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 his time and energies, and carried him further and further from the
conditions of a successful business career.