94 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 
Mrs. Audubon says: ‘‘ Nothing is heard 
but the steady movement of the pen; 
your father is up and at work before 
dawn, and writes without ceasing all 
day.”’ 
When the first volume was finished, 
Audubon offered it to two publishers, 
both of whom refused it, so he pub- 
lished it himself in March, 1831. 
In April on his way to London he 
travelled ‘“‘on that Extraordinary road 
called the railway, at the rate of twenty- 
four miles an hour.’’ 
The first volume of his bird pictures 
was completed this summer, and, in 
bringing it out, forty thousand dollars 
had passed through his hands. It had 
taken four years to bring that volume 
before the world, during which time no 
less than fifty of his subscribers, repre- 
senting the sum of fifty-six thousand 
dollars, had abandoned him, so that at 
the end of that time, he had only one 
hundred and thirty names standing on 
his list. 
