Jean Jacques, the well-known naturalist, was born in Louisiana in 1781, where his parents, who were French Protestants, took up their residence while it was still a Spanish colony. They afterwards settled in Pennsylvania. He informed the writer of this memoir, that from his early years he had a passion for observing the habits and appearances of birds, and attempting delineations of them from nature. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Paris, and remained there about two years, when among other studies he took some lessons in the drawing-school of David. On returning to America his father established him in a plantation in Pennsylvania, and he soon after married. But neither the management of his plantation, nor his domestic relations as a husband and a father, could damp his ardour for natural history. This favourite pursuit often led him to explore the depths of the primeval forests of America in long and sometimes hazardous expeditions, far from his family and his home. For the fifteen years that followed 1810, he annually continued these excursions, and in that school acquired the facility of making those spirited drawings of birds that give such value to his magnificent work, The Birds of America. At that period he had not dreamt of any publication of his labours; and has informed us "it was not the desire of fame that prompted to those long exiles; it was simply the enjoyment of nature."

He afterwards removed with his family to the village of Henderson on the banks of the Ohio, where he remained for several years, pursuing his ornithological propensities; and at length set out for Philadelphia with a portfolio containing 200 sheets filled with coloured delineations of about 1000 birds. Business obliged him to quit Philadelphia unexpectedly for some weeks, and he deposited his portfolio in the warehouse of a friend; but judge of his horror and mortification at finding on his return, that these precious fruits of his wanderings and his labours had been totally destroyed by rats!

The shock threw him into a fever of several weeks' duration, that had well-nigh proved mortal. But his native energy returned with returning health; and he resumed his gun and his gamebag, his pencils, and his drawing-book, and replunged into the recesses of the backwoods. In eighteen months passed far from home, he had again filled his portfolio; and then rejoined his family, who had in the mean time gone to Louisiana.

After a short sojourn there, he bade them again adieu; and set out for the Old World, to exhibit to the ornithologists of Europe the riches of the New World in that department of natural history.

Audubon arrived in 1826 at Liverpool, where the merits of his spirited delineations of American birds were immediately recognized, and greatly admired by his present biographer and several other friends, who advised an exhibition of them to the public, in the galleries of the Royal Institution of that town. The exhibition was repeated at Manchester, and at Edinburgh, where they were no less admired. When he proposed to publish a work on the birds of America, several naturalists advised him to issue the work in large quarto, as the most useful size for the lovers of natural history, and the most likely to afford him a sufficient number of subscribers to remunerate his labours. At first he yielded to this advice, and acknowledged its soundness; but finally he decided that his work should eclipse every other ornithological publication. Every bird was to be delineated of the size of life, and to each species a whole page was to be devoted; consequently the largest elephant folio paper was to receive the impressions. In such enormous pages the white headed-eagle and the wild turkey certainly fill the space with good effect; but to occupy such pages with a humming-bird or a flycatcher, seemed to his more sober friends rather extravagant. It is true that his beautiful drawings of plants and flowers, which he introduced with the smaller birds, were often very spirited and characteristic; but size necessarily increased the expense of the work so much as to put it beyond the reach of most scientific naturalists; which accounts for the small number of persons whom, for a considerable time, he could reckon among his supporters in this gigantic undertaking. The extreme beauty, however, of this splendid work, extorted the applause of the wealthy and the eminent in station; and a sufficient number of subscribers was obtained in Britain and America, during the ten or twelve years that the work was going through the press, to indemnify him for the vast cost of the publication; yet left him a very moderate compensation for his uncommon industry and skill. We are convinced that had a quarto size been adopted, with a scale of the size for each species, it would have been far more advantageous to the gifted and indefatigable author.

The first volume of this noble work was published in the end of the year 1830, the second in 1834, the third in 1837, and the fourth and last in 1839. The whole consists of 435 coloured plates, containing 1055 figures of birds the size of life. It is certainly the most magnificent work of the kind ever given to the world, and is well characterized by Cuvier, "C'est le plus magnifique monument que l'art ai encore élevé à la Nature."

During its preparation and publication, Audubon made several excursions from Great Britain. In the summer of 1828, he visited Paris, where he obtained the acquaintance and gained the high approbation of Cuvier, Humboldt, and many other celebrated naturalists. The following winter he passed in London. In April of 1830 he revisited the United States of America; and again explored the forests of the central and southern federal territories. In the following year he returned to London and Edinburgh; but the August of 1831 found him again in New York. The fol- AUGUSTA

lowing winter and spring he spent in Florida and South Carolina; and in the summer of 1832, he set out for the Northern States, with an intention of studying the annual migrations of birds, particularly of the passenger pigeon, of which he has given a striking description; but his career was arrested at Boston by a severe attack of cholera, which detained him there till the middle of August. After that he explored the coasts, the lakes, rivers, and mountains of N. America, from Labrador and Canada to Florida, during a series of laborious journeys, that occupied him for three years. From Charleston, accompanied by his wife and family, he took his third departure for Britain.

Before, however, he had quitted these islands, he had begun to publish at Edinburgh his American Ornithological Biography, which at length filled five very large octavo volumes. The first appeared in 1831, and the last in 1839. This book is admirable for the vivid pictures it presents of the habits of the birds, and the adventures of the naturalist. The descriptions are characteristically accurate and interesting.

M. Audubon spoke English fluently, with a foreign accent; and he wrote it easily, but with an occasional foreign idiom. It is true, as he informed us, that in this publication the style was corrected by his friend the late Professor Macgillivray of Aberdeen; but from having examined Audubon's MS. notes, before he had ever met Mr Macgillivray, we can positively state, that any similarity to be discovered between their acknowledged writings on natural history, may be as justly attributed to an imitation of the spirited descriptions of Audubon by his friendly assistant, as to any obligation of Audubon to that author for the graphic style of his narrative. We may add, that Audubon always acknowledged the services of Mr Macgillivray in terms of enthusiastic friendship and regard.

In 1839 Audubon bade a final adieu to Europe; and returning to his native country, he published in a more popular form his Birds of America, in seven octavo volumes, the last of which appeared in 1844.

His ardent love of nature still prompted him to new enterprises, and he set out on fresh excursions; but in these he was accompanied by his two sons, and one or two other individuals, instead of his former solitary rambles. The result of these excursions was the projection of a new work, The Quadrupeds of America, in atlas folio, and also a Biography of American Quadrupeds; both of which were commenced at Philadelphia in 1840. The latter was completed in 1850, and is, perhaps, even superior to his Ornithological Biography.

To great intelligence in observing, and accuracy in delineating nature, to a vigorous handsome frame, and pleasing expressive features, M. Audubon united very estimable mental qualities, and a deep sense of religion without a trace of bigotry. His conversation was animated and instructive; his manner unassuming; and he always spoke with gratitude to Heaven for the very happy life he had been permitted to enjoy.

He died, after a short illness, in his own residence on the banks of the Hudson, at New York, on the 27th of January 1851.