EECEEATIVE SCIENCE. 



263 



was he, afar from noise and turmoil, whilst 

 in the busy cities came rumours of wars ; 

 whilst armies engaged, and cannon thun- 

 dered, and the dead lay on God's earth, their 

 faces to his sky ; whilst nation rose or fell, 

 and statesman tricked or minister deceived : 

 of these Audubon knew nothing; silently 

 he followed the narrow path of science ; step 

 by step he went on, hunting and tracking, 

 collecting and drawing, and at each step 

 adding another marvel to man's knowledge 

 of that storehouse of all wondrous things, 

 the works of the Creator. 



These wanderings commenced in 1810, 

 and continued for fifteen years. Friends, 

 who saw his wonderful collection of draw- 

 ings, told him of the fame which he would 

 gain when the world saw what he had done, 

 and urged him to publish. But he answered 

 nobly — " It was not a desire of fame or of 

 glory which urged me forward in my long 

 exile ; I wished only to enjoy the works of 

 JSTature." 



He however exhibited many of his draw- 

 ings to his friends, and to gratify his orni- 

 thological devotion, he moved his house- 

 hold to the village of Henderson, on the 

 banks of the Ohio. Called to Philadelphia 

 by the voice of several savans who knew his 

 worth, he took with him two hundred of his 

 drawings, representing about a thousand dif- 

 ferent varieties of birds. Obliged to leave 

 town for some purpose, he deposited these 

 precious drawings, the results of so much toil 

 and labour, with a friend, and was absent for 

 about two months. When he came back, he 

 found that the worst fortune which could 

 happen to him had befallen. Eats had eaten 

 their way through the box in which he kept 

 his paintings, and had destroyed or eaten 

 nearly the whole of them. 



" Picture to yourself," cries he, " the pain 

 I felt on seeing this ! A sharp and sudden 

 flame seemed to traverse my brain, and I feU 

 into a fever which lasted several weeks. At 

 last moral and physical force seemed to re- 



turn to me. I again took my gun, my game- 

 bag, my album, and my pencils, and re- 

 plunged into the depths of the forests. It 

 took me three years of hard work to repair 

 the damage those rats had done me." 



There is a parallel to this in the story of 

 Sir Isaac Newton and his dog Diamond. It 

 was a little spaniel of the King Charles 

 breed, and used to play with its master. 

 Newton was very fond of it, and continually 

 caressed it, stroking its smooth head as he 

 sat, with his mind occupied with study. 

 One night he left his library, and in it the 

 luckless Diamond, who, jumping on the 

 table, overturned the candle, and set fire to 

 papers upon which were calculations which 

 had cost Newton years. The flame destroyed 

 them all, and the philosopher, on his return 

 to the room, found but ashes. No discovery 

 he ever made renders him greater than the 

 mastery he then showed over himself. ' ' Ah, ' ' 

 said he, looking sorrowfully at the dog, 

 " Ah, Diamond, Diamond, little thou know- 

 est the mischief thou hast done." 



Audubon was less of a philosopher, but 

 he was every inch a naturalist. The three 

 years thus spent, he says, were " three years 

 of happiness. Each day I went further from 

 the dwellings of man." It took eighteen 

 months more to complete his work, and then^ 

 no longer hesitating about publishing, he de- 

 termined to sail to Europe with his precious 

 drawings. He ha4_ met in April, 1824, at 

 Philadelphia, the Prince of Canino, Charles 

 Lucien Bonaparte, who had urged him to 

 publish his works ; but America, at that 

 time, could not ofier him a sufl&ciently pro- 

 minent pubhshing firm, and hence, after 

 taking leave of his family, he took his pas- 

 sage for England, where he arrived in 1826. 



His reception in England was most grati- 

 fying. All the savans welcomed him. He 

 brought with him four hundred drawings, 

 and these were the theme of general praise. 

 They were shown at Manchester, Liverpool, 

 and Edinburgh, and excited the admiration 



