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Details
AUDUBON, John James. Autograph manuscript, "Deer Hunting" published in vol. I Ornithological Biography, pp.335-340. 5 pages, folio.
"THESE INNOCENT, BEAUTIFUL & VALUABLE ANIMALS"
A lengthy, complete, episode from the first volume of the Ornithological Biography, approximately 2,000 words with 34 corrections, one marginal note and one marginal note by Elliott Coues: "Episode XIII follows pl.65." Coues had helped prepare Audubon's Journals (1897) for publication.
Audubon's long description of deer hunting opens: "The different modes of destroying these innocent, beautiful & valuable animals are probably too well understood in our vision, for notwithstanding the innumerable numbers of them found in our forests and ... prairie lands, they are shot down at such incredible rate that I fear few centuries only will elapse with ere the race will be if not extinct at least so diminished as to render animals of this species as scarce within the boundaries of the United States as the great ? is at present in Britain."
Audubon describes three methods of hunting deer: "still" hunting, "true" hunting and "fire" hunting. "I could now enter at large and probably give a fair description of all the known habits of this species were it not my full intention at some future though not very distant time to bring before your kind reader as well as the world a work entitled the Quadrupeds of America long since on hand which will be accompanied with the full descriptions of each quadruped in our Large Dominion and therefore will speak of them as the case may require in the course of the volumes of my biography of which the one are now reading is the first..."
Provenance: Mrs. Grace Phillips Johnson (1877-1972, her sale Christie's New York, 26 May 1977, lot 78).
"THESE INNOCENT, BEAUTIFUL & VALUABLE ANIMALS"
A lengthy, complete, episode from the first volume of the Ornithological Biography, approximately 2,000 words with 34 corrections, one marginal note and one marginal note by Elliott Coues: "Episode XIII follows pl.65." Coues had helped prepare Audubon's Journals (1897) for publication.
Audubon's long description of deer hunting opens: "The different modes of destroying these innocent, beautiful & valuable animals are probably too well understood in our vision, for notwithstanding the innumerable numbers of them found in our forests and ... prairie lands, they are shot down at such incredible rate that I fear few centuries only will elapse with ere the race will be if not extinct at least so diminished as to render animals of this species as scarce within the boundaries of the United States as the great ? is at present in Britain."
Audubon describes three methods of hunting deer: "still" hunting, "true" hunting and "fire" hunting. "I could now enter at large and probably give a fair description of all the known habits of this species were it not my full intention at some future though not very distant time to bring before your kind reader as well as the world a work entitled the Quadrupeds of America long since on hand which will be accompanied with the full descriptions of each quadruped in our Large Dominion and therefore will speak of them as the case may require in the course of the volumes of my biography of which the one are now reading is the first..."
Provenance: Mrs. Grace Phillips Johnson (1877-1972, her sale Christie's New York, 26 May 1977, lot 78).