John James Audubon

Lover and Student of Birds

1780-1851

1827-1830. published the Birds of America

Early in the seventeen-seventies, Commodore Audubon, of the French navy, came to Louisiana on business. He married, then returned to France, where his son John James Audubon was born. Commodore Audubon had bought a plantation on St. Domingo, which soon needed his attention; so the little family sailed for the island. In a slave insurrection the mother perished, but the baby was saved. Father and son went back to France.

The father married a second time, then came to America to join Lafayette and help the colonists to win the Revolutionary War. The child was left in the care of his stepmother, who idolized him. She filled his pockets with money, she bought him the finest clothes, she gave him full permission to buy whatever he chose in all the candy stores of the place, and she often told him that he was the handsomest child in France. As for school, he went when he liked, but when he did not like, he wandered off into the fields and woods.

When the father returned, he found his son's room full of odd stones, birds' nests, curious lichens, and pressed flowers, and he was pleased; but when he learned that the boy had done nothing but make collections, he marched him off to the place where he himself was stationed, and saw to it that he did some real studying. Nevertheless, the boy loved nature, and especially birds, as much as ever, and somehow he found time to make drawings of some two hundred of the birds of France. "All bad enough," he said afterwards, "yet I felt pleased with them."

While Commodore Audubon was in America, he had bought an estate near Philadelphia; and before many years had passed, he sent his son across the ocean to manage it. The young man had a delightful time with hunting, fishing, drawing, and music. He was strong and handsome and graceful, always dressed with the utmost care, and with such winning, friendly manners that his neighbors were all devoted to him. His rooms were museums of eggs, and paintings, chiefly of birds, for they still held the first place in his interest. He must have been rather a queer manager of an estate, for he was so little of a business man that he once put eight thousand dollars into an envelope and mailed it without remembering to put on a wafer.

It was hardly a wise move for such a man to open a store; but he and his bride of one day and a friend who was to be his partner went through the woods and down the Ohio River to Louisville, Kentucky. There and elsewhere they "kept store"; that is, the partner managed the store, while Audubon had a glorious time roaming through the forests, collecting and painting birds.

This rather peculiar fashion of carrying on a mercantile life lasted for some ten years. He and his wife's brother attempted trade in Henderson, Kentucky; they built a sawmill; and they bought a steamer. Nothing succeeded, the money left to Audubon by his father soon vanished, and he ceased to be a business man. As he said, "I parted with every particle of property I had to my creditors, keeping only the clothes I wore on that day, my original drawings, and my gun, and without a dollar in my pocket walked to Louisville alone."

He was so sad that, as he went through the woods, even his precious birds looked to him like enemies. But his wife and children he loved with his whole heart, and for their sake he set bravely to work drawing crayon portraits. He took a position in a museum in Cincinnati, but his salary was not paid. He was longing to publish his bird drawings, but first he must add more of the Southern and Western birds. So he went South, paying his way by drawing portraits and teaching drawing. He paid for a pair of shoes by sketching the shoemaker, and for his passage on a boat by painting the walls of the cabin.

His wife believed firmly in her husband's genius, and she was as eager as he to have his work published. Moreover, she had the business ability which he lacked. She had earned a goodly sum teaching. he added to it by giving dancing lessons, and in 1826 the way was clear for him to go to England. England was entirely new to him, and he was rather aghast at spending five hours at dinner. He was never awkward, but he was sensitive, and so modest that he was always grateful to people who made him feel at home. The object of his journey was to gain subscribers to his proposed Birds of America. His drawings were put on exhibition; and now came a hard time for the artist. A word of appreciation made him blush with joy, but when he overheard some one in a crowd say, "I have seen them; save your shilling for better use," he dared not raise his head, but wished himself back in the American forests with his birds. Once when he was standing just outside the door of his exhibition, a stranger asked him if those pictures were worth seeing. The artist said "No" most emphatically, and the man turned aside. He asked the same question of some one else, and this second man must have said "Yes," for he came back and went in.

After a time in England, Audubon went to Scotland, and there he was as eager to see Sir Walter Scott as to make friends for his books, and one night he went to sleep with his favorite of Scott's novels under his pillow, hoping for a dream of its author. At last the happy time arrived for an interview. A friend came into his painting room and said, "Put on your coat and hat and come with me to Sir Walter Scott; he wishes to see you now."  "I really believe my coat and hat came to me instead of my going to them," Audubon wrote in his journal. Sir Walter was very cordial, and the naturalist went away from the call as sincere a worshiper of the novelist as in the days of his early manhood.

Occasionally Audubon had a disagreeable interview. One man of high rank, not a subscriber, actually sent for him to call, and then told him scornfully that his birds were all alike, and the work was a swindle. Audubon made no reply, but bowed and left the house. He wrote quietly in his journal, "It is not the custom to send for a gentleman to abuse him in one's own home." He was elected a member of various scientific societies. and met many men of great learning. He met one banker, who was most courteous, but who declared that he knew nothing of ornithology except that large feathers were called quills, and were useful in posting ledgers. All this he noted down in a journal, which is really one long homesick letter to his wife in America. He tells her of every discouragement that he meets, and he writes just as frankly, "Now, my Lucy, . . . I may feel proud of two things, that I am considered the first ornithological painter and the first practical naturalist of America; may God grant me life to accomplish my serious and gigantic work."

Audubon now went to France in the hope of increasing the number of names on his list of subscribers. He had the pleasure of meeting Cuvier often, and the great scientist declared to the Academy of Sciences that the Birds of America  was the most magnificent monument which had yet been erected to ornithology. Nevertheless, there were fewer in France than in England who could afford to spend a thousand dollars on a set of books, and not many new subscribers were gained.

The months in Europe were by no means a time of idleness. It was Audubon's business to meet as many people—possible subscribers—as he could; to secure engravers, and also painters who could color his engravings properly; and to attend to the whole business of publishing his plates. Business was always troublesome to him, and he wrote to his wife, "It is difficult for a man like me to see that I am neither cheating nor being cheated." Then, too, he had many orders for pictures, and he often painted twenty hours Out of the twenty-four. It is no wonder that he was happy when at last he had arranged his business affairs and was free to sail for home in the packet-ship which he chose because of her name, Columbia.

A year later Audubon and his wife went to Edinburgh. Here Audubon set to work to write his Ornithological Biography. which is really charming accounts of the lives and habits of his birds, and where he had found them. "Your father is up and at work before dawn, and writes without ceasing all day," Mrs. Audubon wrote to the sons.

To bring out the Birds  took not only hard work, but a vast amount of perseverance and courage. It was planned to be issued in eighty-seven parts of five plates each, giving 1065 figures of birds. The text came out separately, in five large octavo volumes. Only a few numbers were to be brought out each year, and the publication was to extend over a number of years. It is not strange that even after subscribing, some fifty persons withdrew their names.

The Audubons returned to America, and then they literally followed the real living birds. The whole family journeyed together in most delightful fashion. Where there were birds that the naturalist wished to draw, they stopped; where there were none, they went on. His charming manner made friends for them everywhere.

Audubon had long wished to make a trip to Labrador to study the Northern birds, and in 1833 he, his youngest son, "Johnny," and four other young men, chartered a schooner and set sail. One of them wrote of their leader, "You had only to meet him to love him, and when you had conversed with him for a moment, you looked upon him as an old friend, rather than a stranger."

In 1840 the family made their home in Audubon Park, as it is now called, within the present limits of New York City. The sons had married, and here eleven of the fourteen grandchildren were born. Audubon must have been a most lovable grandfather, for he never objected to as many of the children as might choose making use of his painting house as a playroom.

A smaller-sized edition of the Birds  was to be prepared, and Audubon had also planned Quadricpeds of North America. Father and sons worked together on what they called "our book." The father sketched, one son, using the camera obscura,  reduced the drawings to the required size, and the other son attended to printing and publishing. Audubon was very happy in his youngest son's success in painting. "Ah, Johnny," he would say, "no need for the old man to paint any more when you can do work like that."

To the last day of his life he was the same gentle, lovable person that he had always been. He loved to wander along the banks of the Hudson River. "The love of animals develops the better side of all natures," he said, and he loved all animals, but especially birds. Birds have been hunted for their flesh, their plumage, and even for the amusement of trying to hit them. There is a story which pictures a man throwing open his blinds in the morning and exclaiming, "Beautiful day! Let's go and kill some birds!" To prevent this destruction of bird life the Audubon Society has been formed, rightly named for the man who did more than any other person to interest people in birds and their ways. President Roosevelt was deeply interested in saving the birds, and set apart fifty-three different areas of land as "bird reservations." These reservations are located in many parts of the United States, along the ocean coast, in Nebraska and South Dakota, in Oregon, California, and on the Hawaiian Islands. No one is allowed to enter them who will harm or disturb the birds, and to some of them all entrance is forbidden. Birds are quick-witted, and they soon understand where they are safe. It is a pity they cannot understand that their safety is due to Audubon, friend of their fathers.