LIFE OF WILSON. xxxvii 



cheerfully participate in the feast he is preparing for all our 

 senses. Let us survey those millions of green strangers, just 

 peeping into day, as so many happy messengers come to pro- 

 claim the power and munificence of the Creator. I confess that 

 I was always an enthusiast in my admiration of the rural sce- 

 nery of Nature; but, since your example and encouragement 

 have set me to attempt to imitate her productions, I see new 

 beauties in every bird, plant or flower, I contemplate; and find 

 my ideas of the incomprehensible first cause still more exalted, 

 the more minutely I examine his works. 



"I sometimes smile to think that while others are immers- 

 ed in deep schemes of speculation and aggrandizement in 

 building towns and purchasing plantations, I am entranced in 

 contemplation over the plumage of a lark, or gazing like a de- 

 spairing lover, on the lineaments of an owl. While others are 

 hoarding up their bags of money, without the power of enjoy- 

 ing it, I am collecting, without injuring my conscience, or 

 wounding my peace of mind, those beautiful specimens of Na- 

 ture's works that are for ever pleasing. I have had live crows, 

 hawks and owls opossums, squirrels, snakes, lizards, &c., so 

 that my room has sometimes reminded me of Noah's ark; but 

 Noah had a wife in one corner of it, and in this particular our 

 parallel does not altogether tally. I receive every subject of na- 

 tural history that is brought to me, and though they do not 

 march into my ark, from all quarters, as they did into that of 

 our great ancestor, yet I find means, by the distribution of a 

 few five penny bits, to make them find the way fast enough. 

 A boy, not long ago, brought me a large basket full of crows. 

 I expect his next load will be bull-frogs, if I don't soon issue or- 

 ders to the contrary. One of my boys caught a mouse in school, 

 a few days ago, and directly marched up to me with his pri- 

 soner. I set about drawing it that same evening, and all the 

 while the pantings of its little heart showed it to be in the most 

 extreme agonies of fear. I had intended to kill it, in order to 

 fix it in the claws of a stuffed owl, but happening to spill a few 

 drops of water near where it was tied, it lapped it up with such 



