68 CONSERVATOR OF SURGEONS’MUSEUM [ch. 
procure additional specimens for his Birds of 
America and to make that work as complete as 
possible, Audubon returned to America in April 
1829, where he remained about a year, constantly 
wandering in search of birds, collecting specimens, 
and making drawings of them. In April 1830 he 
returned to England accompanied by his wife, and 
bringing his additional specimens and drawings 
with him. After a short visit to London, where he 
found the engraving and colouring of his drawings 
going on to his satisfaction, he, with his wife, pro¬ 
ceeded to Edinburgh, in order to arrange for the 
preparation and publication of a new contemplated 
work, entitled Ornithological Biographies. This 
work was to be devoted to descriptions of the birds 
in his drawings, with an account of their habits and 
habitats, and of the most interesting of his adven¬ 
turous wanderings in search of them. 
There was, however, a difficulty to be over¬ 
come—Audubon was not a technical ornithologist. 
In an entry in his journal, published a few 
years ago by his granddaughter, Miss Marion E. 
Audubon, he says that although he is “a poor 
writer” and “not a scholar,” he is aware “that no 
man living knows better than I do the habits of our 
birds—that no man living has studied them so much 
as I have done,” and that with the assistance of his 
old journals and memorandum books, written on 
the spot, he could “at least put down plain truths, 
which may be useful and perhaps interesting.” “I 
cannot, however,” he adds, “give scientific descrip- 
