A large crayon sketch of a groundhog, in excellent drawing, is labeled "Marmotte de sauvage, No. 159, le 6 juin, 1805." The Redstart, executed in August of the same year, is a good example of Audubon's more delicate early work; it shows also the attention which he was then beginning to pay to accessories, his bird being perched on a spray of ripening blackberries. The Wagtail, on the other hand, was a rough crayon sketch, dashed off on December 22 of the same year. A pencil and crayon drawing of the Mountain Titmouse, which is a European bird, was probably made from a captive, and at sea, since it bears the date of January 22, 1805, when Audubon was, I believe, aboard the _Hope_.[160] The latest of these French pieces, designated "No. 94. Woodpecker, le 8 mars, 1806. près Nantes; 12 to the tail," was executed, about a month before the naturalist finally left France with Rozier to settle permanently in the United States. The excellence of such a drawing as that of the Wood Thrush (1806) is in marked contrast to the more ambitious "Fish Hawk or Osprey, A. Willson, Perkioming Creek, 1809," in which the bird holds a white sucker in its talons but is less happily rendered. Nine large pastels of waterfowl and two smaller pieces, representing a Robin and Brown Thrush, in the same style, are good examples of Audubon's cruder efforts of that time; they were merely hurried sketches or practice work, with no attempt to finish with all the perfection of detail of which he was then capable. In a full-size pastel of the Black Surf or Velvet Duck, drawn on December 28, 1806, and signed "J. J. L. Audubon," the note is added: "the only specimen of the kind I have ever seen." He became well acquainted with the Velvet Ducks, now better known as the White-winged Scoters, and in his account of the species says: "As we approached the shores of Labrador, we found the waters covered with dense flocks of these birds, and yet they continued to arrive there from the St. Lawrence for several days in succession. We were all astonished at their numbers which were such that we could not help imagining that all the Velvet Ducks in the world were passing before us."[161] Several of these drawings are credited to "The Falls of the Ohio," as the rapids of this river at Louisville were then generally called; a number to "Red Banks," the old name of Henderson, Kentucky; while five were done in Pennsylvania, probably when Audubon was at the home of his father-in-law, William Bakewell, in the spring of 1812. An excellent drawing of the Chuck Wills Widow was probably made on the Red River,[162] in Arkansas, when Audubon was exploring that country and slowly making his way to New Orleans in June, 1821, though it should be noticed that a steamboat on which he sometimes traveled was called the _Red River_. [Illustration: EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWING OF THE GROUNDHOG: "MARMOTTE DE SAVAGE, LE 6 JUIN, 1805, NO. 159." Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes]