68 Life of Audubon. 



This eccentric's habits were neither tidy nor cleanly 

 He would hardly perform needful ablutions, and refused 

 a change of clean clothing, suggested as being more com- 

 fortable. "His attire," remarks Audubon, "struck me 

 as exceedingly remarkable. A long loose coat of yellow 

 nankeen, much the worse for the many rubs it had got in 

 its time, and stained all over with the juice of plants, hung 

 loosely about him like a sack. A waistcoat of the same, 

 with enormous pockets, and buttoned up to the chin, 

 reached below over a pair of tight pantaloons, the lower 

 part of which were buttoned down to the ankles. His 

 beard was as long as I have known my own to be during 

 some of my peregrinations, and his lank black hair hung 

 loosely over his shoulders. His forehead was so broad 

 and prominent that any tyro in phrenology would instant- 

 ly have pronounced it the residence of a mind of strong 

 powers. His words impressed an assurance of rigid 

 truth, and as he directed the conversation to the study of 

 the natural sciences, I listened to him with great delight 

 He requested to see my drawings, anxious to see the 

 plants I had introduced besides the birds I had drawn. 

 Finding a strange plant among my drawings, he denied 

 its authenticity ; but on my assuring him that it grew in 

 the neighborhood, he insisted on going off instantly to 

 see it 



"When I pointed it out the naturalist lost all com- 

 mand over his feelings, and behaved like a maniac in ex- 

 pressing his delight. He plucked the plants one after 

 another, danced, hugged me in his arms, and exultingly 

 told me he had got, not merely a new species, but a new 

 genus. 



" He immediately took notes of all the needful par- 

 ticulars of the plant in a note-book, which he carried 

 wrapt in a waterproof covering. After a day's pursuit of 

 natural history studies, the stranger was accommodated 



