The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1870-06-11
Audubon.

John James Audubon, the most distin-
guished of American ornithologists, was
born May 4, 1880, on a plantation in Louis
lara, and died in the city of New York,
Jan 81, 1851. His father, who had been
an admiral i'll the French navy, was man
of cultivation, and encouraged his young
love for nature and art. Even rs a child,
he manifested the strongest disposition for
the study of birds; he possessed himself of
many feathered faverites; and when any
one of them died, he was inconselably
grieved because he did not possess the
means of reproducing its brilliant plumage
and beautiful form. He began of his own
will to draw the birds, and disclosing con-
siderable talent as a draughtsman, he was
taken to France to be educated. Placed in
the studio of the celebrated painter David,
he neglected the higher departments of art,
in his earnest love of that peculiar branch
of it, in which he afterward became so
he returned to his native country, and hav-
ing become possessed of fine farm on the
banks of the Schuylkill, in Pennsylvania
he was married there to an estimable lady,
capable of sharing in his enthusiasm as a
naturalist. The leisure of rural life allowed
him abundant opportunities for prosecuting
his predominant taste. "My rambles," he
says, commenced with the break of day,
and to return with dew and bearing feath-
cred prize, was the highest enjoyment of
my life He was then also connected with
some commercial speculations, which do
not appear to have prospered. His re-
searches into the habits of birds, and his
drawings of them, absorbed his attention.
Some of these drawings, it may be said for
the encouragement of youthful genius,
when they were afterward shown to Lawson,
who engraved designs for Lucien Bona
parte, the ornithologist, were rejected as
unworthy of the BURN. He had too much
confidence in himself, however, when this
occurred, to be dispirited by the repulse,
and he continued his labors with as much
animation and eagerness as before. A
more severe trial befel him, when, after
having accumulated a large stock Of the
most carefully executed designs, he dis
covered that the whole of them had been
destroyed by the mice, which had eaten
into the box where they were kept. He
was compelled to fill his portfolios anew,
but his love of the woods and fields was too
genuine and ardent ever to allow him to
pine over the fatal incident, OF to sink into
any morbid feeling Of dependency. He
worked at his vocation because he liked it.
because it was the breath Of his life, and it
was this impulse, not a vain love of fame,
which laid the foundation for that immor-
tai work, the "Birds of America"
After ten years residence in Pennsyl
vania, he removed to Henderson, Kentucky,
where he again embarked in trade, but not
to the detriment of his more genial studies
At the time he went to the West, the en-
tire region, which is now covered with in
Vulnerable cities and villages, was quite
unsettled, and he was obliged, in order to
get to lis destination, to float his family
and goods down the Ohio river in small
canoe, which he purchased for the pur-
pose.
In 1910 he made the acquaintance of the
Scotch ornithologist, Wilson, who was then
prosecuting his own researches in the
American wilderness. The tradition runs
that Wilson and Audubon met by accident,
when the former, displaying some of the
trophies of his own pencil, was utterly as
tonished to find in mere backwoodsman
of America, living almost beyond the skirts
of civilization, man, whose scientific
ardor equalled, and whose sketches sur
passed his own. Together they made many
a wild tramp through the rough cane
brakes of Kentucky, and into the almost
impenetrable forests of the remoter terrific
rieS.
The next year Audubon visited the
bayous of Florida, gathering by his rifle
and pencil the subject of what destined to
be his great work. Indeed, scarcely year
passed, at any period of his life, without
witnessing some new expedition under
taken, and some new treasure acquired
From the great lakes of the north, to the
widest solitudes of the western prairies,
there were few accessible spots which es-
capped his restless wanderinss.
In the year 1924 he came to Philadel-
phia and New York to make arrangements
for the publication of the results of his
labors; and in the same interest, sailed for
England in 1896. He was everywhere re.
ceived by learned societies and scientific
men with the utmost cordiality and enthu-
siasm. Among his warmest admirers in
Great Britain were Jeffrey, Wilson, and
Sir Walter Scott; and in Paris, Cuvier,
Geeffroy st. Hilaire, and Humboldt. 1t
was honorable to the zeal and appreciation
of the foreign public, that of the one hum
bred and seventy subscribers at $1,000
each, to his splendid volume, the " Birds of
America" nearly half came from Eng
land and France. This volume was issued
in numbers, containg five plates each, every
object being of the size of life. By Nov.
II, 1928, eleven numbers of the work had
appeared, with nearly one hundred plates.
In 1929 he returned to the United States,
to explore anew the woods of the CONT !
nent. Roaming at will from the coasts of
to the everglades of Florida, he
gathered materials for new work, which
he aptly termed his pathological Biog-
raphies.'
An entertaining account of the circum-
stances under which his several magnificent
folios were issued, is to be found in the
various prefaces. The larger work en-
braced four volumes of engravings and five
Of letter-press illustrations; and to get these
through the press, was an exacting and
protracted task.
In 1888, having returned for the last |
time to this country, he established him
self in beautiful residence, Minnie STAND,
OH the banks of the Hudson, near the city |
of New York, where he commenced new |
edition of the "Birds of America" in inn
perial octave. This was finished in seven
volumes in 1914. 1t was during this inter-