My son John will leave this for the West and South-West, as far as the confines of Texas, about the last of next month, and intends being absent until the first of March. Would you like to go with him provided you can pay your own expenses? He will take one of our Servant men along to help him in the procuring of Quadrupeds and Birds, of which he hopes to procure some, if not a good number of new Species. As Baird gave no reply, Audubon sat down on Christmas Day, 1845, and wrote again to his young friend:[210] I hope and trust that you were not offended at my letter, when I wrote you on the Subject of accompanying our son John to Texas where he is now I hope safe and sound, and I believe at Corpus Christi.... ... I have at last received a fine Red Fox from our Friend Ed. Harris, who although he did not kill it, obtained the Cunning Animal very shortly after its death. I have drawn it to the size of life, and I think made a good figure of it. I have been drawing pretty constantly these last past weeks and have finished 6 plates for the Engravers.... We are all hard at Work preparing the letterpress for the 1st Vol. of the Quadrupeds, a copy of which I hope to send to you about the beginning of April. Audubon's prediction in regard to his son was correct, and after John's return from Texas, in April, 1846, he started for England on June 10, with his wife and family; he remained in Europe until May, 1847, engaged, as his father said, "in making figures of those arctic animals, of which accessible specimens exist only in the museums of that quarter of the globe." The Audubons, as we have seen, now tried to keep John Bachman better supplied, and in the spring of 1846 sent him several boxes of skins, with the urgent request that all which pertained to animals that had not been figured be returned as soon as possible. On March 13 Victor wrote that Temminck's monograph could not be found in all America, not in Boston, or Philadelphia, but that a copy would be ordered from Europe at once. In those days Charleston was farther removed in time from New York than California is now from Boston; two weeks was required for a letter of one naturalist to reach the other, and the difficulties of coöperation were correspondingly great. On May 31 Audubon acknowledged the return of the skins, but said: "Judge of my astonishment, when I could not find a single one of the small animals, Shrews, and Scalops argentatus, the latter of which I am anxious to draw at once."