Jean-Jacques Audubon was born in 1785 in what is now linkurl:Haiti,;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/54367/ the son to a plantation owner and one of his servants. His father, sensing the impending slave rebellion, sold the plantation, invested the money in a farm north of Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and took his son back to France. It was there the young Audubon's interest in linkurl:birds;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/54775/ was first piqued on walks with his father. In 1803 his father sent him to America using a false passport to escape conscription in linkurl:Napoleon's;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22107/ army. With his new, Americanized name, John James Audubon settled at Mill Grove, the farm his father had purchased in Pennsylvania, and began to draw American birds as he had the European species near his home outside Nantes.__Audubon: Early Drawings__, is a splendid display of some of the young naturalist's first bird drawings, most dating from 1805-1815. This hardcover volume includes the first public glimpses of...
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