Audubon Correspondence, "Elephant Folio," Bird Engravings Now on Exhibition in Widener

Original colored drawings of birds by John J. Audubon, pioneer American naturalist, whose pictures a century ago first familiarized the world with American bird life, are shown in an exhibition at Widener.

Also displayed are examples of the artist's correspondence and the famous "elephant folio" edition of his book "Birds of America," published in 1827-38. The "elephant folio," sized three feet by two feet, is one of the largest books ever issued. Rated by many as the world's most beautiful ornithology, it contains hundreds of colored engravings of birds in their habitats, and is believed to be the first attempt to portray birds in natural poses.

In connection with the folio, the exhibit illustrates the famous controversy Audubon aroused as to whether rattlesnakes climb trees. The artist portrayed four meeking birds battling a rattlesnake for possession of the birds' nest and eggs. Immediately the picture was challenged as scientifically inaccurate. In a letter Audubon wrote his wife in 1831, "Know ye all men that Rattlesnake do clime trees!"

The display also contains an original letter written by Audubon to Daniel Webster in Washington, D.C. in 1841 urging that the government found a "Natural History Institute to advance our knowledge of Natural Science, and place me at the head of it." Audubon was in financial difficulties at the time, but refused a government sinecure under Webster, saying, "I fear anything but Natural History, in which I am an authority, would be hard for me to attend to."

From Harvard's collections of original drawings by Audubon, there are shown colored portraits of the passenger pigeon, now extinct, and that of the American widgeon, ivory billed woodpecker, red owl, frog eater, chuck will's widow, yellow billed cuckoo, whip-poor-will, and others. Audubon's early work as a young man of twenty-three along the Ohio river is shown in drawings of the belted kingfisher, red-winged blackbird, and cat bird.