. His 
father, he added, saw his wealth torn from him, until 
there was left barely enough to educate his two chil- 
dren, all that remained of the five, his three elder broth- 
* Published by Maria R. Audubon (Bibl. No. 78) in Scribner’s 
Magazine, vol. xiii (1893). 
