Audubon and Webster.

The College has been given three volumes of the famed folio edition of John Jay Audubon's TheBirds of America that once belonged to Daniel Webster, Class of 1801. Presented to the College anonymously, the gift honors Andrew Brisbin Foster '25, a U.S. Foreign Service officer for 22 years and the Executive Secretary of the Trustees Planning Committee of the College at the time of his death in 1963.

Fewer than 200 complete sets of the Audubon work were issued. The volumes of the "double-elephant-folio," as it is designated by bookmen, were available in 1827-30 by subscription only, and the full set cost $1,000. Webster, himself an enthusiastic naturalist, was keenly interested in the Audubon project.

The three-volume set (Webster apparently had a disagreement with Audubon and did not receive the fourth volume) came to Dartmouth by way of a public library in Massachusetts. It was bought at the time Webster's books were sold at auction in 1875 and presented thereafter to the library. Its trustees consented to make the set available to Dartmouth by purchase in order to constitute at Webster's college this memorial to alumnus Foster.