The pioneer in American ornithology was Alexander Wilson, a Scotch weaver and poet, who emigrated to this country in 1794, and began the publication of his great work upon our birds in 1808. He figured and described three hundred and twenty species, fifty-six of them new to science. His death occurred in 1813, before the publication of his work had been completed. But the chief of American ornithologists was John James Audubon. Audubon did not begin where Wilson left off. He was also a pioneer,

May 4 . John James La Forest Audubon was born at Mandeville, Louisiana. (Paucity of dates and conflicting statements make it impossible to insert dates to show when the family moved to St. Domingo, and thence to France.) Returned to America from France. Here followed life at Mill Grove Farm, near Philadelphia. Again in France for about two years. Studied under David, the artist. Then returned to America. April 8. Married Lucy Bakewell, and journeyed to Louisville, Kentucky, to engage in business

There is a hopeless confusion as to certain important dates in Audubon's life. He was often careless and unreliable in his statements of matters of fact, which weakness during his lifetime often led to his being accused of falsehood. Thus he speaks of the "memorable battle of Valley Forge" and of two brothers of his, both officers in the French army, as having perished in the French Revolution, when he doubtless meant uncles. He had previously stated that his only two brothers died in infancy. H

Audubon was now eager to marry, but Mr. Bakewell advised him first to study the mercantile business. This he accordingly set out to do by entering as a clerk the commercial house of Benjamin Bakewell in New York, while his friend Rozier entered a French house in Philadelphia. But Audubon was not cut out for business; his first venture was in indigo, and cost him several hundred pounds. Rozier succeeded no better; his first speculation was a cargo of hams shipped to the West Indies which did not

Finally, Audubon gave up the struggle of trying to be a business man. He says: "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." This he speaks of as the saddest of all his journeys—"the only time in my life when the wild turkeys that so often crossed my path, and the thousands of lesser birds that enlivened the woods and the prairies, all

About the very great merit of this work, there is but one opinion among competent judges. It is, indeed, a monument to the man's indomitable energy and perseverance, and it is a monument to the science of ornithology. The drawings of the birds are very spirited and life like, and their biographies copious, picturesque, and accurate, and, taken in connection with his many journals, they afford glimpses of the life of the country during the early part of the century, that are of very great interes

As a youth Audubon was an unwilling student of books; as a merchant and mill owner in Kentucky he was an unwilling man of business, but during his whole career, at all times and in all places, he was more than a willing student of ornithology—he was an eager and enthusiastic one. He brought to the pursuit of the birds, and to the study of open air life generally, the keen delight of the sportsman, united to the ardour of the artist moved by beautiful forms. He was not in the first instance a man

[Footnote: Publisher's Note: This bibliography is that of the original 1902 edition. Many books on Audubon have been published since then.] The works of Audubon are mentioned in the chronology at the beginning of the volume and in the text. Of the writings about him the following—apart from the obvious books of reference in American biography—are the main sources of information:— I. PROSE WRITINGS OF AMERICA. By Rufus Wilmot Griswold. (Philadelphia, 1847: Carey & Hart.) II. BRIEF BIOGRAP