John Woodhouse Audubon, son of the great Audubon, was born at Henderson, Kentucky, November 30, 1812. At the time of his birth his father was ekeing out an existence in Henderson, with saw-mills and lumber ventures of various kinds, all of which finally failed. The nomadic life of the ornithologist was early forced upon his son. Their wanderings were chiefly confined to the country south of the Ohio river, and Louisiana. John Woodhouse Audubon was instructed by his mother in the useful field of learning; but from his father he learned to delineate birds and mammals, though it was the family's desire that he should become a portrait painter. He and his brother, Victor, who was three years his elder, were sent to school together, but, in 1826, they were separated, Victor becoming a clerk at Louisville, Kentucky, and John remaining in Louisiana with his mother, who was then conducting a school, while the father went to Europe to solicit subscriptions for his forthcoming Birds of America. John W. Audubon was at this time engaged in drawing from Nature, and in playing the violin, to which he was devoted throughout life. He was a clerk for a short time on a Mississippi river steamboat, but any kind of routine was distasteful to him, his whole life being absorbed in the study of birds and mammals. He accompanied his father on one of his European trips, and in England and Scotland he copied many of the masterpieces of the great painters. In 1863 the collection of new species demanded that father and son should go as far South as the Gulf of Mexico; and while passing through Charleston, South Carolina, the son met Maria Bachman, whom he married the following year. In 1840 the Audubon house near New York City was built, and there John W. Audubon spent the remaining years of his life. In 1849 he joined a California company to go to the gold fields, but he went not for gold but for new birds and mammals. He returned in the following year, and in 1851, his famous father died. The brothers were then occupied with the publication of The Quadrupeds, and the octavo edition of The Birds of America. In the summer of 1860 Victor Audubon died; and on February 21, 1862, his brother followed him into the silent country. John Woodhouse Audubon's forty-nine years were spent in collaborating with his father and brother, but his independent fame is founded upon the manuscript record of his 1849 journey from New York to California. This most interesting manuscript was edited by his daughter, Miss Maria R. Audubon, of Salem, New York, and published as Audubon's Western Journal: 1849-1850 (Cleveland, Ohio, 1906). A more charming book of travels, of Nature in many forms, would be difficult to name.

Bibliography. The several lives of the great Audubon contain much material for a study of his son. His daughter made an excellent sketch of him for her edition of his Western Journal: 1849-1850 (Cleveland, 1906).

LOS ANGELES[8]

[From Audubon's Western Journal, 1849-1850 (Cleveland, 1906)]

This "city of the angels" is anything else, unless the angels are fallen ones. An antiquated, dilapidated air pervades all, but Americans are pouring in, and in a few years will make a beautiful place of it. It is well watered by a pretty little river, led off in irrigating ditches like those at San Antonio de Bexar. The whole town is surrounded to the south with very luxuriant vines, and the grapes are quite delightful; we parted from them with great regret, as fruit is such a luxury with us. Many of the men took bushels, and only paid small sums for them.

TULARE VALLEY

[From the same]

One more day brought us to this great valley, and the view from the last hill looking to northwest was quite grand, stretching on one hand until lost in distance, and on the other the snowy mountains on the east of the Tulare valley. Here, for the first time, I saw the Lewis woodpecker, and Steller's jay in this country. I have seen many California vultures and a new hawk, with a white tail and red shoulders. During the dry season this great plain may be travelled on, but now numerous ponds and lakes exist, and the ground is in places, for miles, too boggy to ride over, so we were forced to skirt the hills. This compelled us sometimes to take three days when two should have been ample. Our journeys now are not more than twenty miles a day, and our nights are so penetrating and cold, that four blankets are not too many.

CHRISTMAS IN 'FRISCO IN 1849

[From the same]

Christmas Day! Happy Christmas! Merry Christmas! Not that here, to me at any rate, in this pandemonium of a city. Not a lady to be seen, and the women, poor things, sad and silent, except when drunk or excited. The place full of gamblers, hundreds of them, and men of the lowest types, more blasphemous, and with less regard for God and his commands than all I have ever seen on the Mississippi, [in] New Orleans or Texas, which give us the same class to some extent, it is true; but instead of a few dozen, or a hundred, gaming at a time, here there are thousands, and one house alone pays one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum for the rent of the "Monte" tables.

Sunday makes no difference, certainly not Christmas, except for a little more drunkenness, and a little extra effort on the part of the hotel keepers to take in more money.