198* MEMOIR OF JOHN JAMES ATTDUBON. 



young" naturalist, procured birds, and pointed out the beauty and soft- 

 ness of their plumise, the mmifcstations of their pleasure or sense of 

 danofer, and their always perfect forms as well as splendid attire. And 

 then their habits, their haunts, their change of livery, and everything 

 connected with their history, were appropriately made tiiemes for 

 fixing the student's raind upon the Great Creator. Indeed our orni- 

 thologist, on* proper occasions, never fails to express happily a be- 

 coming religious feeling. 



Audubon continues to say, that a vivid pleasure shone upon the 

 days of his early youth, attended with a calmness of feeling, that seldom 

 failed to rivet his attention for hours, whilst he gazed upon the pearly 

 and shining eggs, as they lay imbedded in the softest down, or among 

 dried leaves and twigs, or were exposed upon the burning sand or 

 weather-beaten rocks of the Atlantic shores. He looked upon them 

 as flowers yet in the bud. He watched their opening, to see how 

 Nature had provided each ditferent species with eyes, either open at 

 birth, or closed ; to trace the slew progress of the young toward per- 

 fection, or admire the celerity with which some them, while yet un- 

 fledged, removed themselves from danger to security. In all this 

 minute detail, and love to dwell upon the particulars of the history of 

 the feathered creation, we see the enthusiast and the origin of great 

 contributions to science ; for there could be nothing more natural than 

 that his passion should increase with his age. 



For a number of years, however, our young ornithologist was far 

 from being gratified with his acquisitions; nor is it probable that such 

 an ardent enthusiast and expanding capacity for contemplating na- 

 ture, will ever be satisfied, since the wider and higher the domain of 

 nature is traversed, its beauties and wonders, according to a rapid 

 ratio, increase. We like him, when speaking of these early years, and 

 confessing, that the moment a bird was killed for the sake of forward- 

 ing his researches, however beautiful it had been in life, the pleasure 

 arising from the possession of it became blunted, for he felt that its 

 vesture was sullied, and that it no longer was fresh from the hands of 

 its Maker. He wished to obtain all the productions of Nature, but 

 he wished life with them. To the present day, we find him speaking 

 of the necessity of resorting to deadly means to secure the objects of 

 his study, as costing him pain ; and this tender feeling is even more 

 apparent from the affecting manner in which he describes the speci- 

 men than from any direct attestation. For example, in one of his late 

 Tolumes,when describing the means he adopted to take the life of a noble 

 Golden Eagle, viz. with the fumes of charcoal, to avoid injuring his 

 plumage, and to spare it unnecessary pain, he adds, that he entered 

 the little apartment in which the experiment had been made, and found 

 the eagle, after having been exposed to its effects for hours, "with 

 his bright, unflinching eye turned towards him as lively and vigorous 

 as ever ;" evidently by the manner of desc^ription showing how it went 

 to his heart to have been obliged thus to treat his precious victim. 



But the very circumstance of his pleasure being blunted when con- 

 templating a dead creature, and its plumage appearing thereafter 

 sullied and abused, was the occasion of his liecoming, as a delineator 

 of birds, the most successful and finished that ever existed. Cuvier 

 said, that it was not only as a philosopher, but as an artist, that Audu- 



