... We find that six of the plates you want are not only largest figs, but some of them extremely full and difficult to colour, and he [Mr. Havell] says that our Printers and our Colourers would not undertake to go throu them without charging a most extravagant price. I have no extra plates whatever on hand, and in consequence of this must be obliged to decline furnishing you with them. If at the conclusion of my publication I find any of the plates you want they will be sent to you forthwith, but I wish you not to calculate upon this until you hear again from me, or from my sons on this subject. My work will [be] entirely finished by the end of next month, when our engraving and Printing establishment will be broken up, and few will indeed there be copies to be had by any one, who has not subscribed to the "Birds of America." Should you see any of my American subscribers who have not as yet seen any portion of the work, please to assure them that as soon as the fourth volume is quite finished, and _bound_ according to their desires, their copies will be forwarded at once to their respective homes, or to whomsoever they have directed me to send their copies. On May 26 Audubon wrote Thomas M. Brewer that "Edward Harris, one of the best men of this world," had reached his house "yesterday at noon, after a pleasant passage of fourteen days and a few hours." "My illustrations," he said, "will be finished on the 20th of next month, and the fourth volume of text shortly afterward"; at the end he added: "When I return to our beloved land, I intend to spend a full season about the lakes in Northern Vermont, for, from what I hear, much knowledge is to be acquired there and thereabouts." After returning to New York in September of the following year, he again alluded to the ramble he would like to take "along the borders of the famous lakes of New Hampshire and Vermont," but was unable to bring it to pass at that time. To depart but slightly from the chronological sequence, the last to be preserved of Audubon's letters to William Swainson,[149] written at a time when his great work was drawing to a close, will be given at this point: _Audubon to William Swainson_ LONDON _11th Jan 1838_ MY DEAR MR SWAINSON, The severe indisposition of my good wife which has continued almost unabated now since I had the pleasure of seeing you, is my excuse for not having ere this answered your two notes, especially the last of the 8th instant.—