SOURCE: An introduction to Audubon's Birds of America, by John James Audubon, The Macmillan Company, 1950, pp. 15-30.

[In the following essay, Griscom discusses Audubon as a painter and ornithologist.]

It is now almost a century since the death of John James Audubon (1785-1851). Not only has his reputation lasted, but if anything, his fame and renown have increased with the passage of time. It, perhaps, might be worth while to pause and enquire why this is so. He is a perpetual source of study, discussion and debate, and much ink has been spilled over whether his claim to fame was primarily as an ornithologist or an artist. In my opinion much of this debate is second rate or even trivial, and misses the major point.

Actually he was both, and it is an irrelevant detail to consider in which field he may have excelled, for the moment. Moreover, his biography, letters, and delineations of the American scenery and manners of his day have acquired increasing value and historical interest with the years, and make good reading for people with no knowledge of birds whatever. To my view his greatest claims to fame and glory were first, the versatility of his talents and gifts, and second that the completion of his main ambition, the original elephant folio of paintings of 435 species of American birds against overwhelming odds was a tour de force, of a kind which has never again been equalled in history.

It is perhaps trite to remark that men who accomplish a tour deforce usually lead extraordinary lives, and display characteristics not possessed by the humdrum citizen. Audubon was no exception to this rule. The son of a French naval officer and a creole woman of Santo Domingo, he was probably illegitimate, but never admitted it. Howbeit, the father was a man of some substance, and young Audubon had a spoiled and petted boyhood on an estate in France, early developing both a talent for drawing, and a love of the outdoors, natural history and birds in particular, which he could not control, and which motivated his entire life.

When about seventeen years of age, he was sent to North America to take charge of a property near Philadelphia, and thenceforth adopted his new country wholeheartedly. Here he met and married Lucy Bakewell, and began a series of commercial ventures with his patrimony, which took him to Kentucky in 1808 and to New Orleans in 1812. As Audubon could not restrain himself from a continual hunting, shooting and drawing, all these ventures failed, until finally he had practically nothing left except a wife, gun, and the precious drawings of his beloved birds. By 1822 most people in the pioneer settlements from the Ohio to New Orleans regarded him as an incompetent madman.

In the meantime his dream, to publish a series of paintings of every North American bird, had been crystallizing, and he determined to devote his time, talents and energy to the attainment of this goal, no matter what the cost. He was encouraged by his devoted and unselfish wife, who believed in his genius and a final triumphant success. For years Audubon led a truly remarkable life. Supporting himself by painting, portraiture, and teaching drawing, separated from his wife for years at a time, in some incredible manner he always got where he wanted to go, and attained all his objectives. He solicited subscriptions to his great work in the principal eastern cities, going back and forth to Edinburgh, London and Paris, most of the time leading a hand-to-mouth existence. In 1831 he made his famous expedition to the Florida Keys, the next year going to Labrador, then travelling through the southern states to the independent republic of Texas, always seeking out wilderness areas. In between trips he wrote the volumes of the text, and the whole work was completed in 1838 at a cost of about $100,000, the total number of sets issued being under two hundred, at $1,000 a set. The project had taken just about twenty-five years to complete, his wife's faith was justified, success and renown were his.

This success would have been impossible without the possession of qualities, many of which the world properly regards as magnificent. Audubon had enormous confidence in himself, inflexible determination, and the capacity of never admitting failure or becoming really discouraged. His physical endurance and energy were extraordinary, and some of his adventures required great bravery. His dealings with others were aided by a magnetic personality, he was remarkably handsome with beautiful eyes, and practised the arts of self-dramatization and salesmanship instinctively. The American Woodsman became a sensational success in the houses of the great and near great. Audubon's life has been described as a typical success story; he just could not be stopped.

Audubon's later life further illustrates his remarkable energy. In 1840 he began work on the octavo edition of his Birds of Americs, completing the text of the seven volumes in only four years, and taking time out for his last and most perilous expedition to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains when he was nearly sixty. Moreover, shortly prior to 1846, he had completed all 155 paintings of the quadrupeds of North America. By the irony of fate his health and mind began to fail rapidly in 1848, and he became totally blind before he died in 1851.

In this [essay] we are chiefly concerned with Audubon as an artist and ornithologist, and we pass to a critique of his stature in these two fields. There can be no question of his place as an artist. He is one of the American immortals, his originals are priceless, and only the very rich can afford the earlier octavo editions. It is high time that bird-lovers were reminded again of what Audubon set out to do and what his contribution was. Illustrations of birds prior to him were mostly incredibly crude. The artist drew the stuffed and mounted specimen, about which he knew nothing, often faithfully reproducing the unnatural lumps in the outline of the body, and foreshortening the neck and tail. The colors faithfully showed any fading or dirt on the mount, and little effort was made to indicate the fact that the bird's body was coated with feathers. Finally the bird was placed on a conventionalized perch or twig, not in the least resembling any twig existing in nature.

Audubon's paintings were life-sized portraits in natural attitudes, in a natural habitat, or perched on a flower or tree of a species actually existing and instantly recognizable. Only the well-informed ornithologist can criticize some of his work. He dramatized his birds as well as himself. The colors of some are too bright, the poses of others are too striking, or they are in startling attitudes which the bird actually never adopts in life. We happen to live in an age of extreme exactitude, bird portraits in color are hopelessly expensive, and the goal of most illustration today is scientific delineation, measured out to the last millimeter, as an aid to identification and recognition. Thus Audubon's Bald Eagle is easily seen to have eleven tail feathers, whereas eagles possess twelve. No modern illustrator of birds would dream of making so unimportant a slip, which of course in no way detracts from the artistic as well as lifelike effect.

If a sort of Gallup poll were held, and the question were asked—"Can you mention the name of some noted ornithologist?," it is my best guess that a substantial percentage of the better educated Americans would answer, "Audubon" without hesitation. It is equally my guess that only those with a special interest in birds would ever have heard of any other!

Various competent ornithologists have given critiques of Audubon, and have, quite fairly, pointed out his limitations. He did indeed discover many new birds, and he added greatly to our knowledge of many others, but he was not at all scientifically minded in technical directions, and made no effort to improve the classification of birds in the higher categories of genera and families. In many directions his artistic side dominated the scientific. The ornithologist who discovers and describes new birds, or who finds others in America for the first time, invariably prizes and preserves the specimen as a permanent voucher or proof of his discovery. To Audubon, the precious possession to which he clung no matter what the adversity of his circumstances, was his painting. Throughout most of his life he threw the specimens away after the painting was completed, never supposing that his integrity or fidelity to nature would be questioned. He has, therefore, left behind him a certain number of insoluble mysteries. On the one hand he claims to have seen or shot and painted some well known European birds, never seen or heard of in the New World again. On the other hand, he discovered, described and painted several "new" species, also never heard of again, none of which can be explained away as hybrids, freaks, or a plumage variation of any bird we know. Needless to say, in these last cases particularly, modern science would give anything to have the original specimen preserved and available for study. Finally, some of Audubon's "errors" were really due to the misinformation of friends and correspondents in whom he had confidence. Thus specimens of certain sea birds were sent him, purporting to come from the "mouth of the Columbia River" in Oregon, which actually were collected at Cape Horn, or near it.

Other criticisms of Audubon reflect chiefly on the critics. It is common sense that we have learned a lot about the birds of eastern North America since Audubon's day, and are still adding to knowledge about them. Moreover, every corner of a great continent has now been explored, half of which Audubon never penetrated, containing birds of whose existence he remained unaware. It is obviously no reflection on this remarkable man that there was plenty to find out after his death. Think of the handicaps and difficulties under which he labored, the difficulties of transportation and travel, the lack of field glasses, to mention only a few. We consequently find that his knowledge was most incomplete with the small forest and tree-top birds that he could not observe from the ground, and that he shot on a few occasions only by pure chance. In common with all early or pioneer ornithologists, he could not work out the relationships of technically very difficult groups of birds like the gulls, terns, small flycatchers and certain thrushes. His experience was inadequate to determine that some of his species were nothing but the immature or winter plumages of birds well known to him only in their adult plumages. He was unable to unravel the puzzling color phases of certain hawks. There is little merit in attempting to depreciate him because he did not know certain things that it took two generations of ornithologists after him to find out.

In spite of various things Audubon did not know about American birds, the passage of time has rendered some of the things he did know and some of the things he saw of ever increasing interest and historical value. He foretold the inevitable disappearance of the wilderness, and remarked on the rapid decrease of various birds in his own lifetime. Actually he could never have even conceived of the rapid acceleration of tempo with which scientific inventions have enabled our civilization to take possession of the country, exploit its natural resources, utterly change the landscape, and destroy the natural habitats which nature had provided. Never in history has a native continental fauna ever been called on to endure so sudden and catastrophic a change, and endeavor to survive. Added to this, a large list of birds suffered intense persecution from sport, market gunning, the plume trade, cage-bird traffic and other reasons. There were practically no game laws worthy of the name in the whole country, and they could not be enforced in unsettled regions. No sentiment of any kind in favor of most birds existed. Hawks, crows, owls, and all large water and marsh birds were natural targets for hunters and travellers on which to practise marksmanship. Small boys learned to shoot by popping away at the birds on the lawn. We must also remember that in Audubon's time even robins and blackbirds were regarded as game, while the poor gathered gulls' and terns' eggs for food.

The results can easily be appreciated. Several famous American birds are extinct. Two, the Labrador Duck and Great Auk, were little known even in Audubon's time, but the Carolina Paroquet was common, and the Passenger Pigeon existed in such spectacular multitudes that it was one of the great wonders of the living world. Several others are on the verge of extinction. The game supply of the continent was decimated beyond recovery, roughly speaking only about 10 per cent of it surviving into modern times. A large number of other birds greatly decreased by reason of the destruction of the forests, the drainage of marshes, and the spoiling of much country by civilization. Audubon has left us accounts of these rare and vanished birds. The numbers of some of the game birds he saw were so prodigious as to appear incredible to the present generation of bird-lovers. Thus a two-day October flight of woodcock down the Ohio River was estimated by him to consist of between thirty and forty thousand. It is problematical if any expert devoting himself to hunting this bird could manage to see that many in a lifetime today.

One of the many points of interest about birds is a characteristic which may loosely be termed "powers of adaptation." This is in marked contrast to lower or less evolved groups of animals, as well as the plants, which are the unconscious victims of blind chance; these live or perish according to whether their circumstances are favorable or unfavorable. But most birds can take some steps to mitigate or improve their lot. They can leave an area where they are hunted, acquire wariness under persecution, adopt new habitats, abandon their natural shyness and suspicion upon learning that it is uncalled for. Birds put up with or even adopt the vicinity of man if he does them no harm. In other words they can adapt themselves to new or changed conditions, whether for better or for worse.

American birds began adapting themselves to the changes brought about by the white man in early colonial times. The robin, swallows, chimney swift, and martin became familiar dooryard birds. Audubon took for granted that a great variety of common birds were characteristic of gardens, orchards, fields and pastures, without stopping to think that these habitats had never previously existed. They were created by the white man deliberately, involving the destruction of the original primeval forest. This event serves to illustrate and explain a fundamental principle in natural history and biology. It is impossible to destroy one habitat without automatically creating another. The destruction of the forest may well involve the loss or disappearance of some or most of those birds and animals requiring it as a habitat, and we may well mourn their decrease or extinction. But some at least of these forest birds adapted themselves to the new conditions. The robin, for instance, was originally a forest bird, and still is in remote parts of the continent. The chimney swift nested in hollow trees in the foresf before there were any chimneys.

It consequently follows that the changes brought about by the white man created a great boon for those birds requiring or preferring forest edges, sprout woods, thickets, and open country of every kind. At least one hundred species are now common, well known, and widely distributed, which were absent or else rare and local in most of the forested northern and eastern states in early colonial times. Our final debt to Audubon is that he left us some invaluable data on this subject. In certain cases he has told us what type of country a certain bird inhabited in his time, now found in radically different environments. Even more interesting are those cases, where the bird was rare and little known to him, but a species now common and widely distributed. Several warblers preferring second-growth woodlands will illustrate this category, and we have a definite historic record of their arrival in and gradual spread over much of the Northeast since Audubon's time.

Audubon's name has become indelibly associated with the popular movement to protect and conserve American birds. Some seventy years ago thoughtful and high class sportsmen, appalled at the increasingly rapid decimation of game, began to agitate for the absolute necessity for restrictive legislation. At this period practically no bird received any legal protection whatever. In a few states certain game birds had a brief closed season during most of or a part of their breeding season only, and there were virtually no bag limits whatever. Moreover, any method was legal, including the most destructive, such as night shooting, fire lighting, netting and trapping. The last great nesting flock of Passenger Pigeons in Michigan was so unmercifully raided that over one hundred million birds were shipped to city markets. Chesapeake Bay was a noted paradise for waterfowl. Market gunning began there in 1795, was pursued throughout the season (September 15-April 15) at a steadily increasing tempo, so that by 1870, up to fifteen thousand ducks were killed in a day. As the same activity was going on in every other locality where waterfowl were numerous, the decimation in numbers of this group of birds can be imagined. The plume trade reduced the egrets and most terns to the verge of extinction.

The various state, and, finally (1904) the National, Audubon societies were an outgrowth of the original bird protection committee of the American Ornithologists Union (1883). These societies were led by thoughtful sportsmen and ornithologists, but their rise to power, influence and adequate financing was chiefly due to the rise of popular interest in birds, which began about 1895 and has been going on ever since. The era of bird protection was rapidly and triumphantly successful. By 1920 every North American bird was protected, the federal government had taken over the control of all migratory birds, any form of commercial use of native birds was illegal, a large number of birds had been permanently removed from the game list, and the open season and permissible take on the remainder had been drastically reduced, and this reduction has still been going on. The results have been most gratifying. Over one hundred species of North American birds have greatly increased in numbers, and some are already as numerous as at any time in the historical period.

The one possible criticism the naturalist can make of the extensive literature of the bird protection era was its uniformly pessimistic tone. It was probably necessary for arousing a supine public, but was not entirely true. It was indeed very true that from 1850-1900 far more birds were rapidly decreasing than the few which were increasing. It is human nature to sigh for what has been lost, and to take what one has for granted. The other natural error of this era was the general belief that the rapid decrease of many birds was due wholly to overshooting.

This fallacy is now being gradually corrected by time and experience, but must still be sold to the vast number of Americans interested in birds. We now know that many of the birds completely protected for many years will never regain their former numbers, or anything anywhere near it. The reason is that our civilization has destroyed too large a percentage of their required habitat, and they lack the necessary powers of adaptation to adopt a new one or make some compromise. This leads to a second great general principle in natural history. The total number of existing individuals of any bird or animal can never be greater than the amount of favorable habitat existing or remaining, and the total amount of the necessary food.

We speak of marsh and water birds without stopping to think that they have to have marshes and water. Our civilization has drained millions of acres of marshland, and is continuing to do so at a rapid rate. Innumerable streams are polluted or dried up by a century of building operations. Ponds and lakes are now surrounded by cabins and camps, and covered with boats and canoes for parts of each year. For many water birds such a lake has become a total loss. It transpires that food cannot be taken for granted. The Brant Goose feeds on eel-grass almost exclusively, and was so seriously reduced when a disease struck this plant that it had to be removed from the game list for some years. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker is almost certainly about to become extinct in the near future, because highly specialized food habits require a substantial acreage of primeval forest to keep one pair alive. As civilization has eliminated the southern primeval forest, the few surviving individuals are doomed.

Along the lines of this exposition the era of bird protection passed rapidly but imperceptibly into the era of conservation. Our birds are protected, but still need to be conserved. The Golden Age has not arrived because we have stopped shooting. Never are all of them prospering and doing well at any one time. Particularly hard pressed are our few remaining game birds, whose foes, the sporting fraternity, are increasing by leaps and bounds, as leisure, means, and facilities of transportation increase. But all the birds are being put under constant strain and difficulty by the multiple and rapid changes which an expanding technological civilization is making on the face of our land. Forest fires, lumbering, and oil wells ruin vast stretches of country yearly; the prairies are fenced in and overgrazed by cattle and sheep; intercoastal canals bring salt water into fresh water bays and landlocked sounds, ruining and disrupting the native plants and animals. Fields and pastures are plowed up and planted to corn or vegetables; some farmer's woodlot of last summer is cut down for firewood during the winter; every year some local marsh is used as a town dump and gradually filled in. Every one of these habitats supported a rich community of bird life. Where do they go?

Conservation consequently involves an intelligent and successful effort to preserve major habitats and types of country, in as natural a state as possible. Hence the great development of national and state parks, national and state forests, and the great chain of federal wild life refuges. A new profession of wild life management has arisen, an outlet for young naturalists. The refuge area must be maintained and guarded; it can also be improved. Dams can be built, artificial ponds can be created, the more desirable food plants can be introduced, and water levels preserved. The manager and his staff can count and note the increase in the wild life, observe the relative success of the breeding season. The plants, animals and birds requiring all these types of country are almost automatically conserved for the enjoyment of posterity. One good proof of the overall success of this movement is the steadily increasing number of campers, tourists and visitors, the money involved supporting a variety of industries in the economic sense. A forceful and able executive staff is also essential. The appropriations must be secured from Congress, and above all the constant effort to raid the parks, forests, and refuges for other interests must be fought off. Our civilization is now so complex that it is almost impossible to do anything without hurting some one else's interest. The army and navy are looking for bombing ranges in wilderness areas, where there is no risk of blowing our citizens up. Power dams and major irrigation projects often threaten these areas. The ranchers seek grazing privileges in the parks and forests, the lumber interests are perpetually trying to get permission to cut down a tiny piece of some forest. Everlasting vigilance is required.

It follows that we live in a state of perpetual change and flux. As habitats are destroyed and replaced by others, one group of birds comes in and another goes out. Every decade some bird begins to fade out, some other bird learns to adapt itself to man, and begins to flourish and increase. The Duck Hawk or Peregrine Falcon is turning metropolitan. More and more spend much of the year in cities, roosting on a church spire or skyscraper, living on the city pigeons. The Snowy Owl from the arctic has also become a suburbanite, visiting the local dump nightly for rats. Everyone is glad to see them, and appreciates their service as vermin reducers. Every nature lover, every bird watcher, every member of the Audubon Society can now make a contribution. He can count and keep careful watch over his local birds, detect the upward and downward trends, and report them. The sum of the local reports equals the welfare of each species in its total range. Never in history have there been so many ways in which a bird-lover can find interesting and worth while things to do with his hobby. Any boy or girl of high school age can learn to identify their local birds and begin useful work.

There is one other major principle in natural history the understanding of which makes the pursuit of any branch of it more interesting. The real harm done by the white man and his civilization is his ruthless and wasteful exploitation of the rich natural resources of this continent. In so doing he has utterly upset and disrupted the balance of nature. The question arises just what is the balance of nature? We may begin with our birds, which require a suitable habitat and an adequate food supply. But birds are not the only living creatures in the habitat, and their food can only be other living animals and plants. Therefore the bird in its habitat is one member only of a living or natural community, and is dependent upon the other living members of the community. Actually the soil, water and climate are the basic factors. The plants come next, followed by insects, and last of all the birds and mammals. This succession is easily proved in areas devastated by a volcanic eruption, or where a great glacier has melted and retreated in a cycle of warmer climate. But complete interdependence exists among the living members of the community. There is a fascinating chain of interrelationships. The insects eat the plants, but they are essential in pollinating the flowers. The birds live in the trees and eat the insects. The foxes live on the mice, which live on the plants. The hawks live on the song birds. Everything is preyed upon by something, but everything also performs an essential service by keeping in check the numbers of something else. The balance of nature in a natural community is such that the community continues forever. This is accomplished by keeping the numbers of each living creature in a proper proportion. The foxes obviously never eat up all the mice, or they would exterminate themselves. As no living creature can afford to exterminate its food supply, the food supply is more abundant individually than its enemy or predator. Therefore there never are as many foxes as mice, or as many hawks as song birds, or as many insects as plants. Any increase in mice is sure to initiate an era of prosperity for foxes, which automatically causes the reduction of the mouse population to normal, which starves out the extra foxes. And so on ad infinitum.

The civilized white man is the only living creature who has the power to disrupt the balance of nature and exploit his food supply and natural resources without immediate, disastrous results. In America we have impoverished our soil, overgrazed our prairies, killed our game more rapidly than it can reproduce, and cut down our forests more rapidly than nature can replace them. This is easily seen to be stupid folly if we stop to think that our food-plant crops require fertile soil, and that our civilization absolutely requires timber and wood. Hence the modern efforts in money and talented man power to inculcate the principles of conservation before it is too late. And so we take one more backward glance at the great figure of Audubon, his vanished wilderness, and mourn the further loss and decrease of the many striking and spectacular birds he loved so well.