STATUE OF AUDUBON BY EDWARD VIRGINIUS VALENTINE IN AUDUBON PARK, NEW ORLEANS.
Published by courtesy of Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur.
THE AUDUBON MONUMENT IN TRINITY CEMETERY, NEW YORK, ON CHILDREN'S DAY, JUNE, 1915.
Published by courtesy of the Corporation of Trinity Parish, New York City.
In recent times Audubon's name has become a household word through the medium of the most effective instrument which has yet been devised for the conservation of animal life in this or any country, the National Association of Audubon Societies for the Protection of Wild Birds and Animals. This has become the coördinating center for the spread and control of a great national movement that received its first impulse in 1886.[7] Launched anew ten years later, it has advanced with ever increasing momentum, until now it is the governing head of twenty-nine distinct State societies, as well as eighty-five affiliated clubs and similar organizations. In 1916 it counted a life membership of 356, with 3,024 sustaining members, and realized a total income of over $100,000. It should be added that during the past six years over 2,900 Junior Audubon Clubs have been formed in the schools, through which nearly 600,000 children have been instructed in the principles of the Audubon Society. Well may it be that this admirable organization, with its successful efforts for remedial legislation in state and nation; its initiative, with the aid of the National Government, in establishing Federal reservations or sanctuaries for the perpetuation of wild life; its educational activities through the extension of its influence to the pupils of the public schools; and its watch and ward over all the varied interests of its cause, will keep the name of Audubon greener to all future time than the most cherished of his works.
Of Audubon's works the public now sees but little and knows even less, all without exception having been long out of print. His admirable plates of birds and mammals have been widely copied and still serve for the illustration of popular books, but most of his publications were projected on too large and expensive a scale for general circulation, having been first sold to subscribers only and often at great cost. No complete reprint, revision or abridgment of his principal volumes has been made for half a century (see [Bibliography, Appendix V]). No complete bibliography of Audubon has ever been prepared, and none will remain completed long, for it is hard to imagine a time when comment on his life, his drawings, and his adventures will altogether cease.
In May, 1834, William MacGillivray, who was assisting him in the technical parts of the Ornithological Biography, suggested that Audubon write a biography of himself, and predicted a wide popularity for such a work. Audubon entertained the idea but was then too deeply immersed in The Birds of America to give it much attention; yet in 1835 he wrote out a short sketch, entitled Myself, addressing it in the fashion of that day to his two sons, and then laid it aside. Mrs. Audubon evidently had access to this manuscript when the life of her husband, to be referred to later, was in course of preparation, and thus it has furnished, directly or indirectly, nearly all that has been published concerning the naturalist's early life. This fragment, which extends to about thirty printed pages, was characterized by Audubon as a "very imperfect (but perfectly correct) account of my early life," and though written with an eye to its possible publication, which was clearly sanctioned, it was evidently never revised. The manuscript was long lost but eventually was "found in an old book which had been in a barn on Staten Island for years"; it was first published by the naturalist's granddaughter, Miss Maria R. Audubon, in 1893, and again in 1898. As will later appear, this account is inaccurate in many important particulars.