98 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



ence between the azure tints of the sky, and the emerald hue 

 of the bright foliage, I felt that an intimacy with them, not 

 consisting of friendship merely, but bordering on phrenzy, 

 must accompany my steps through life ; — and now, more 

 than ever, am I persuaded of the power of those early im- 

 pressions. They laid such hold upon me, that, when removed 

 from the woods, the prairies and the brooks, or shut up from 

 *♦ the view of the wide Atlantic, I experienced none of those 



pleasures most congenial to my mind. None but aerial com- 

 panions suited my fancy. No roof seemed so secure to me 

 as that formed of the dense foliage under which the feathered 

 tribes were seen to resort, or the caves and fissures of the 

 massy rocks to which the dark-winged Cormorant and the 

 Curlew retired to rest, or to protect themselves from the fury 

 of the tempest. My father generally accompanied my steps, 

 procured birds and flowers for me with great eagerness, — 

 pointed out the elegant movements of the former, the beauty 

 and softness of their plumage, the manifestations of their 

 pleasure or sense of danger, — and the always perfect forms 

 and splendid attii*e of the latter. My valued preceptor would 

 then speak of the departure and return of birds with the 

 seasons, would describe their haunts, and, more wonderful 

 than all, their change of livery ; thus exciting me to study 

 them, and to raise my mind towards their great Creator. 



A vivid pleasure shone upon those days of my early youth, 

 attended with a calmness of feeling, that seldom failed to 

 rivet my attention for hours, whilst I gazed in ecstacy upon 

 the pearly and shining eggs, as they lay imbedded in the 

 softest down, or among dried leaves and twigs, or were ex- 

 posed upon the burning sand or weather-beaten rock of our 

 Atlantic shores. I was taught to look upon them as flowers 

 yet in the bud. I watched their opening, to see how Nature 

 had provided each difi"erent species with eyes, either open at 

 birth, or closed for some time after ; to trace the slow progress 

 of the young birds toward perfection, or admire the celerity 



