SOURCE: "John James Audubon: American Scenery and Character," in The New Invitation to Learning, edited by Mark Van Doren, Random House, 1942, pp. 297-310.

Murphy and Peattie were American nature writers. Van Doren was an influential American writer and critic. In the following dialogue, originally broadcast on CBS Radio as part of the Invitation to Learning series, they discuss the "Episodes" of Audubon's Ornithological Biography, collected in 1926 under the title Delineations of American Scenery and Character.

John James Audubon is best known for his paintings of birds, but he was also a writer who had something unique to say. In his Ornithological Biography, which followed the great folio entitled Birds of America, he alternated descriptions of birds with descriptions of the country which they beautified; and it is these latter sketches, called by him Delineations of American Scenery and Character, that will survive along with his plates of the...