AUDUBON IN LONDON 389 
At York he found that a number of his Birds, which had 
been forwarded from Edinburgh before he had taken 
his departure, “was miserably poor, scarcely colored 
at all”; and a copy of his first number which was later 
examined at the Radcliffe Library in Oxford was so 
unsatisfactory that he rolled it up and took it away, with 
the reflection that Lizars, whom he had paid “so amply 
and so punctually,” could have made him a better re- 
turn. The colorists gave no end of trouble, but he 
never hesitated to reject their work when it did not 
meet his requirements, and the defective plates were 
invariably sent back to Havell’s shop to be washed, hot- 
pressed, and done over again. To such watchful care 
must be ascribed, in large measure, the high degree of 
perfection which his big work eventually attained. 
When it is remembered that upwards of one hundred 
thousand of his large plates had to be colored labori- 
ously by hand, and that at one time fifty persons were 
engaged at the Havell establishment, we can understand 
the difficulties involved in maintaining a uniform stand- 
ard of excellence in a work that was issued piecemeal and 
spread over a long period of time. 
In August, 1827, Audubon wrote to Mrs. Thomas 
Sully of Philadelphia to announce the removal of his 
business to London. By this change he expected to 
save “upwards of an hundred pounds per annum, a 
large sum,” as he remarked, “for a man like me.” His 
third number had then been issued, and he expressed 
the hope that all would go smoothly after “this first year 
of hard trials and times,” and that he would be able to 
send for his wife and one of his sons in the coming 
autumn or winter. He was then painting “a flock of 
Wild Turkeys for the king, who had honored him with 
his particular patronage and protection.” When writ- 
