Audubon's story is a curious and interesting one. His father, the son of a Vendean fisherman, after working his way up to the command of a French man-of-war, purchased a plantation in Louisiana, which at that time belonged to France. He married there, and there, in 1780, John James Audubon was born. He was a precocious child, and early developed a love for nature, which his parents encouraged in every way they could. He was especially fond of drawing birds and coloring his drawings. He acquired so much skill in doing this that his father sent him to Paris and placed him in the studio of the celebrated painter, David. It is related of young Audubon that his drawings for many years fell so far short of his ideal, that on each of his birthdays he regularly made a bonfire of all he had produced during the previous year. He cared for nothing else, however, and after his return to America, his home became a museum of birds' eggs and stuffed birds. He took long tramps through the wilderness, with no companions save dog and gun, all the time adding new drawings to his collection. Some birds he was obliged to shoot, afterwards supporting them in natural positions while he painted them; others which he could not approach, he drew with the aid of a telescope, representing them amid their natural surroundings, and all with painstaking care and exactitude. This work, occupying years of time, and accompanied by every sort of suffering and exposure, by long trips through the wilderness of the west, in heat and cold, snow and rain, was carried forward from pure love of nature and enthusiasm for the work itself, without thought or hope of reward. Audubon's friends began to consider him a kind of harmless madman, for what sane person would devote his life to a work so laborious and seemingly so useless? He made a little money occasionally by giving drawing lessons; but he was never content except when roaming the plains and forests, hunting for some new specimen. For his ambition was to study and draw every kind of bird which lived in America. In 1824 he happened to be in Philadelphia, and met there a son of Lucien Bonaparte, to whom he showed his drawings. The Frenchman was at once deeply interested, for he saw their beauty and value, and he urged upon Audubon that some arrangement be made by which they could be published and given to the world. The obstacles in the way of such an enterprise were enormous, for the processes of color reproduction at that time were slow and expensive, and it was estimated that the cost of the entire work would exceed a hundred thousand dollars.