
          New York 13 Feb 1826


 Dear Torrey,


 Your last letter came just in time to prevent
 a thunderer which I had aimed at you. Halsey undertook
 to draw the description of C. floridana but before he had
 time D.K. had some of the plates struck off. The
 no. [number] will be published tomorrow and will make quite a
 book, with 7 plates. The library has increased
 beyond precedent during the past year and is become
 quite valuable.  We begin to hold our heads very high
 as the authors of a thick, and perhaps some may say
 cursed heavy book. No matter what any one says
 we might be much worse employed.


 I cannot understand from your letter whether or not
 your Compendium suffered by the fire at Harpers. You
 will recollect that about a year ago I told that you
 had too many irons in the fire and that some must [?]


 I have been engaged 3 or 4 hours every day for more than
 a month with Bonaparte, in revising "The Genera of 
 North Am. [American] Birds & a Synopsis of the Species inhab'g [inhabiting] the U.S."

        