94 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



The naturalist tells us that his father hoped that he 

 would follow in his footsteps, or else become an engineer, 

 and he saw that his son was instructed in the elements 

 of mathematics, geography, fencing and music. But as 

 Lieutenant Audubon was continually on the move, su- 

 pervision in those matters fell to the over-indulgent step- 

 mother, with the result that, instead of doing his duties 

 at school, young Audubon took to the fields. Every 

 night, he said, he would return with his lunch basket well 

 laden with the spoils of the day — birds' nests, eggs, and 

 curiosities of every sort destined for the museum into 

 which his room had already been transformed. He was 

 then in the "collecting stage," when that sense of pos- 

 session dominates the heart of the boy, which, if well 

 directed, can be turned to excellent account. 



Lieutenant Audubon encouraged his son's taste for 

 natural history and for drawing, but did not regard such 

 accomplishments as a substitute for what he considered 

 more serious subjects. He himself had suffered too 

 much from lack of a formal education and was resolved 

 to give his children the best opportunities within their 

 reach. "Revolutions," he once remarked, according to 

 his son, "were not confined to society, but could also 

 take place in the lives of individuals," when they were all 

 "too apt to lose in one day the fortune they had before 

 possessed; but talents and knowledge, added to sound 

 mental training, assisted by honest industry," could 

 "never fail, nor be taken from any one when once the 

 possessor of such valuable means." 



When the elder Audubon returned from one of his 

 periodic cruises, "my room," said the naturalist, "made 

 quite a show," and the father complimented him on his 

 good taste ; but upon being questioned in regard to the 

 progress made in his other studies, he could only hang his 



