When writing his young friend again, on November 18, he implored him to proceed
with all possible industry, in procuring the birds of my list, in rum. I hope you will have a pair of pied ducks (Fuligula labradora) for me. Send me all the drawings of eggs you can so that they reach me here by the 1st to 10th of March next. If the birds arrive in London by the middle of April, it will do.... I send you inclosed the copy of an advertisement of my work, which I wish you to hand over to our most generous friend George Parkman, Esq., M.D., and ask him to have it inserted in one or more of the Boston newspapers as soon as convenient.
Again, on the 22nd, he admonished his friend not to send his "drawings of eggs by letter," but to forward all such to N. Berthoud, "and ask him to send them by captains of London packets. The postages are very heavy these hard times, and I am not a prince."
Although Audubon's "Prospectus" called for only eighty parts of 400 plates, by 1837 the number of new discoveries had multiplied to such an extent that he faced the dilemma of either enlarging his work or issuing it in an incomplete state. In the summer of that year large numbers of his British patrons discontinued their subscriptions, a result, no doubt, of the disastrous panic which had driven many into bankruptcy, and still more refused to take any plates in excess of the stipulated number. To alleviate this anticipated difficulty, he had already begun to admit composite plates, on which from two to six different kinds of birds were grouped together, much in the older style which he abhorred; but, in spite of this concession and omission of the eggs, colored figures of which he had hoped to give at the end, he was obliged to add seven parts, thus swelling the total number of large plates to 435, which represented 489 supposedly distinct species of American birds.
When Audubon was facing such protests in England, Dr. J. K. Townsend[146] returned to Philadelphia with a second great collection from the Far West. How eager he was, at this psychological moment, to gain access to these ornithological treasures is clearly shown in the following letter[147] to Edward Harris:
Audubon to Edward Harris
[Outside address] To Edd Harris Esqr.
Moorestown New Jersey
9 miles from Philadelphia Pennsylvania
U. S. A.
Duplicate
London, Oct. 26th., 1837.
I have this moment received your dear letter of the 4. instant, for the contents of which, I do indeed most truly thank you, but the most important point contained in it, Dr. Spencer is now at Paris quite well and happy. I have not heard of his supposed intentions to visit Russia, at least not until you have shown yourself in Europe for awhile. When will you come? I have not received one single letter from Dr. Morton since my return to England, and have been the more surprised at this, because I look upon him as a worthy good man and as one whom, since my last visit to him, I cannot but consider as my friend.