40 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 
artist; he cared not for money, he 
wanted to be alone with Nature. The 
forests called to him, the birds haunted 
his dreams. 
His father dying in 1818, left him a 
valuable estate in France, and seventeen 
thousand dollars, deposited with a mer- 
chant in Richmond, Virginia; but 
Audubon was so dilatory in proving 
his identity and his legal right to this 
cash, that the merchant finally died in- 
solvent, and the legatee never received 
a cent of it. The French estate he 
transferred in after years to his sister 
Rosa. 
