Jan., 1916 
9 
[PHILADELPHIA TO THE COAST IN EARLY DAYS 
work. The greater part of Townsend’s birds were apparently brought back 
by Nuttall and the history of their publication is amusing. Audubon after t e 
publication of the third volume of the Ornithological Biography returned to 
America from Scotland in August, 1836. “In Boston”, he says, 1 heard of 
the arrival of Thos. Nuttall Esq., the well-known zoologist, botanist and min- 
eralogist who had performed a journey over the Rocky Mountains to the 
Pacific Ocean accompanied by our mutual friend John Kirk Townsend. Mr. 
Nuttall generously gave me of his ornithological treasures all that was new 
and inscribed in my journal the observations which he had made respecting 
the habits and distribution of all the new and rare species which were un- 
known to me. ... . 
“Dr. Townsend’s collection was at Philadelphia; my anxiety to examine 
his specimens was extreme; and I therefore, bidding farewell to my Boston 
friends, hurried off to New York” and Philadelphia. “Soon after my arrival, 
I called on my learned friend Dr. Charles Pickering” . . . ; “Having ob- 
tained access to the collection sent by Dr. Townsend, I turned over and over 
the new and rare species; but he was absent at Fort Vancouver, on the shores 
of the Columbia River ; Thos. Nuttall had not yet come from Boston, and loud 
murmurs were uttered by the soiclisant friends of science, who objected to my 
seeing, much less portraying and describing those valuable relics of birds, 
many of which had not yet been introduced into our Fauna. 
“The traveller’s appetite is much increased by the knowledge of the dis- 
tance which he has to tramp before he can obtain a meal; and with me the 
desire of obtaining the specimens in question increased in proportion to the 
difficulties that presented themselves. ... I at length succeeded. It was 
agreed that I might purchase duplicates, provided the specific names agreed 
upon by Mr. Nuttall [who had now arrived] and myself were published in Dr 
Townsend’s name. 
“This latter part of the affair was perfectly congenial to my feelings, as 
I have seldom cared much about priority in the naming of species. I therefore 
paid tor the skins which I received and have now published such as proved to 
be new, according to my promise.”* 
The birds described in the paper published in the Philadelphia Academy 
Journal in 1837 prior to Townsend’s return were: Chestnut-backed Titmouse, 
Bush-tit, Mountain Mocking Bird, Hermit Warbler, Black-throated Gray 
Warbler, Townsend’s Warbler, Audubon’s Warbler, Western Bluebird, Chest- 
nut-collared Longspur, Oregon Junco, Lark Finch, and Rocky Mountain 
Plover. Townsend added in the Appendix to his “Narrative”: Vaux’s Swift, 
and MacGillivray ’s Warbler. 
Later, on Townsend’s arrival, Audubon purchased all his additional novel- 
ties and secured memoranda relating to the habits of the western birds from 
both him and Nuttall. These are all published in vols. IV and V of the Ornith- 
ological Biography, while practically the same matter is reprinted by Nuttall 
in the second edition of his “Manual” in which the western species are added. 
It is regrettable that Townsend and Nuttall never published the complete 
ornithology of their expedition over their own names and in their own way. 
1 he fragments that we pick out of Audubon and Nuttall only whet our appe- 
tites for more. Their notes had the stamp of scientific accuracy, but while 
both were fluent writers they apparently did not believe in flowery elaboration 
♦Ornithological Biography, Introduction to vol. IV, p. ix. 
