Plate 114 – White-crowned Sparrow

While exploring the American Harbor (present-day Île-Michon in the Gulf of St. Lawrence) on June 26, 1833, John Woodhouse Audubon (1812-1862) endured “the rain and the mosquitoes” to fell a specimen of the White-crowned sparrow. When John Woodhouse Audubon presented the specimen to his father, John James Audubon, he immediately recognized the bird as the White-crowned sparrow. Although John James Audubon was familiar with the bird only in the fall and winter further to the south and hearing the bird bounce back and forth its “pink” location call. It was not until the specimen that John Woodhouse Audubon collected that Audubon could connect the “pink” location call to the bird that sang the whistles and trills he had been hearing all along the coast of Labrador: “So sweet, so refreshing, so soothing, so hope-inspiring, that as they come upon the soul in all their gentleness and joy, the tears begin to flow from your eyes.”