CHAPTER XIV 



THE DARK ROOM AUDUBON AND THE RATS 



" I do not work for fame," said Audubon, " but for the 

 work's sake, because I love nature, and as Victor has said, 

 I must carefully hide my plates." 



It had cost him days of perilous travel to picture the 

 habits of a single bird. In these arduous undertakings he 

 had slept in swamps and lived on berries. He had exposed 

 himself to fevers, and suffered from sickness without care. 

 He had plodded through malarial heats, and sought shelter 

 in caves from winter storms. And these forest roamings 

 were not for fame nor money, but for the love of nature, 

 which was the supreme passion of his soul. 



His pictures were retouched and improved continually. 

 Go and examine them as they appear now in his famous 

 volume. The birds live in their most winsome or heroic 

 attitudes. The flowers and shrubs that they loved flame 

 around them. The true touch is in every plate; the bird- 

 haunted forest of the early days, like Birnam's Wood, 

 comes back again. 



He retouched a large number of plates which to him 



were his life treasures. He was about to make another ex- 



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