JOHN J. AUDUBON. 6 Alva St. [Superscribed] ROBERT HAVELL Esq. Engraver. 77 Oxford st London. How fully Audubon's injunctions in regard to his residual stock, and particularly to scattered plates of the _Birds_, were followed, is not known, but it is certain that a part of this residuum remained in England, where it is occasionally turned up even at the present day. In a considerable number of the original plates which were found in a bookshop in New Oxford Street in August, 1912, twelve were in the uncolored state, and several had the appearance of rejects; moreover, in a collection of these plates received from England in 1910, there were nine copies of the same subject, the Painted Bunting (No. 11, Plate 53). Though a complete set of the plain plates is known,[156] and a considerable number were probably dispersed in America, they are very rare. Audubon wrote to Havell again on the 13th of March, when he complained of the gross mistakes made by the "idle rascals" who were employed in filling orders in his shop, and who had so sadly mixed matters that no less than twelve numbers of his _Birds_ had come back to him, some of them containing one, three, and five copies of the same plate, instead of a "Number," and mixtures of the most incongruous sort; he thought that "a clever young man as a clerk was worth a hundred thick heads," and begged Havell again to send him "a correct list of what he shipped to America on his account, and that list not made by any other person than either himself or Mrs. Havell." His next injunction, on May 4, was to insure his copper-plates of _The Birds of America_ for £5,000, and to send them to either Victor Audubon or Mr. N. Berthoud, Number 2 Hanover Street, New York. At that moment Audubon was planning to return to America with his family by the _Great Western_ on July 6. In writing again on June 30, he remarked that he was not at all certain that Havell, who was then visiting at his native Reading, in Berkshire, would really sail on the 25th of July, since he had already postponed the journey so many times; he added that it would not even surprise him if his work on the _Quadrupeds_ of America might not be out before they could fish and shoot together in his "native land."