350 Audubon’s Ornithology, First Volume. 
naturalist whose works we have placed at the head of this article. 
His magnificent and unequalled painting created every wherea 
great interest in the subject, which was confirmed and matured to 
a great extent by his adventurous and enthusiastic pursuit of his 
darling study, and still more by the fascinating and attractive his- 
tory of those whose painting at first drew attention tothem. The 
more the public notice was drawn to his undertaking, the more did 
it seem unrivalled for the boldness, almost amounting to temerity, 
with which it was commenced, the perseverance and untiring 
zeal with which it was carried on, as as the fidelity, industry 
and celerity, with which it was finally completed. It became as 
conspicuous, as it will ever remain an enduring, monument of his 
enterprise and scientific acquirements. It was impossible to know 
any thing of the man without entertaining a high sense of his 
unexampled and unequalled fortitude, self-denial, and moral cour- 
age. We see in him the splendid painter of nature, her eloquent 
historian, and the accomplished gentleman, all united in the same 
person, who appeared a few years since in the capital of Scotland, 
an unknown and friendless stranger, of humble means, and as- 
tonished the scientific world by his proposal to publish a work on 
ornithology upon a scale so magnificent and stupendous, as would 
have deterred many a wealthier devotee of science. We follow 
the same individual, his object in Edinburgh accomplished, in the 
prosecution of his Herculean task. We find him now buffeting 
the repulsive waves on the inhospitable shores of Labrador, now 
treading the mazy and unhealthy swamps of Florida, and again 
ransacking the rivers and lagoons of Texas. We behold him re- 
turning with the spoils of patient and unyielding assiduity, to 
meet with new and unexpected obstacles, thrown in his path by 
the commercial crisis of the country, the loss of nearly one half 
of the subscribers upon whom he had depended to repay his ex- 
penditures. But we sce him superior to all disasters, surmounting 
all obstacles, and completing in spite of them, the most magnifi- 
cent work on natural history the world had ever seen. Sucha 
man is an honor to any age and to any country, and no one can 
contemplate his life or his labors without feeling himself carried 
away by the interest they inspire ; and to this we hesitate not to 
| > a large share of the pervading interest that has within a 
on created in this country in favor of the natural 
