Page:John James Audubon (Burroughs).djvu/125

Rh of the time in Edinburgh, and part of the time in London, with two or three months passed in France, where there were fourteen subscribers. While absent in America, he had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and on May 6 took his seat in the great hall. He needed some competent person to assist him in getting his manuscript ready for publication and was so fortunate as to obtain the services of MacGillivray, the biographer of British Birds.

Audubon had learned that three editions of Wilson's "Ornithology" were soon to be published in Edinburgh, and he set to work vigorously to get his book out before them. Assisted by MacGillivray, he worked hard at his biography of the birds, writing all day, and Mrs. Audubon making a copy of the work to send to America to secure copyright there. Writing to her sons at this time,