182. AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
a drawing as that of the Wood Thrush (1806) is in 
marked contrast to the more ambitious “Fish Hawk or 
Osprey, A. Willson, Perkioming Creek, 1809,” in which 
the bird holds a white sucker in its talons but is less 
happily rendered. Nine large pastels of waterfowl and 
two smaller pieces, representing a Robin and Brown 
Thrush, in the same style, are good examples of Audu- 
bon’s cruder efforts of that time; they were merely hur- 
ried sketches or practice work, with no attempt to finish 
with all the perfection of detail of which he was then 
capable. 
In a full-size pastel of the Black Surf or Velvet 
Duck, drawn on December 28, 1806, and signed “J. J. 
L. Audubon,” the note is added: “the only specimen of 
the kind I have ever seen.’ He became well acquainted 
with the Velvet Ducks, now better known as the White- 
winged Scoters, and in his account of the species says: 
“As we approached the shores of Labrador, we found 
the waters covered with dense flocks of these birds, and 
yet they continued to arrive there from the St. Law- 
rence for several days in succession. We were all as- 
tonished at their numbers which were such that we 
could not help imagining that all the Velvet Ducks in 
the world were passing before us.” ** 
Several of these drawings are credited to “The Falls 
of the Ohio,” as the rapids of this river at Louisville 
were then generally called; a number to “Red Banks,” 
the old name of Henderson, Kentucky; while five were 
done in Pennsylvania, probably when Audubon was at 
the home of his father-in-law, William Bakewell, in the 
spring of 1812. An excellent drawing of the Chuck 
Wills Widow was probably made on the Red River,"* in 
* Ornithological Biography (Bibl. No. 2), vol. i, p. 354. 
See Appvndix II. 
