The New Student's Reference Work/Audubon, John James

Audubon (aw' du-bon), John James, a distinguished American ornithologist, was born in 1780 in Louisiana. He was educated at Paris, his parents being of French origin. After returning to America, he married and went to live on .his plantation. He spent his time wandering through the woods, watching the habits of birds. Often he was gone for months entirely alone, in absolutely uninhabited regions. The varieties of birds which he observed he sketched at once.

After about fifteen years of such excursions, he proceeded to Philadelphia with his designs, intending to publish a work on the birds of North America. But while he was gone from the city all his papers were destroyed by rats, and he was obliged to go back to the forests and begin his work again. Four years later he took his new designs to England and in 1830 appeared the first volume of The Birds of America, containing 100 plates. In 1839 the work was completed, and at the same time was published a description of American birds to accompany the volume of plates. Audubon published another book in 1846–50 on the quadrupeds of America. He died at New York, January 27, 1851.