676 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shoots it, and, in his study, with a knowledge of all its positurce, pro- 

 duces a portrait that sparkles with active life. The figures are Audu- 

 bon-like, of life-size, and every one is strikingly natural. And the 

 trees and plants, too, are so accurate that any botanist can, at a 

 glance, identify the species. Each picture has the Flemish peculiarity 

 of scrupulous attention to details, being, in its own way, a bit of 

 rigidly realistic art. All this commends the work especially to the 

 naturalist, and is much in the spirit of the famous Audubon. And, 

 joined to the youthfulness of the artist, it was just this realistic truth- 

 fnlness which made these simple bird-pictures of New Jersey so at- 

 tractive at the great Centennial show. 



But, can we not see an intimate relation between this cesthetical 

 outcome of the artist and his own ethical inwardness? All this ten- 

 der care for the details, this high regard for the truthful narration of 

 the pictorial story, comes of the scientific conscience. Its processes 

 are directed by the religiosity of good, honest work ; and thus form 

 is given to what may be called, as its resultant, the conscientiousness 

 of art. 



And yet, strange to say, this charming naturalist and artist, this, 

 so to speak, consecrated student of Nature in her own haunts, whom 

 so long every one, both at home and abroad, lauded for his fidelity to 

 Nature, has of late been under a cloud. Yes, the truthfulness of even 

 Audubon stands under attaint of both ornithologists and botanists. 

 Let us adduce the specifications. 



Our boyish delight still lingers in memory over the reading of 

 this wonderful man's account of his first sight of that bird whose 

 celebrity, unhappily, has given place of late to an undesirable no- 

 toriety. In a burst of enthusiasm, in which the love of Nature and 

 of country mingled, he called it " the bird of Washington," and that 

 Science, to the end of time, should do the same, he named it Haliaetus 

 Washingtonii. Thus stands his behest to science in his "Ornitho- 

 logical Biography," vol. i., p. 58 : 



"He first saw it on the Upper Mississippi, in February, 1814. A few years 

 after, he met with a pair near the Ohio River, in Kentucky, which had built 

 their nest on a range of high cliffs. Two years after the discovery of the nest, 

 he killed a male, which was the subject of Ins description. After this he saw 

 two other pairs near the Ohio River. It seems not to have been seen by any 

 other ornithologist. Though this bird is admitted as a species on the authority 

 of Audubon, many ornithologists do not regard it as such ; and, from Audubon's 

 own testimony, there seems sufficient ground for doubting the validity of the 

 species." ("American Cyclopaedia," revised edition, article "Eagle.") 



In one of those delightful " Letters on Ornithology," by Dr. Coues, 

 now appearing in the Chicago Field (Letter IX., on the " Hawks "), 

 occur these words : 



" While we have gray eagles, and black eagles, and eagles without stint, my 

 word for it, reader, this eagle business is about done to death. Let me beg you 



