In October of 1824, John James Audubon left his wife and home in New Orleans in hopes of finding a publisher for Birds of America in Philadelphia. The first leg of the journey was on a steamboat named Magnet with his son, Victor Gifford Audubon (1809-1860), and his hunting dog, Dash. Magnet was owned by Audubon’s brother-in-law, Thomas Bakewell. When Magnet started running aground, Audubon and his son covered the rest of the 250 miles to Louisville, Kentucky, either on foot or by wagon whenever there was one for hire.
Once in Louisville, Audubon left Victor Gifford to live and work with another brother-in-law, Nicholas Berthoud, and his family. Audubon and Dash then continued up the Ohio River and overland until they reached Philadelphia on April 5, 1824. Audubon was met with a chilly reception due to the efforts that George Ord (1761-1866) was making to print and sell American Ornithology by Alexander Wilson (1766-1813). And even if printers had been tempted to publish the drawings that Audubon was producing, they lacked the required tools, equipment, paper, and staff to print the drawings on the kind of scale (double elephant, 28”x39”) that Audubon was demanding for “size of life” drawings.
After being rejected in Philadelphia and with almost no money in his pocket, John James Audubon decided to venture farther from his home and family to New York City in search of a publisher. As if realizing what was at stake, a Little Screech Owl allowed Audubon while on his lonely walk to New York City to be taken up in hand and placed in one of Audubon’s coat pockets. “It will suffer a person to touch its feathers and caress it, without attempting to bite or strike with its talons.. It remained generally quiet, fed from the hand, and never attempted escape.” The Little Screech Owl is known today as the Eastern screech-owl. The Eastern screech-owl that Audubon carried in his pocket to New York City is the adult that appears in the upper left (#1) of Plate 97 of Birds of America.