what chiefly animated their courage and enthusiasm, was the personal acquaintance of Mr. F. Bauer, who had accompanied Capt. Flinders in his expedition to New Holland, and whom they had seen actually engaged in delineating the extraordinary productions of those distant regions."
In 1819, Bauer again visited England, in order to see his brother, and the other valued friends, with whom a companionship of nearly 30 years had quite assimilated his ideas and feelings. He soon afterwards returned to Vienna, and continued to devote himself closely to painting, most of his productions being destined to go to England, where, besides the works above mentioned, were published his plates for the late Mr. A. B. Lambert's work on Pinus, Lindley's Digitalis, &c.
Thus continually engaged in the furtherance of his cherished science, and undertaking, even at this advanced period of life, botanical excursions into the Alps of Austria and Styria, and making collections of the plants which he there found, Bauer was seized, in the year 1825, by illness, which terminated his existence on the 17th of March, 1826, in the 66th year of his age. The bulk of his collections was bequeathed to his legal heirs; but the two volumes of miniature paintings of Australian plants and animals, he left to his brother Francis, by whom they have been recently sold to Mr. Robert Brown. His herbarium and skins of animals and birds, with the sketches illustrative of them, were purchased for the Imperial Museum of Vienna, and a great many drawings, as well as copies of the Illustrationes, were still, in the year 1829, in the possession of his brother Francis at Vienna.
Ferdinand Bauer, as his conduct through life proved him and his private letters attest, was a plain straightforward man, full of application and energy. His temper was most kind, and hardly had he obtained his appointment in the "Investigator" than he hastened to aid most liberally some of his indigent relations. He ever preserved a deep sense of gratitude towards those friends and patrons, who had done him service,
