EARLY DRAWINGS 181 
hastily drawn in pastel, crayon and pencil, and had not 
time failed him at the end, nothing of his earlier Ameri- 
can period would have remained in the final product. 
Nearly all of these rejected drawings bear serial 
numbers, which from the lack of sequence now observed, 
show that they were subject to constant change and 
that their total number must have been great. All bear 
the scientific and common names in French or English 
or both, and many are signed with the artist’s initials 
or name; besides giving the place and date, in some 
cases the weights and measurements of his subjects are 
added, with detailed sketches of foot, bill, or eggs." 
A large crayon sketch of a groundhog, in excellent 
drawing, is labeled “Marmotte de sauvage, No. 159, le 
6 juin, 1805.” The Redstart, executed in August of 
the same year, is a good example of Audubon’s more 
delicate early work; it shows also the attention which 
he was then beginning to pay to accessories, his bird 
being perched on a spray of ripening blackberries. The 
Wagtail, on the other hand, was a rough crayon sketch, 
dashed off on December 22 of the same year. A pencil 
and crayon drawing of the Mountain Titmouse, which 
is a European bird, was probably made from a captive, 
and at sea, since it bears the date of January 22, 1805, 
when Audubon was, I believe, aboard the Hope.” The 
latest of these French pieces, designated “No. 94. 
Woodpecker, le 8 mars, 1806. pres Nantes; 12 
to the tail,’ was executed about a month before the 
naturalist finally left France with Rozier to settle per- 
manently in the United States. The excellence of such 
“For a list of Audubon’s early dated drawings see Appendix II. 
Through the courtesy of Mr. Jeanes, I am able to reproduce a fuller series 
of Audubon’s early drawings of French and American birds than has hith- 
erto been published, and have chosen the subjects to illustrate the develop- 
ment of his style. 
4See Vol. I, p. 125. 
