522 AUDUBON 



from the water, returned to its station. The effect of 

 the blow on the water was now apparent, for I perceived 

 that the fish was busily employed in smoothing the bed; 

 but here ended my experiments on the Sunfish. 



MY STYLE OF DRAWING BIRDS ^ 



When, as a little lad, I first began my attempts at 

 representing birds on paper, I was far from possessing 

 much knowledge of their nature, and, like hundreds of 

 others, when I had laid the effort aside, I was under the 

 impression that it was a finished picture of a bird because 

 it possessed some sort of a head and tail, and two sticks 

 in lieu of legs ; I never troubled myself with the thought 

 that abutments were requisite to prevent it from falling 

 either backward or forward, and oh ! what bills and claws 

 I did draw, to say nothing of a perfectly straight line for 

 a back, and a tail stuck in anyhow, like an unshipped 

 rudder. 



Many persons besides my father saw my miserable 

 attempts, and so many praised them to the skies that 

 perhaps no one was ever nearer being completely wrecked 

 than I by these mistaken, though affectionate words. My 

 father, however, spoke very differently to me; he con- 

 stantly impressed upon me that nothing in the world pos- 

 sessing life and animation was easy to imitate, and that 

 as I grew older he hoped I would become more and more 

 alive to this. He was so kind to me, and so deeply inter- 

 ested in my improvement that to have listened carelessly 



1 Audubon's drawings have been criticised for their flatness. Of this, 

 Cuvier says : " It is difficult to give a true picture of a bird with the same 

 effect of perspective as a landscape, and the lack of this is no defect in a 

 work on Natural History. Naturalists prefer the real color of objects to 

 those accidental tints which are the result of the varied reflections of light 

 necessary to complete picturesque representations, but foreign and even in- 

 jurious to scientific truth." 



