344 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
possess all the specimens necessary, I arranged them as well as 
I could into parcels of five plates—I improved the whole as 
much as was in my power; and as I daily retired farther from 
the haunts of man, determined to leave nothing undone, which 
my labor, my time, or my purse could accomplish.’® 
Audubon’s journal kept on the lakes has been lost, 
but that journey was fresh in mind when he wrote the 
following letter to Edward Harris.” 
‘Audubon to Edward Harris 
Breecuwoops. Near Bayou Sara, La. 
Jany. 31 1825. 
Surely I have not dismerited your esteem; when on the 
‘Lakes, both Ontario and Champlain, I wrote to you—again 
from Pittsburgh, all without any answer, and I am sorry to 
say that I have been either abandoned or forgotten by all those 
other persons who had promised to keep up a correspondence 
with me. . . 
The country I visited was new, in great measure, to me. I 
have been delighted with the tour, but will forever regret that 
your sister’s indisposition could not allow you time to augment 
my pleasure by your company. 
[ Audubon offers to send his friend shrubs and fruits from 
the South, and concludes ;] In fact, my dear Mr. Harris, I am 
yet the same man you knew at the corner of 5th, and Minor 
Streets [in Philadelphia], and will continue forever the same. 
After his tour of the Lakes Audubon returned to 
Pittsburgh, and on October 24, 1824, started down the 
Ohio in a skiff, intending to descend to the Mississippi 
and thence reach his family in Louisiana. Bad weather 
and lack of funds interfered with this plan, and ere long 
he was once more stranded in Cincinnati, where he was 
* Ornithological Biography, vol. i, p. xi. 
»The Jeanes MSS.; see Note, Vol. I, p. 180. 
