JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 127 
The colouring in Audubon’s birds is 
also often exaggerated. His purple 
finch is as brilliant as a rose, whereas 
at its best, this bird is a dull carmine. 
Either the Baltimore oriole has 
changed its habits of nest-building since 
Audubon’s day, or else he was wrong in 
his drawing of the nest of that bird, in 
making the opening on the side near the 
top. I have never seen an oriole’s nest 
that was not open at the top. 
In his drawings of a group of robins, 
one misses some of the most characteristic 
poses of that bird, while some of the at- 
titudes that are portrayed are not 
common and familiar ones. 
But in the face of all that he accom- 
plished, and against such odds, and tak- 
ing into consideration also the changes 
that may have crept in through engraver 
and colourists, itill becomes us to indulge 
in captious criticisms. Let us rather re- 
peat Audubon’s own remark on realising 
how far short his drawings came of rep- 
