128 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 
resenting the birds themselves: ‘ After 
all, there’s nothing perfect but primi- 
tiveness.’ 
Finding that he could not live in the 
city, in 1842 Audubon removed with his 
family to ‘‘ Minnie’s Land,”’ on the banks 
of the Hudson, now known as Audubon 
Park, and included in the city limits ; 
this became his final home. 
In the spring of 1843 he started on his 
last long journey, his trip to the Yellow- 
stone River, of which we have a minute 
account in his ‘‘Missouri River Jour- 
nals’? documents that lay hidden in 
the back of an old secretary from 1843 
to the time when they were found by 
his grand-daughters in 1896, and pub- 
lished by them in 1897. 
This trip was undertaken mainly in 
the interests of the Quadrupeds and 
Biography of American Quadrupeds, and 
much of what he saw and did is woven 
into those three volumes. The trip 
lasted eight months, and the hardships 
