The return of Dr. Townsend to our happy land has filled me with joy, and trebly so when you tell me that he is as friendly disposed to me as I ever have been towards him. I congratulate you my dear friend, in the step which you have so kindly taken in my favour, by first selecting all such Bird-skins as you or Townsend have considered as new, and also in having given freedom to Dr. Morton to pay Dr. Townsend Fifty Dollars for the skins selected by you, under the prudent considerations or restrictions talked of in your letter. May I receive all the Bird skins very soon, for depend upon it, now or never is for me the period to push on my publication. If I have any regret to express it is, that Townsend or Dr. Morton or yourself did not at once forward to me the whole of the Bird skins brought latterly by Townsend, for I can assure you that it has become a matter of the greatest niceity to distinguish the slight though positive species lines of demarkation between our species of Birds—and if on this reaching you, the least doubt exists amongst yourselves respecting any one, why send it to me at once by the very earliest conveyance. If by New York, with letter to N. Berthoud to lose not a day, provided a packet, either to Liverpool or London, is ready to sail! Had Townsend sent me the whole of his disposible birds, I might now have perhaps been able to have mad[e] him a remittance in cash, which the single arrival of the German Naturalists, who are now in California may hereafter put an end to. Mention this to him, nay, shew him this letter if you please and assure him that I am willing to exert myself in his behalf. Indeed, I wish you to urge him in forwarding me either his own manuscripts or a copy of all such parts as appertain to Birds, as soon as possible, knowing (I think) that he will not undertake to publish them himself under his present (I am sorry to say) embarrassed pecuniary circumstances. Tell him that I want all about the habits of any Birds which he has written upon, especially, however, those found from the beginning of his journeys until his return, and appertaining to species belonging to our fauna or otherwise. Their exact measurements, dates, localities, migratories or vice versa inclinations, descriptions of nests, eggs &c. periods of breeding; in a word all that he can, or will be pleased to send me—and you may assure Townsend, that all he will confide to me will be published as coming from him, although I may think fit to alter the phraseology in some instances. Tell him to be extremely careful in naming his new species, and that [if] he thinks of difficulties in this matter, to leave it to me, as here I am able to see all the late published works (and they are not a few) and work out the species with more advantage than any one can at present in Philadelphia. Do not take this as egotism far from it, it is in friendship and for his sake that I venture on undertaking such an arduous task. I am exceedingly [anxious] to receive a letter from him (for Nuttall, though an excellent friend of mine and a most worthy man, will not answer me in time on this subject) of all the birds contained in the plates now at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philada., which he saw on the Rocky Mountains, over those mountains, on the Columbia River and off the coast of our Western boundaries. This I want much, and if he would simply dictate to you plate 1, not there, plate 2, there, plate 3 there &c. &c. this would amply answer my purpose, and this I wish you not to neglect to forward me as soon as possible by duplicate! Of course I cannot speak upon any one of the new species of which you speak until I have examined them all. To talk of new species in London is a matter not now understood in any part of America, and sorry will you be as well as himself, when I assure you that out of the twelve supposed to be, and published by Dr. Morton, from Townsend's first cargo, not more than six are actually undescribed, although I have taken upon myself the risk of publishing his names to the Birds on my plate, but which of course I am obliged to correct in my letter press. The little beautiful owl, I would venture to say has been described by Vigors at least ten years ago, &c. &c. Swainson never goes to bed without describing some new species, and Charles Bonaparte, during his late visit to London, has published as many as 20 of a night at the Museum of the Zoological Society Insects &c. &c. Stir, work hard, [be] prompt in every thing. My work must soon be finished, and unless all is received here by the month of May next, why I shall have to abandon to others what I might myself have accomplished. God bless you, many happy years. We are all well, thank God, just now. Remember me and us kindly to all around and every friend and believe me ever your most truly and sincerely attached friend,
John J. Audubon.
To Edward Harris, Esqre.
Addressed, care "Messrs. Rathbone, Brothers & Co.
Liverpool."
When you send to Liverpool.
If Townsend has brought Birds Eggs, ask him to send them me. I will return all to him that he may want. I greatly regret that you did not find me the water Birds of which you speak, as I might have perchance found something new or curious among them. The Golden Eye Duck especially, if any be had?
In reference to the new species of birds which had come into his hands, Audubon said:
What was I to do? Why, to publish them, to be sure; for this I should have done, to the best of my power, even if every subscriber in Europe had refused to take them. What! said I, shall the last volume of the "Birds of America" be now closed, at a time when new species are in my hands? No! And in spite of threats from this quarter and that, that such and such persons would discontinue their subscriptions (which indeed they have done), and refuse to take the few numbers that would have rendered their copies complete, my wish to do all that was in my power has been accomplished.
Doubtless we should hesitate to blame many of Audubon's subscribers for wishing to be relieved from an obligation which for a period of ten years had cost them from $50 to $100 per annum, not to speak of any who had met financial disaster in the panic of that day, but at this juncture he really had no choice. When his eightieth Number, originally intended to be the last, appeared in 1837, many important kinds of birds, including ducks, swan, tern, and the Flamingo, as well as grouse, warblers and woodpeckers, were still calling loud for recognition. So generous of space had he been in the earlier phase of his undertaking that twenty species were each shown on two distinct plates, while in the end the need of compression compelled him to introduce thirty-five composite plates.
Subscribers to The Birds of America at the beginning had been permitted to take a part or the whole, and many incomplete sets were circulated, upwards of 120, as Audubon declared in 1839, having then discontinued their subscriptions. Towards the end of his undertaking, owing to the great expense and uncertainty involved, he was disinclined to supply any but regular subscribers, as shown by the following letter written from London, May 25, 1838, to William A. Colman of New York:[148]
... We find that six of the plates you want are not only largest figs, but some of them extremely full and difficult to colour, and he [Mr. Havell] says that our Printers and our Colourers would not undertake to go throu them without charging a most extravagant price. I have no extra plates whatever on hand, and in consequence of this must be obliged to decline furnishing you with them.