By August of 1824, John James Audubon ended in vain his search for a printer and a publisher for Birds of America. Rather than backtrack from New York City to his home in Louisiana, Audubon headed north along the Hudson River and then west along the Mohawk River. The route was “covered with heavy timber, principally evergreens, the pines, and the cucumber trees loaded with brilliant fruits, and the spruces throwing a shade over the land in good keeping for a mellow picture.”
Just south of the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, Audubon started hearing the sound of “barkings.” Fearing his hunting dog would respond to or chase after the other dogs, Audubon called in Dash and located for them a resting place in the forest shade. With Dash quiet and close by his side, Audubon dozed off listening to the Cohoes Falls also “muttering” its sound in the distance. Audubon was awakened when “there burst on my soul the serenade of the Rose-breasted bird [grosbeak], so rich, so mellow, so loud in the stillness of the night, that sleep fled from my eyelids.” There is also the likelihood that Audubon snapped off the branch from which the bird sang to complete his drawing of the Rose-breasted grosbeak in Birds of America. The Canadian yew (Taxus canadensis) grows commonly in the American northeast, especially near bodies of water like Cohoes Falls.