32 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Nov. 5, 
It is proper that monuments of stone should be raised to the 
nation’s distinguished dead. They serve the double purpose of 
recalling those whose memories should not be forgotten, and of 
arousing the spirit of the living to emulate the virtues of the 
dead. Their erection honors both the dead and the living. 
This monument serves not only to perpetuate the name of 
Audubon in this city, where he lived and died, but recalls those 
virtues, both religious, civic and scientific, which so character- 
ized the man. The honor we pay to such men is a measure of 
our appreciation of the benefits of scientific culture. As a 
scholar he was modest; as an artist, without depreciating his 
own merit, he never vaunted it. It was this modesty, combined 
with real worth, which made him socially a most attractive man 
and publicly one of the most distinguished naturalists this 
country hasever produced. The history of his life will be fully 
detailed by a distinguished ornithologist this evening. I do 
not therefore propose to dwell on his history, but only to refer 
to some of those traits which characterized him as an artist, a 
scientist, and a useful citizen. 
John James Audubon was the son of a French naval officer, 
who came to this country during the Revolution to help us in 
our struggle for liberty. He was born near New Orleans, and 
as a boy spent all his leisure hours in studying the habits of 
birds and animals. His fondness for nature and natural objects 
was the prominent characteristic of his early as well as of his 
later years. He loved out-door life and was always sketching 
what he saw. not at first as an adept in drawing, but the more 
inadequate the sketches to convey to his mind the beauty of 
the natural objects, and the more he endeavored to acquire 
greater skill, the more fully did he appreciate the beauty of the 
details of the objects of his sketches. 
Sent to Paris to be educated, he could only see one thing 
worthy to be attained, and that was the ability to represent the 
peculiarities and beauties of the animal creation, either with the 
pencil or the brush. The pupil of the great artist David, he 
put him into despair, because the young man could see nothing 
worth representing on the canvass except birds and _ beasts. 
Having inherited a fortune from a relative, he returned to this 
country and married his wife near Philadelphia. He was shortly 
afterwards ruined by the war of 1812, and was obliged to give 
up his beautiful place, and, returning to Paris, found his sister, 
who had married a nobleman, in destitute circumstances, and at 
once made over to her what remained of his fortune and became 
himself a poor man. It was then that he determined to make 
his love of natural history and the skill that he had acquired 
