Now knowing the interest you feel towards the advancement of Natural Science, in every department, I have thought that should you assist us in the procuring specimens, whether in the flesh or skin, dead or alive; that we would be much benefitted by such aid.—Long Island possesses rare and valuable species, and although many of them are plentiful they are rarely procured unless accidentally as it were. In your Rambles after the feathered Tribe, you surely come across at times with quadrupeds, and if you were good enough to shoot them or to catch them and send them to me in the manner mentioned below, I personally would feel extremely obliged to you. Bats, Wood Rats and Wood Mice, Shrews, Shrew Moles and all the smaller animals can be forwarded in an earthern jar immersed in good Yankee Rum.—The larger kinds can be skinned, preserving the skull entire, and also the legbone and the clavicles. One fore & one hind foot ought to be pinned on a board or cork until perfectly dried, and actual measurements and weights forwarded with the specimens. Nos. accordingly with the notes of localities and dates. Young and old are wanted. The Cat Squirrel is now and then procured about you of a very large size—the Woodchuck &c. but it is unnecessary for me to give you a list as we are anxious to procure every thing we can from every portion of the Union with the view to ascertain their geographical range. The expense involved in producing the early numbers of the small edition of his _Birds_ must have been great, and Audubon was feeling the strain, when the letter,[184] dated "New York—April 29, 1841," from which the following extract is taken, was sent to his Boston agent: "I doubt much if you are _actually aware_ that we have at this moment in this city and at Philadelphia upwards of _Seventy_ persons employed upon the present work, and that all these ... are to be paid regularly each Saturday evening, and that _when we are out of temper_ it is not without cause." When Baird visited the Audubons, in New York, in January, 1842, he was fascinated by the masterly drawings of birds and quadrupeds which were then being produced, and was determined to pay more attention himself to an art for which presumably he had little natural aptitude; he seems also to have received a hint for the improvement of his somewhat loose chirography. Upon leaving, Audubon presented his pupil with a copy of the _Biography_ of Birds. After returning to his home, Baird wrote from Carlisle, on February 8 of that year: _Spencer Fullerton Baird to Audubon_