d painter, David.

It is related of young Audubon that his drawings for many years fell so
far short of his ideal, that on each of his birthdays he regularly made
a bonfire of all he had produced during the previous year. He cared for
nothing else, however, and after his return to America, his home became
a museum of birds' eggs and stuffed birds. He took long tramps through
the wilderness, with no companions save dog and gun, all the time adding
new drawings to his collection. Some birds he was obliged to shoot,
afterwards supporting them in natural positions while he painted them;
others which he could not approach, he drew with the aid of a telescope,
representing them amid their natural surroundings, and all with
painstaking care and exactitude.

This work, occupying years of time, and accompanied by every sort of
suffering and exposure, by long trips through the wilderness of the
west, in heat and cold, snow and rain, was carried forward from pure
love of nature and enthusiasm for the work itself, without thought or
hope of reward. Audubon's friends began to consider him a kind of
harmless madman, for what sane person would devote his life to a work so
laborious and seemingly so useless? He made a little money occasionally
by giving drawing lessons; but he was never content except when roaming
the plains and forests, hunting for some new specimen. For his ambition
was to study and draw every kind of bird which lived in America.

In 1824 he happened to be in Philadelphia, and met there a son of Lucien
Bonaparte, to whom he showed his drawings. The Frenchman was at once
deeply interested, for he saw their beauty and value, and he urged upon
Audubon that some arrangement be made by which they could be published
and given to the world. The obstacles in the way of such an enterprise
were enormous, for the processes of color reproduction at that time were
slow and expensive, and it was estimated that the cost of the entire
work would exceed a hundred thousand dollars.

But Audubon had overcome obstacles before that, and three years later he
issued the prospectus of his famous "Birds of America." It was to
consist of four folio volumes of plates, and the price of each copy was
fixed at a thousand dollars. Three years more were spent in securing
subscriptions, and then the work of publication began, though Audubon
had barely enough money to pay for a single issue. Funds came in,
however, after the appearance of the firs