BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



OF 



JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 



Probably there never has been a great naturalist who did not love 

 his particular pursuit, for its own sake, with a passionate enthusiasm, 

 without regard to profit or fame. Audubon is an illustrious example 

 of this. Indeed, nothing short of an absorbing devotion to ornitholo- 

 gy could have s>ipported him amid the difficulties and toils which he 

 has had to encounter in his career. In an autobiographical meaioir 

 prefixed to the descriptive letter-press of his celebrated work, Tlie 

 Birds of America, he declares that in his childhood he made the pro- 

 ductions of nature around him his very playmates, and that he soon 

 formed such an intercourse with them as savoured more of frenzy 

 than of mere friendship. This is language that might seem to con- 

 tain fully as much of exaggeration as of truth, were it not that the 

 whole of his after career bears ample testimony to its accuracy. The 

 power of his early impressions has never slacken&d. He has for 

 years continued to expose himself to all weather and climates, in fur- 

 therance of his pursuit ; and when he has at any time gained an object 

 which he thinks worthy of being described and exhibited, he sits 

 down to study and to draw it, with an intenseness of application, 

 which is even more exhausting than his active exertions. Like his 

 forerunner, Wilson, he has explored the forests, mountains, and shores 

 of America, snatching the feaiful joy of wandering beyond the limits 

 of civilization, with no other companions than dog and gun ; his fires 

 have lighted up woods, and shone in waters, which never before felt 

 the presence of cultivated man — where the Rose-breast sung him to 

 repose at night, and the Wood-thrush waked him with its native 

 strains. But the few particulars Avhich we are about to state of his 

 history — these being chiefly gathered from his own account of him- 

 self — will aftbrd a more striking idea of his inextinguishable and un- 

 ceasing devotion to the study of the feathered creation. 



Audubon declares, that during his early years, none but aerial com- 

 panions suited his fancy ; and tliat when removed from the woods, 

 the prairies, and the brooks, or shut up from the view of the wide 

 Atlantic, he experienced none of those pleasures most congenial to 

 his mind. No roof seemed so secure to him as that formed of the 

 dense foliage under which the feathered tribes were seen to resort, 

 or the caves and fissures of the many rocks to which the dark-winged 

 cormorant and the curlew retired to rest, or to protect themselves from 

 the fury of the tempest. His father, it appears, possessed a kindred fan- 

 cy, and was to the boy a valuable preceptor. He often accompanied the 



