CHAPTER XXIII
AUDUBON IN LONDON

Impressions of the metropolis—A trunk full of letters—Friendship of Children—Sir Thomas Lawrence—Lizars stops work—A family of artists—Robert Havell, Junior—The Birds of America fly to London—The Zoölogical Gallery—Crisis in the naturalist's affairs—Royal patronage—Interview with Gallatin—Interesting the Queen—Desertion of patrons—Painting to independence—Personal habits and tastes—Enters the Linnæan Society—The White-headed Eagle—Visit to the great universities—Declines to write for magazines—Audubon-Swainson correspondence—"Highfield Hall" near Tyttenhanger—In Paris with Swainson—Glimpses of Cuvier—His report on The Birds of America—Patronage of the French Government and the Duke of Orleans—Bonaparte the naturalist.

Audubon reached London on May 21, 1827, and put up at the "Bull and Mouth" tavern, but soon moved into more permanent lodgings at number 55 Great Russell Street, near the British Museum. Though for a long time eager to see the capital, no sooner had he reached it than he was anxious to be away and more homesick than ever for his family and his beloved America. London then seemed to him "like the mouth of an immense monster, guarded by millions of sharp-edged teeth," from which he could escape only by miracle.

He had brought with him a formidable array of letters addressed to the élite of the capital,[342] and he bore besides nearly a trunkful for the Continent, as well as general letters from Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and others in America for our consular and diplomatic representatives in Europe. His epistolary basis for the acquisition of useful acquaintances could hardly have been better, and further testimonials were gathered at every stage of his progress to the city of his hopes, but Audubon's best letter of credit, which could be read by all the world, was an open, winning countenance. After he had wandered over London for the greater part of three days without finding a single individual at home, he was tempted to consign his valuable documents to the post, an error which he did not repeat, as it deprived him of the acquaintance of fully one-half of the people to whom they were addressed. One of these London letters which follows, written by Captain Basil Hall to John Murray, the noted publisher and founder of the Quarterly Review, is particularly interesting in showing that Audubon was far from pleased with the progress of his work in Edinburgh, and that he was then contemplating a change which was later effected.

Basil Hall to John Murray

Audubon carried also a long letter from "Mr. Hay,"[343] dated at "16 Athol Crescent, Edinburgh, 15 March, 1827," and addressed to the care of his brother, Robert William Hay, of Downing Street, West, in which this curious statement occurs: "Mr. A. is son of the late French Admiral Audubon, but has himself lived from the cradle in the United States, having been born in one of the French colonies."

The document which was to prove of greatest service to him, however, was addressed to John George Children,[344] then in charge of the Department of Zoölogy in the British Museum and secretary of the Royal Society. Children assumed the management of Audubon's work when he returned to America in 1829 and again in 1831; to him and Lord Stanley, in 1830, the naturalist probably owed his nomination to membership in the Royal Society.

Soon after reaching London Audubon paid his respects to Sir Thomas Lawrence, for whom he had two letters, and made an appointment for showing his work to this famous artist. He was also gratified to receive the subscription of Lord Stanley and of Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who was then in London.

Audubon had not been in London a month before word was received from Lizars that all his colorers had struck work and that everything was at a stand. Accordingly, he began to search London for skilled workmen, and on June 18 wrote: "I went five times to see Mr. Havell, the colorer, but he was out of town. I am full of anxiety and greatly depressed. Oh! how sick I am of London!" Three days later another discouraging letter came from Lizars, who shortly after threw up his contract and left his patron in a sad predicament—with an enormously expensive work, still-born, on his hands, without adequate funds, and, in short, with all his cherished plans suspended in mid-air. Audubon no doubt realized that if his grand undertaking were to succeed at all, it must experience a new birth in London, where an expert engraver of the requisite enterprise and zeal must be found without delay. He closed his journal on the second day of July with the remark that he was too dull and mournful to write a line, and it was not opened again for nearly three months.

This gap in Audubon's record can now be filled in reference to some important particulars, for in the interval he made his greatest discovery in England, in Robert Havell, Junior, then a young and unknown artist of thirty-four, who through eleven years of the closest association with his new patron was to become one of the greatest engravers in aquatint the world has ever seen. Until recently the intimate story of Audubon's relation to the Havells has been much obscured.[345] The reference in the journal record of June 19, just given, was undoubtedly to Robert Havell, Senior, who for many years was associated with his father, Daniel Havell, the first of five generations of artists of that name, in the engraving and publishing business, but who at this time was established independently at 79 Newman Street, London; he also conducted a shop called the "Zoölogical Gallery," at which were sold engravings, books, artists' materials, naturalists' supplies, and specimens of natural history of every sort. His three sons, Robert, George, and Henry Augustus, all became artists, but the eldest, who bore his father's name, was educated for a learned profession. Contrary to his father's injunctions and advice, Robert, who was bent on becoming an artist, abruptly left his home in 1825, determined to shift for himself. He began with an extensive sketching tour on the River Wye, in Monmouthshire, and produced numerous paintings which, as his biographer remarks, display all the charm found in the work of his distinguished cousin, William Havell. These won immediate recognition in London, where he received commissions from various publishers, including the house of Messrs. Colnaghi & Company.

Robert Havell, Senior, then in his fifty-eighth year, though deeply interested in Audubon's adventurous plans, felt himself too old to embark on so extended a work, which it was then believed would require from fourteen to sixteen years for completion; he volunteered, however, to do his best to find a substitute. With this in view, he applied to Mr. Colnaghi, the publisher, and was immediately shown the unsigned proof of a beautiful landscape, exquisitely drawn and engraved by one of the youthful retainers of his establishment. The elder Havell, after scrutinizing it carefully, exclaimed, "That's just the man for me!" "Then," replied the publisher, "send for your own son!" Through this singular coincidence, father and son became reconciled and a partnership between them was soon announced.

As a test of young Havell's skill, to follow the story of his biographer, Audubon gave him his drawing of the Prothonotary Warbler, which had already been engraved and issued by Lizars as Plate iii of The Birds of America earlier in that year. Havell finished the engraving in two weeks, when a proof was struck and the naturalist summoned. Audubon examined the print with the utmost keenness and deliberation; then he seized the sheet, and holding it up, danced about the room, calling out in his French accent: "Ze jig is up, ze jig is up!" The Havells, who at first thought this might signify disapproval, were quickly disabused when Audubon approached young Robert and, throwing his arms about his neck, assured him that his long-sought engraver had been found at last. Having given this story, I wish it were possible to confirm it, but a close examination of this plate proves either that the story is a fiction, or that some other drawing was used as a test of Havell's skill.[346]

The part which this interesting family played in Audubon's success will be unfolded later.[347] Suffice it now to say that Messrs. Robert Havell & Son, in London, undertook afresh the production of The Birds of America in the summer of 1827. The partnership was divided or dissolved in 1828, when Robert, junior, who from the first did all of the engraving, took entire charge of that part of the business, and moved his engraving establishment around the corner to 77 Oxford Street; there it remained until broken up in 1838. Robert Havell, Senior, continued in charge of the printing and coloring until 1830, when he seems to have permanently retired, two years before his death in 1832, events which, as will be seen, are indirectly registered in the legends of some of Audubon's plates.[348]

Under the younger Havell's guiding hand, Audubon found that his illustrations could be produced in better style, more expeditiously, and at far less cost than in Edinburgh. When Lizars was later shown the third number which the Havells had produced, he called his assistants and observed how completely the London workmen had beaten them; he even offered to resume work on the engraving and at Havell's price, but Audubon was averse to further experimenting. "If he can fall," said he, "twenty-seven pounds in the engraving of each number, and do them in a superior style to his previous work, how enormous must his profits have been; a good lesson to me in the time to come, though I must remember Havell is more reasonable owing to what has passed between us in our business arrangements, and the fact that he owes so much to me."

This characteristic note was sent from Liverpool, December 6, 1827, to his agent, Daniel Lizars, father to W. H. Lizars, at Edinburgh:

Audubon sent another letter to this agent, from London, January 21, 1828, when he was still waiting for an answer to his last: "When I write to any one I expect an answer, but when I write to a man I esteem, and to whom I entrust a portion of my business, I feel miserable until I hear from him.... I am extremely anxious to close my business for 1827, and cannot do so without receiving your a/c, and the money due by my subscribers."

The summer of 1827 was probably Audubon's most critical period in England. His work was then in the air and ruin of all his hopes seemed inevitable, but with palette and brush he again extricated himself from financial difficulties. At this time, he said, "I painted all day, and sold my work during the dusky hours of the evening as I walked through the Strand and other streets where the Jews reigned; popping in and out of Jew-shops or any others, and never refusing the offer made me for the pictures I carried fresh from the easel." He sold seven copies of the "Entrapped Otter" in London, Manchester, and Liverpool, and from seven to ten copies of some of his other favorite subjects; once when he inadvertently called at a shop where he had just disposed of a picture, the dealer promptly bought the duplicate and at the same price that he had paid for the first.

In the autumn of this year, when it was found that his agents were neglecting their business, Audubon determined to make a sortie to collect his dues and further augment his subscription list. He left London on September 16, and visited in succession Manchester, Leeds, York, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Alnwick Castle and Belford, to see the Selbys, finally reaching Edinburgh on the 22nd of October.

Audubon had set his mark at obtaining 200 subscribers by May, 1828, but he fell far short of realizing it. On August 9 he wrote: "This day seventy sets have been distributed; yet the number of my subscribers has not increased; on the contrary, I have lost some." At York he found that a number of his Birds, which had been forwarded from Edinburgh before he had taken his departure, "was miserably poor, scarcely colored at all"; and a copy of his first number which was later examined at the Radcliffe Library in Oxford was so unsatisfactory that he rolled it up and took it away, with the reflection that Lizars, whom he had paid "so amply and so punctually," could have made him a better return. The colorists gave no end of trouble, but he never hesitated to reject their work when it did not meet his requirements, and the defective plates were invariably sent back to Havell's shop to be washed, hot-pressed, and done over again. To such watchful care must be ascribed, in large measure, the high degree of perfection which his big work eventually attained. When it is remembered that upwards of one hundred thousand of his large plates had to be colored laboriously by hand, and that at one time fifty persons were engaged at the Havell establishment, we can understand the difficulties involved in maintaining a uniform standard of excellence in a work that was issued piecemeal and spread over a long period of time.

In August, 1827, Audubon wrote to Mrs. Thomas Sully of Philadelphia to announce the removal of his business to London. By this change he expected to save "upwards of an hundred pounds per annum, a large sum," as he remarked, "for a man like me." His third number had then been issued, and he expressed the hope that all would go smoothly after "this first year of hard trials and times," and that he would be able to send for his wife and one of his sons in the coming autumn or winter. He was then painting "a flock of Wild Turkeys for the king, who had honored him with his particular patronage and protection." When writing to his young son, John W. Audubon, on the 10th of the same month, he charged him to devote two hours daily to the preparation of bird skins, and to send him not only the skins but live birds and mussel shells, for which he would be duly paid. Said the father:

Audubon had come to London with the idea of having his work published under the patronage of King George IV; in order to gain a personal interview with the Sovereign he had brought a letter to Robert Peel, who was then the Home Secretary, but a change in the Cabinet had upset his plans and the letter was returned. He then applied to the American Ambassador, Mr. Albert Gallatin, who upon their first meeting addressed him in French and showed "the ease and charm of manner of a perfect gentleman"; but when the question of an audience with the King was broached, Gallatin laughed at the idea as preposterous. "The king," he declared, "sees nobody; he has the gout, is peevish, and spends his time playing whist at a shilling a rubber. I had to wait six weeks before I was presented to him in my position of ambassador, and then I merely saw him six or seven minutes." When Audubon then suggested that the Duke of Northumberland might interest himself in his behalf, Gallatin, who disliked the English heartily, replied: "I have called hundreds of times on like men in England, and have been assured that his grace, or lordship, or [her] ladyship was not at home, until I have grown wiser, and stay at home myself, and merely attend to my political business, and God knows when I will have done with that."

As the American Ambassador had predicted, King George evinced no ardent desire to meet the American woodsman, though he consented to take the work under his patronage and to become a subscriber on the usual terms; this plan, however, fell through, for the King, who was reported to have taken his copy, failed to pay for it. With Queen Adelaide, on the other hand, the naturalist was more successful, and in his "Prospectus" of 1831 she was announced as his special patron, with her name heading his list. Negotiations to interest the Queen were going on when the following note was sent to Audubon by Sir J. W. Waller, who occupied some position in the king's household and was spoken of as "oculist to his majesty":

Sir J. W. Waller to Audubon

Saturday 9 o clock [1830].

I have scarce an Instant as I am going to Town to breakfast with the Dk. of Gloucester, but yr. Letter is urgent & therefore I can only desire Mr. A. to send his Number immediately to the Stable Yard, directed to her Majesty, & the first moment I can see her, I will speak on the subject, but at this Moment I will not promise to mention it to the King for reasons I cannot put on paper.

Yrs. ever,
J. W. Waller

At Edinburgh Audubon was alarmed to find that subscribers were rapidly deserting him, six having cancelled their names without the formality of giving reasons. He hoped to supply their places at Glasgow, then a rich city of one hundred and fifty thousand people, but after a visit there of four days in November, 1827, he was obliged to return to Edinburgh with but one new name on his list.

On October 22 he expressed the resolve for the coming year "to positively keep a cash account" with himself and others, "a thing" he had "never yet done." The wisdom of that decision was apparent upon settling his accounts for 1827 with both Lizars and Havell, as appears from this note, written in his journal on January 17, 1828: "It is difficult work for a man like me to see that he is neither cheating nor cheated. All is paid for 1827, and I am well ahead in funds. Had I made such regular settlements all my life I should never have been as poor a man as I have been; but on the other hand I should never have published the "Birds of America." Again, for February 7 we find this record: "Havell brought me the sets he owed me for 1827, and I paid him in full. Either through him or Mr. Lizars I have met with a loss of nearly £100, for I am charged with fifty numbers more than can be accounted for by my agents or myself. This seems strange always to me, that people cannot be honest, but I must bring myself to believe many are not, from my own experiences."

Shortly after reaching London, as we have seen, Audubon had made the acquaintance of Sir Thomas Lawrence, then at the head of the Royal Academy and favorite painter of the Court and fashionable society. The friendship of this influential artist at a critical moment proved most fortunate, for Sir Thomas called repeatedly at his lodgings, and at each visit brought patrons who went away with some of his pictures but not without leaving a handsome toll of sovereigns in his lap; the "Entrapped Otter" again did duty by bringing him twenty-five pounds, while others returned from seven to thirty-five pounds. At a later time the artist visited the "Zoölogical Gallery," as the Havell establishment in Newman Street was then known, and saw Audubon's large paintings called "The Eagle and the Lamb," and "English Pheasants Surprised by a Spanish Dog" or "Sauve qui peut." Audubon, who on this occasion missed seeing his distinguished visitor, had written in his journal three days before (December 23, 1828) that the paintings were what he called "finished," but that, as usual, he could not bear to look at either. Sir Thomas praised the "Eagle," admired an "Otter," which was later exhibited in London, but gave no opinion on the "Pheasants." Afterwards, however, when Audubon proposed to present this canvas to King George, the artist assured him that this picture was worth 300 guineas and that it was too good to be given away; if offered to the King, no doubt, said he, "it would be accepted and placed in his collections, but you would receive no benefit from the gift." According to a later record, this canvas was sold to Mr. John Heppenstall of Sheffield; whether it was ever delivered, or not, I do not know, but either the original or a copy, here reproduced, now forms the central figure in the large Audubon collection in the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and is an excellent illustration of the elaborate and ambitious character of Audubon's larger compositions. These fortunate windfalls came none too soon, for to follow the journal:

This was before the reform of the penal laws in England, when it seems to have been hard for a man to escape hanging, not to speak of being sent to prison for debt, the chief terror of life in certain circles. There were 223 capital offenses, and in 1829 in the city of London alone 7,114 persons were sent to the debtors' prison.[349]

Without the sale of his pictures in the summer of 1827, Audubon felt that he must certainly have become a bankrupt, yet he was periodically displeased with the results of his efforts in oil colors, and resolved to "spoil no more canvas" but to draw "in my usual old untaught way, which is what God meant me to do"; "I can draw," he continues, "but I shall never paint well." In the fall of 1828, however, he was again working in oils, and produced four large pieces, one of which was called "The Eagle and the Lamb," and two others which were doubtless variations of his "Pheasant" and "Otter" pictures. "It is charity," said the artist, "to speak the truth to a man who knows the poverty of his talents, and wishes to improve; it is villainous to mislead him, by praising him to his face, and laughing at his work as they go down the stairs of his house." Sir Thomas Lawrence had praised some of these pictures and had promised to select one for exhibition at Somerset House. As regards "The Eagle and the Lamb," which Audubon hoped would go to Windsor Castle, William Swainson would give no opinion; the same canvas, or else a replica, was in possession of the Audubon family in 1898.[350]

On December 14, 1827, Audubon wrote that, acting upon the advice of Mr. Maury, the American consul at London, he had presented a copy of his Birds to John Quincy Adams, the President of the United States, and another, through Henry Clay, to the American Congress; in order that the latter should be as perfect as possible, Havell was asked to do the coloring himself, but these proposed gifts do not appear to have been executed.[351]

New Year's, 1828, found the naturalist in Manchester, where but a few days before he had received the fifth and last number of his plates for 1827 and expressed himself well pleased with it. While returning to London by coach, he consented to take a hand at cards to accommodate his fellow passengers, but declined to play for money; "I never play," he confessed, "unless obliged to by circumstances; I feel no pleasure in the game, and long for other occupation." "I missed my snuff," he added, and whenever his hands went into his pockets in search of the box, he "discovered the strength of habit thus acting without thought"; but he remembered a resolution he had formed to give up the habit and stuck to it for a time at least; doubtless, like his later friend, John Bachman, he reformed more than once, for in a letter to Victor Audubon, of November 5, 1846, Bachman added this postscript: "To Audubon: The snuff—the snuff, it is here! I have just taken a pinch, and the ladies have blown you up—sky-high, for teaching me such a bad practice; I say, however, that you beat me all to pieces in that art."

The first winter in London dragged heavily for the naturalist, who exclaimed in January, 1828: "How long am I to be confined in this immense jail"; when Daniel Lizars reported from Edinburgh the loss of four of his subscribers, he writes, "I am dull as a beetle. Why do I dislike London? Is it because the constant evidence of the contrast between the rich and the poor is a constant torment to me, or is it because of its size and crowd? I know not, but I long for sights and sounds of a different nature," such, we might add, as the flocks of wild duck which were occasionally seen from Regent's Park as they passed over the city and made him more homesick than ever. Audubon hated the city quite as cordially as Charles Lamb ever affected to detest the country, and when leaving it, afoot or by stage, it seemed as if he could never be rid of it. "What a place is London," he would say, but naïvely add: "many persons live there solely because they like it."

On February 4, 1828, Audubon was elected to membership in the Linnæan Society, and in November he presented it with a copy of his work, which was then well under way. This was noticed in a letter to Swainson, written on November 7, when no acknowledgment of the gift had then been received; and he mentioned also the sale of his picture of "Blue Jays" for ten guineas. At a meeting of the Linnæan Society not long after his election, copies of Selby's Illustrations of British Ornithology and of his own work were placed side by side for inspection, and "very unfair comparisons were drawn between the two"; had Selby, Audubon reflected, been given "the same opportunities that my curious life has granted me, his work would have been far superior to mine"; "I supported him," he added, "to the best of my power."

Revision of his older drawings demanded much of Audubon's attention during these years. On February 10, 1828, he began the Whiteheaded Eagle (No. 7, Plate xxxi), the original of which had been procured on the Mississippi, where the bird was represented as dining on a wild goose; now, he said, "I shall make it breakfast on a catfish, the drawing of which is also with me, with the marks of the talons of another eagle, which I disturbed on the banks of the same river, driving him from his prey." On the 16th of that month he was engaged with this drawing from seven in the morning until half after four, stopping only to take the glass of milk which his landlady would bring to him. This plate was engraved in the following April, and on May 1, 1828, a first proof was sent to the Marquis of Landsdowne, president of the Zoölogical Society, as a mark of appreciation by its author, who had become a member of that body in the preceding winter.

A striking characteristic of Audubon's work was its diversity, produced not only by attractive embellishments of many kinds, but by the moving force and action with which he ever sought to vitalize his subjects. It is therefore not surprising that he was nettled by an incident like this:

Audubon had not yet visited the great university towns of England, the support of which he knew would be a valuable asset, and on March 3, 1828, he set out by stage for Cambridge. His driver, he remarked, "held confidances with every grog-shop between London and Cambridge, and his purple face gave powerful evidences that malt liquor [was] more enticing to him than water." His reception at Cambridge was hearty; he was entertained by Professors Sedgwick, Whewell, and Henslow, dined repeatedly "in Hall" with the dons, and received the subscription of the librarian of the University. It is interesting to recall that young Charles Darwin, "the man who walks with Henslow," as some of the dons called him, was then an undergraduate at King's College, and that thirty-one years were to pass before modern biology was born in 1859, the year of the appearance of the epoch-making Origin of Species.

By the 15th of March Audubon was again in London, and on the 24th he started for Oxford. Dr. Williams, as he noted in his journal, subscribed for his Birds in favor of the Radcliffe Library, as did also Dr. Kidd for the Anatomical School; but, though hospitably treated by all, not one of the twenty-four colleges of that great University emulated their example, and the naturalist went away disappointed.

Upon his return to London in early April, Audubon received a call from John C. Loudon, editor of the Magazine of Natural History, and was invited to contribute to that journal. "I declined," he said, "for I will never write anything to call down upon me a second volley of abuse. I can only write facts, and when I write these, the Philadelphians call me a liar." He was then chafing under the criticism which his rattlesnake stories had produced.[352] On April 6 the persistent Mr. Loudon called again and offered Audubon eight guineas for an article, only to be again refused. Still unwilling to admit defeat, the editor proposed to engage William Swainson to prepare an extended review of the naturalist's work, and in this he succeeded so well that Audubon immediately relented and sent him a paper.[353] Swainson offered to write the review for a copy of the work at its cost price, and Audubon replied in the following letter:[354]

Audubon to William Swainson

Thus began an intimate friendship between William Swainson and John James Audubon which lasted until 1830, and their intercourse did not wholly cease before 1838. In his use of English at this time Audubon was not far behind Swainson, whose mother tongue it was. Swainson, according to Dr. Günther, was "extremely careless in orthography and loose in his style of writing: he persistently misspelt not only technical terms, but also the names of foreign authors, and even of some of his familiar friends and correspondents; he knew no other language but his own, and the application of Latin and Greek for the purpose of systematic nomenclature was a constant source of error."

At this time Swainson was living in semi-retirement at a farmstead of considerable size, called "Highfield Hall,"[355] near Tyttenhanger Green, a small settlement, off the highroad, two miles southeast of the historic town of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire; though his letters were always dated from "The Green" at Tyttenhanger, his associations were with the more considerable village of London Colney, but a mile to the south, on the road to Barnet. Audubon had brought a letter of introduction from Dr. Traill, a valiant champion of Swainson at Edinburgh, but was unable to go to the country to deliver it. Swainson, however, attended promptly to the review, and on April 11, 1828, sent it to Mr. Loudon, who published it in the May number of his Magazine.[356]

Swainson's review was extremely laudatory, and Audubon reproduced extracts from it in later editions of his "Prospectus." To quote a characteristic paragraph, he said that the naturalist's ornithological papers printed in one of the Scotch journals, are as valuable to the scientific world, as they are delightful to the general reader. They give us a rich foretaste of what we may hope and expect from such a man. There is a freshness and an originality about these essays, which can only be compared to the animated biographies of Wilson.... To represent the passions and the feelings of birds, might, until now, have been well deemed chimerical. Rarely, indeed, do we see their outward forms represented with any thing like nature. In my estimation, not more than three painters ever lived who could draw a bird. Of these the lamented Barrabaud [Barraband], of whom France may be justly proud, was the chief. He has long passed away; but his mantle has at length been recovered in the forests of America.

Audubon spent four days with Swainson and his family at Tyttenhanger, from May 28 to June 1, 1828, when they talked birds and made drawings; Audubon also showed Swainson "how to put up birds in his style, which delighted him." The friendship between these men, though very intimate while it lasted, received a sudden check two years later, when Audubon was about to publish the letterpress to his plates, as will be related farther on.[357]

Though his hands were already more than full at this time, Audubon seems to have played with the idea of publishing a work on the birds of Great Britain, but on May 1 he wrote to Swainson that the plan did not meet with favor, and later he relinquished all claims in such a project to his assistant, William MacGillivray.[358]

In the spring of 1828 Audubon began to think of returning to the United States, to renew or revise his drawings and extend his researches. "I am sure," he said, "that now I could make better compositions, and select better plants than when I drew mainly for amusement." In order to raise the necessary funds, he resorted again to picture painting, his never failing resource, and worked in oil colors daily from morning light until dusk, unless called to Havell's to decide some question of necessary detail. The following letters to Swainson shed further light on this work and on the progress of The Birds of America, the eighth number of which was published early in July:

Audubon to William Swainson