John James Audubon

John James Audubon

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Title: John James Audubon
Author: John Burroughs
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7404] [This file was first
posted on April 24, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, JOHN
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JOHN JAMES AUDUBON
John Burroughs

TO C. B.

PREFACE.
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,
beginning his studies and drawings of the birds probably as early as
Wilson did his, but he planned larger and lived longer. He spent the
greater part of his long life in the pursuit of ornithology, and was of a
more versatile, flexible, and artistic nature than was Wilson. He was
collecting the material for his work at the same time that Wilson was
collecting his, but he did not begin the publication of it till fourteen
years after Wilson's death. Both men went directly to Nature and
underwent incredible hardships in exploring the woods and marshes in
quest of their material. Audubon's rambles were much wider, and
extended over a much longer period of time. Wilson, too, contemplated
a work upon our quadrupeds, but did not live to begin it. Audubon was
blessed with good health, length of years, a devoted and self-sacrificing
wife, and a buoyant, sanguine, and elastic disposition. He had the

heavenly gift of enthusiasm--a passionate love for the work he set out
to do. He was a natural hunter, roamer, woodsman; as unworldly as a
child, and as simple and transparent. We have had better trained and
more scientific ornithologists since his day, but none with his abandon
and poetic fervour in the study of our birds.
Both men were famous pedestrians and often walked hundreds of miles
at a stretch. They were natural explorers and voyagers. They loved
Nature at first hand, and not merely as she appears in books and
pictures. They both kept extensive journals of their wanderings and
observations. Several of Audubon's (recording his European
experiences) seem to have been lost or destroyed, but what remain
make up the greater part of two large volumes recently edited by his
grand-daughter, Maria R. Audubon.
I wish here to express my gratitude both to Miss Audubon, and to
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, for permitting me to draw freely from
the "Life and Journals" just mentioned. The temptation is strong to let
Audubon's graphic and glowing descriptions of American scenery, and
of his tireless wanderings, speak for themselves.
It is from these volumes, and from the life by his widow, published in
1868, that I have gathered the material for this brief biography.
Audubon's life naturally divides itself into three periods: his youth,
which was on the whole a gay and happy one, and which lasted till the
time of his marriage at the age of twenty-eight; his business career
which followed, lasting ten or more years, and consisting mainly in
getting rid of the fortune his father had left him; and his career as an
ornithologist which, though attended with great hardships and
privations, brought him much happiness and, long before the end,
substantial pecuniary rewards.
His ornithological tastes and studies really formed the main current of
his life from his teens onward. During his business ventures in
Kentucky and elsewhere this current came to the surface more and
more, absorbed more and more of