File:The Audubon magazine (1887) (14563085777).jpg

Identifier: audubonmag12188789nati (find matches)
Title: The Audubon magazine
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: National Audubon Society
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: (New York, N.Y. : Forest and Stream Publishing Co.)
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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adea hundred drawings of European birds.These were brought back by him in hisportfolio on his return to America, and itproves to be three of these juvenile effortsthat I now have in my possession. Rareold treasures they are to be sure, and wouldthat I could commit to paper the quickly-passing thoughts they inspire in my mind,as I hold them up one at a time before me ! They cause us to wonder whether Audu-bon really dreamed, as he worked away overthese crude productions, of the man hewas to be some day. And we wonder, too,as we examine them, at the rapidity of hisartistic development and improvement. They are each and all drawn by a com-bination of crayon and water-colors upona thin and not expensive kind of drawing-paper, now brittle and soiled by age. Au-dubon had evidently numbered these draw-ings of his, and these numbers are 44, 77,and 96, a European magpie, a coot, and agreen woodpecker, respectively. As I have said, the earliest of thesedrawings is the one of the magpie, and let
Text Appearing After Image:
r- ^ b: O X < ^ t,_< i< u: ^ < •< K 5 l-H M O D Audubonian Sketches. 269 us look at it for a moment. It is life size,as they all three are, and the bird is repre-sented standing on the ground, being drawnlengthwise on the paper. The execution isquite crude, though the naturalist sticksout in it, for notwithstanding the some-what awkward position the bird is in, thereis life in it. The ground is simply ■A. washof pale green and brown, while over on oneside of the paper he has tried his brush,having made some rough concentric circleswith paint dabs about them. Beneath thisdrawing we find written in lead-pencil intwo lines, La Pie, Buffon, Pye, PiotMagpye, Planet, english, and over to theleft-hand corner, No. 44. The second picture is that of a coot, andis here a marked improvement upon themagpie. Far more pains have been takenwith the feet, legs, bill, and eye, though lit-tle has been gained in the natural attitudeof the bird. It is also represented standingupon the d

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