Audubon

John James Audubon (1785-1851) Jean-Jacques Audubon was born in Haiti and grew up in France. To escape conscription under Napoleon, he fled to the United States in 1803 and anglicised his name to John James. He excelled at drawing and painting and was an enthusiastic ornithologist. On 12 October 1820, he started a boat trip down the Ohio river starting in Cincinnati with the intention of portraying all the birds of North America. Six years later, The Birds of America, his now famous book, was published in England featuring 435 illustrations of then largely still unknown species of bird.