[41] Of Maine; in 1843 a second lieutenant of the First Dragoons. He rose during the Civil War to be lieutenant-colonel of the Fourth Cavalry, and Brevet Major-General of Volunteers; died Jan. 7, 1873.
[42] Branta hutchinsi.
[43] Audubon's daughter-in-law, Mrs. V. G. Audubon, writes: "He returned on the 6th of November, 1843. It was a bright day, and the whole family, with his old friend Captain Cummings, were on the piazza waiting for the carriage to come from Harlem [then the only way of reaching New York by rail] There were two roads, and hearing wheels, some ran one way and some another, each hoping to be the first to see him; but he had left the carriage at the top of the hill, and came on foot straight down the steepest part, so that those who remained on the piazza had his first kiss. He kissed his sons as well as the ladies of the party. He had on a green blanket coat with fur collar and cuffs; his hair and beard were very long, and he made a fine and striking appearance. In this dress his son John painted his portrait."
[45] These extracts, as well as the descriptions by Mr. Denig and Mr. Culbertson, of Forts Union and McKenzie, which follow, are in Audubon's writing, at the end of one of the Missouri River journals, and are given as descriptions of the life and habitations of those early western pioneers and fur-traders.
[46] One episode has been added,—"My Style of drawing Birds,"—and three have been omitted, that on Bewick being in the "Journal of England and France," and the others not of general interest.
[47] This was in 1810 or 1811.
[48] This was written in 1835.
[49] Vincent Nolte, in "Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres," gives an account of his meeting on this occasion with Audubon, part of which is as follows: "About ten o'clock I arrived at a small inn, close by the falls of the Juniata River. The landlady showed me into a room and said I perhaps would not mind taking my meal with a strange gentleman, who was already there. This personage struck me as an odd fish. He was sitting at a table before the fire, with a Madras handkerchief wound around his head, exactly in the style of the French mariners of a seaport town.... He showed himself to be an original throughout, but admitted he was a Frenchman by birth, and a native of La Rochelle. However, he had come in his early youth to Louisiana, had grown up in the sea-service, and had gradually become a thorough American. This man, who afterwards won for himself so great a name in natural history, particularly in ornithology, was Audubon." It is needless to say that the personal history of Audubon as here given is entirely erroneous; but as the meeting was in 1811, and the book written from memory in 1854, Mr. Nolte must be pardoned for his misstatements, which were doubtless unintentional.
[50] This was on the journey made by Audubon and his partner, Ferdinand Rozier, from Louisville to St. Genevieve, then in Upper Louisiana. They left Louisville in the autumn of 1810, and Audubon returned in the spring of 1811.