When we recall the disadvantages under which John Bachman worked, it must be acknowledged that he was deserving of all the credit which he received. Born of Swiss and German stock at Rheinbeck, New York, in 1790, he clearly remembered walking in the mock funeral procession that was held in his village when the country was mourning the death of Washington in 1799. From early boyhood he was an ardent enthusiast in the study of nature, at a time when such studies were generally frowned upon in country districts as not only idle but positively harmful. He trapped the beaver, and from the sale of its skins was able to make his first purchase of books on natural history. While a young man he became acquainted with Alexander Wilson and learned to know him well, having joined him in field excursions and collected birds for him in northern New York; on Wilson's recommendation he succeeded both him and his nephew, William Duncan, in the Elwood School, at Milestown, Pennsylvania, where he taught for a year. While there, a youth of barely fifteen, he was invited, no doubt through the influence of Wilson, to meet Alexander von Humboldt at a dinner given in honor of the great traveler at Philadelphia in 1804. From a pastorate in Shagticoke, New York, Bachman in 1815 went to Charleston, South Carolina, where he presided over the Lutheran church for nearly sixty years, and became thoroughly identified with the South. Beloved as few men ever are in their community, he was widely honored for his attainments in natural science.

In an address on Humboldt, dictated by Bachman when in his eightieth year, and too feeble to deliver it himself, he alluded to the event noticed above to show "how scanty, in those days, was the material in natural science." Among the few naturalists who were present on the occasion of the dinner, which was held in Peale's Museum, were, he said:[222]

the two Bartrams, Wilson, the ornithologist, Lawson, his engraver, George Ord and a few others.... Few speeches were made and those were short—there was no formality.... Humboldt was then, as he was afterwards, in every society, "the observed of all observers".... I saw him every day during the few days he remained in Philadelphia. He inserted my name in his note-book, and for the last sixty years we corresponded at long intervals.... It would be very gratifying to me, and interesting to your societies, if I could have exhibited to you his autograph in some of his letters; but, alas! my whole library and all my collections in Natural History, the accumulation of the labors of a long life, were burnt by Sherman's vandal army, and, with the exception of a single letter, which, by accident, fell into the hands of another member of my family, I possess no memorials of one who condescended to speak of me as a friend.

As we have noticed, Audubon's large illustrations of the Quadrupeds were completed in 1846; this marked the ebb tide of his powers, and his son, John, who had painted nearly one-half of the originals of the large plates, like Victor, continued to aid Bachman in the prosecution of that work. The first number of this lithographic series was introduced by the common American wildcat, or Lynx rufus, in three-quarters natural size, followed by the proverbial ground hog, "Maryland marmot," or woodchuck, shown in both young and adult state, in the size of life. Plate No. 4 reproduced an exquisite drawing of four Florida rats climbing over a pine branch. Some of the elder Audubon's plates of squirrels are particularly fine and recall the best of his more famous bird pictures; the gray fox (No. 3, Plate xxi) is sniffing at a feather blown from a farmer's yard; in another drawing a rascally old black rat and its three young ones are robbing a hen's nest and breaking up the eggs; Hudson Bay squirrels reach after hazel nuts which hang in clusters from green boughs above; opossums, with sardonic grin, are making for the ripe, orange fruits of the persimmon, holding to the branch with their rat-like, coiled tails; the swift fox (Vulpes velox) sits on the ground, barking like a dog, with head up-turned, while the better known red fox (No. 18, Plate lxxxvii) struggles in an old-fashioned steel trap, the toothed jaws of which have gripped a paw above the heel, and you observe that his tail is where, in the circumstances, it is bound to be—between his legs. While many of these plates are of the highest degree of excellence, the colors are apt to be too vivid and the execution is far from uniform.

AUDUBON'S LAST (?) LETTER TO EDWARD HARRIS, FEBRUARY 22, 1847.

From the Jeanes MSS.

Thomas M. Brewer, a valued friend and correspondent,[223] in response to an urgent request, "ere it be too late," paid a visit to the famous naturalist on the Fourth of July, 1846, of which he has given this record:[224]

I found him in a retreat well worthy of so true a lover of nature. It was a lovely spot, on a well-wooded point running out in the river. His dwelling was a large old-fashioned wooden house, from the veranda of which was a fine view, looking both up and down the stream, and around the dwelling were grouped several fine old forest trees of beech and oak. The grounds were well stocked with pets of various kinds, both birds and beasts, while his wild feathered favorites, hardly less confiding, had their nests over his very doorway. Through the grounds ran a small rivulet, over which was a picturesque rural bridge.