SOURCE: An introduction to Audubon's Birds of America, by John James Audubon, The Macmillan Company, 1950, pp. 15-30.

In the following essay, Griscom discusses Audubon as a painter and ornithologist.

It is now almost a century since the death of John James Audubon (1785-1851). Not only has his reputation lasted, but if anything, his fame and renown have increased with the passage of time. It, perhaps, might be worth while to pause and enquire why this is so. He is a perpetual source of study, discussion and debate, and much ink has been spilled over whether his claim to fame was primarily as an ornithologist or an artist. In my opinion much of this debate is second rate or even trivial, and misses the major point.

Actually he was both, and it is an irrelevant detail to consider in which field he may have excelled, for the moment. Moreover...