Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/713

Rh contained one hundred plates, representing ninety-nine species of birds, with every figure of the color and size of life. The whole work was completed in four volumes, in 1839. It contained four hundred and thirty-five plates, representing one thousand and sixty-five distinct specimens of birds all, from the eagle to the humming-bird, of the size of life. Again, after three months at home, spent in hunting and drawing, he visited England in 1830, where he found that he had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and on the 6th of May took his seat in the great hall, and paid his entrance-fee of fifty pounds, "though I felt myself that I had not the qualifications to entitle me to such an honor." He was shortly afterward joined by his wife, who accompanied him in his journeys to get new subscribers. In 1831, anticipating another tour of observation and study in the South, he visited Washington, to get letters of introduction to the commanders of frontier posts and officers along his route. All received him in the kindest manner. The winter of 1831-'32 was spent in East Florida, in what Audubon called a rather unprofitable expedition, but which furnished the material for several striking "episodes," as his accounts of the events have been designated.

In his subsequent journey Audubon visited the coast of Maine, accompanied by his family. According to Dr. Griswold's account, although no reference to the circumstance is made in Mrs. Audubon's "Life," the cholera then prevailing in the country, he was taken sick in Boston and detained there for some time. Aside from his illness, his experience in Boston must have been of the most grateful character, for he wrote of it, "Although I have been happy in forming many valuable friendships in various parts of the world, all dearly cherished by me, the outpouring of kindness which I experienced in Boston far exceeded all that I have ever met with." With these kindnesses he associated the names of the men who lent to the Boston of that time its peculiar luster. Continuing his journey, he explored the forests of Maine and New Brunswick and the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and then went by schooner to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Magdalen Islands, and the coast of Labrador; and in the latter part of the season visited Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. In the ensuing spring, after nearly three years of travel and research, he went for the third time to England, where, and in Edinburgh, he lived a year and a half. As soon as the first volume of the "Birds" was published, Audubon began his "Ornithological Biographies," to accompany it; a work which, besides descriptions of the birds, contained reminiscences of personal adventure, with delineations of scenery and character. It was completed in five volumes (1831-'39). It has a literary and historical value apart from that which the accounts of the birds give it, in that it presents in language warm from his having been a part of the scenes, a virgin past of our country, and its forests