16 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 



shooting, fishing, and riding, and had a 

 passion for raising all sorts of fowls, 

 which sources of interest and amusement 

 folly occupied my time. It was one of 

 my fancies to be ridiculously fond of 

 dress ; to hunt in black satin breeches, 

 wear pumps when shooting, and to dress 

 in the finest ruffled shirts I could obtain 

 from France." 



The evidences of vanity regarding his 

 looks and apparel, sometimes found in 

 his journal, are probably traceable to 

 his foster-mother's unwise treatment of 

 him in his youth. "We have seen how 

 his father's intervention in the nick of 

 time exercised a salutary influence upon 

 him at this point in his career, directing 

 his attention to the more solid attain- 

 ments. Whatever traces of this self- con- 

 sciousness and apparent vanity remained 

 in after life, seem to have been more the 

 result of a naive character delighting in 

 picturesqueness in himself as well as in 

 Nature, than they were of real vanity. 



