In writing to Bachman in 1836, Audubon thus referred to the work of his apprenticeship: "Some of my early drawings of European birds are still in our possession, but many have been given away, and the greatest number were destroyed, not by the rats that gnawed my collection of the 'Birds of America,' but by the great fire."[155] When the naturalist was in Philadelphia in 1824, in search of a publisher and sadly in need of funds, he made the acquaintance of Edward Harris,[156] who looked at the drawings he had for sale and said at once that he would take them all and at Audubon's own prices. Upon his leaving that city, this generous friend, we are told, pressed a $100 bill in his hand, saying: "Mr. Audubon, accept this from me; men like you ought not to want for money." "I could only express my gratitude," continues the naturalist, "by insisting on his receiving the drawings of all my French birds." The worthy Harris cherished this large series of Audubon's early studies and added to it many specimens of his later work. The entire collection remained in his family unbroken and unimpaired until 1892.[157]
This beautiful and unique collection, which represents The Birds of America in the bud, illustrates the development of Audubon's art from about 1800 or a little later to 1821,[158] and clearly shows that the fuller mastery which he attained after the latter date was manifested in no small degree at a much earlier period. His drawings of the Wood Thrush (1806), the Whippoorwill and Kingfisher (1810), the Carolina Parrot (1811), and the Nighthawk (1812), though detached and less ambitious as pictures, for truth of line and delicacy of finish would compare favorably with the best of his later work. After 1820 his ability had so far outstripped his ambition that there was needed only the stimulus of a powerful motive and a well defined plan to bring his powers into full fruition at once. A little later, when he began to revise, enrich and standardize all of his previous work, he used the brush and water colors more freely than ever before. Hundreds of his earlier studies were cast aside; many, to be sure, were hastily drawn in pastel, crayon and pencil, and had not time failed him at the end, nothing of his earlier American period would have remained in the final product.
Nearly all of these rejected drawings bear serial numbers, which from the lack of sequence now observed, show that they were subject to constant change and that their total number must have been great. All bear the scientific and common names in French or English or both, and many are signed with the artist's initials or name; besides giving the place and date, in some cases the weights and measurements of his subjects are added, with detailed sketches of foot, bill, or eggs.[159]
A large crayon sketch of a groundhog, in excellent drawing, is labeled "Marmotte de sauvage, No. 159, le 6 juin, 1805." The Redstart, executed in August of the same year, is a good example of Audubon's more delicate early work; it shows also the attention which he was then beginning to pay to accessories, his bird being perched on a spray of ripening blackberries. The Wagtail, on the other hand, was a rough crayon sketch, dashed off on December 22 of the same year. A pencil and crayon drawing of the Mountain Titmouse, which is a European bird, was probably made from a captive, and at sea, since it bears the date of January 22, 1805, when Audubon was, I believe, aboard the Hope.[160] The latest of these French pieces, designated "No. 94. Woodpecker, le 8 mars, 1806. près Nantes; 12 to the tail," was executed, about a month before the naturalist finally left France with Rozier to settle permanently in the United States. The excellence of such a drawing as that of the Wood Thrush (1806) is in marked contrast to the more ambitious "Fish Hawk or Osprey, A. Willson, Perkioming Creek, 1809," in which the bird holds a white sucker in its talons but is less happily rendered. Nine large pastels of waterfowl and two smaller pieces, representing a Robin and Brown Thrush, in the same style, are good examples of Audubon's cruder efforts of that time; they were merely hurried sketches or practice work, with no attempt to finish with all the perfection of detail of which he was then capable.
In a full-size pastel of the Black Surf or Velvet Duck, drawn on December 28, 1806, and signed "J. J. L. Audubon," the note is added: "the only specimen of the kind I have ever seen." He became well acquainted with the Velvet Ducks, now better known as the White-winged Scoters, and in his account of the species says: "As we approached the shores of Labrador, we found the waters covered with dense flocks of these birds, and yet they continued to arrive there from the St. Lawrence for several days in succession. We were all astonished at their numbers which were such that we could not help imagining that all the Velvet Ducks in the world were passing before us."[161]
Several of these drawings are credited to "The Falls of the Ohio," as the rapids of this river at Louisville were then generally called; a number to "Red Banks," the old name of Henderson, Kentucky; while five were done in Pennsylvania, probably when Audubon was at the home of his father-in-law, William Bakewell, in the spring of 1812. An excellent drawing of the Chuck Wills Widow was probably made on the Red River,[162] in Arkansas, when Audubon was exploring that country and slowly making his way to New Orleans in June, 1821, though it should be noticed that a steamboat on which he sometimes traveled was called the Red River.
EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWING OF THE GROUNDHOG: "MARMOTTE DE SAVAGE, LE 6 JUIN, 1805, NO. 159."
Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes