178 ANNIVEESAET ADDRESS 



■writers — are full of information of the most varied and interesting 

 kind. No other writer has been so successful in combating 

 vulgar errors, and in disseminating truths about birds and beasts. 

 In the pursuit of knowledge no labour deterred, no danger 

 daunted him. He walked barefoot through the vast forests of 

 Guiana, regardless of the venomous snakes, to step on any one 

 of which was certain death; careless of the winged and creeping 

 insects which there, literally, devour a man. He camped in 

 swamps whence arose the dreadful miasma, fatal to the lives of all 

 tininured to the climate ; where venomous beasts lurked, or savages 

 ready to take his life for the value of the blanket, almost his only 

 garment ; and, unattended, or followed by semi-civilised coloured 

 men, he sought, and afterwards in the most graphic manner 

 recorded, the mighty secrets of nature which were before hidden in 

 that unvisited region. The adventures detailed in his wanderings 

 are of the most startling kind, some bordering on the marvellous. 

 Of these, his conflict with the python which wound itself round his 

 body, and his ride on the back of an alligator, are specimens, but 

 no one who knew the man, or, I may say, his writings, ever dis- 

 credited him for a moment. Sydney Smith, in reviewing his works, 

 throws a playful doubt on one of his statements. "In the forests 

 of Guiana, the campanero," he tells us, " tolls with a solemn sound 

 at regular intervals, and the deep note may be heard at a distance 

 of three miles ! " " It is not for us," says Sydney Smith, " to 

 contradict a man who has spent his life in the forests of Guiana, 

 but when a campanero is brought to England, we will make him 

 toll in a public situation, and measure the distance!'''' 



One of the best known and most loved authors of the young 

 is Bewick, the well-known wood-engraver of Newcastle. His 

 illustrations, considering the time at which they appeared — a 

 hundred years since — are admirable, and the quaint tail-pieces, 

 each telling its own story, are beyond praise. The letterpress, 

 however, is not of equal value. 



Of American naturalists, Audubon, who was born in 1780, is 

 perhaps the best known. His illustrations, wherever possible, are 

 of the size of nature, and admirably drawn ; but the colouring, 

 like the descriptions, considerably exaggerated. There is a 

 description of the passenger-pigeon which well illustrates this. 

 The bird, although, unlike other pigeons, it lays but one egg at 

 a time, is perhaps more numerous than any other on the American 

 continent. Still the following description must be taken cum grano. 

 "The pigeons arrived by thousands, alighted everywhere, one over 

 the other, until huge masses, as large as hogsheads, were formed 



