Mr Audubon has spent [a] great part of his life in making a collection of drawings of the Birds of North America, & in studying their Habits, with the intention of publishing a Complete Ornithology of America. For such a work his materials, both in the shape of drawings and of written notes, are immense and he is now going to London in order to set this gigantic work in motion. Mr Audubon, however, is not very well versed in the details of such matters, & therefore I beg of you to have the goodness to aid him with your advice on the occasion—to introduce engravers printers & so forth to him, and generally speaking to put him in the way of bringing out his work in an advantageous manner to himself. I trust all this will give you no more trouble than you will be willing to take at my earnest solicitation. I remain Ever, My Dear Sir, Most Sincerely Yrs BASIL HALL. JOHN MURRAY Esqr Audubon carried also a long letter from "Mr. Hay,"[343] dated at "16 Athol Crescent, Edinburgh, 15 March, 1827," and addressed to the care of his brother, Robert William Hay, of Downing Street, West, in which this curious statement occurs: "Mr. A. is son of the late French Admiral Audubon, but has himself lived from the cradle in the United States, having been born in one of the French colonies." The document which was to prove of greatest service to him, however, was addressed to John George Children,[344] then in charge of the Department of Zoölogy in the British Museum and secretary of the Royal Society. Children assumed the management of Audubon's work when he returned to America in 1829 and again in 1831; to him and Lord Stanley, in 1830, the naturalist probably owed his nomination to membership in the Royal Society. Soon after reaching London Audubon paid his respects to Sir Thomas Lawrence, for whom he had two letters, and made an appointment for showing his work to this famous artist. He was also gratified to receive the subscription of Lord Stanley and of Charles Lucien Bonaparte, who was then in London.