FLORIDA AS IT WAS 119 



then uttered a childlike cry. She fell before him with 

 quivering wings, her whole form trembling, and her voice 

 begging him to spare her nest. 



He said: 



" Who could bear such a scene of despair? I left the 

 mother in security with her offspring." 



He went to the solitudes of the snowy ibis and heron, 

 the red flamingo and the dusky pelican. He found at 

 Tampa the resplendent Key West pigeon. 



" Ah ! " he exclaimed, with a naturalist's enthusiasm at 

 that lovely bird, " did ever Egyptian pharmacopolist em- 

 ploy more care in embalming the most illustrious of the 

 Pharaohs than I did in preserving from injury the most 

 beautiful inhabitant of the wood covers! " 



Age had not abated the tenderness of Audubon's heart 

 toward the winged dwellers of the trees. It is always so 

 with a true lover of nature. To study nature is to find 

 oneself in sympathy with the whole creation, and the larger 

 one's knowledge the greater is his beneficence. A less 

 schooled nature would have seized upon the zenaida dove, 

 although she were quivering at the thought of being taken 

 from her young. 



In Florida he saw a caracara eagle, the Brazilian bird. 

 He pursued it in vain for a time, but at last one of these 

 proud Andean birds fell into his hands. 



It hurt him to take the life of this regal inhabitant of 

 the peaks, and his description of how he endeavored to do 



