126 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



To be sure they have been dead a few years, and owe their 

 present forms very much to the taste of the ignorant trades- 

 man who "wired" and stuffed them — but the colors are there ; 

 they do not fade — that is, not much — and by a slight exertion 

 of fancy it will be easy enough to make them "sister nature's 

 own shape" of birds again, so that shortly a magnificent five 

 vol. illustrated work makes its appearance. 



Contrast all such farrago with the language of a man who 

 knew what he was doing. It was during those weary wan- 

 derings in which Audubon coursed back and forth " the 

 seasons from equator to the pole," that in the far south he 

 met with the " Carracaras Eagle^' then a new bird to him. 

 He says — 



1 was not aware of the existence of the Caracara or Bra- 

 zilian Eagle in the United States, until my visit to the 

 Floridas, in the winter of 1831. On the 24th of November 

 of that year, in the course of an excursion near the town of 

 St. Augustine, I observed a bird flying at a great elevation, 

 and almost over my head. Convinced that it was unknown 

 to me, and bent on obtaining it, I followed it nearly a mile, 

 when I saw it sail towards the earth, making for a place 

 where a group of Vultures ware engaged in devouring a dead 

 horse. Walking up to the horse, I observed the new bird 

 alighted on it, and helping itself freely to the savory meat 

 beneath its feet ; but it evinced a degree of shyness far greater 

 than that of its associates, the Turkey Buzzards and Carrion 

 Crows. I moved circuitously, until I came to a deep ditch, 

 along which I crawled, and went as near to the bird as I pos- 

 sibly could ; but finding the distance much too great for a 

 sure shot, I got up suddenly, when the whole of the birds 

 took to flight. The eagle, as if desirous of forming acquaint- 

 ance with me, took a round and passed over me. I shot, but 

 to my great mortification missed it. However, it alighted a 

 few hundred yards off, in an open savanna, on which I laid 

 myself flat on the ground, and crawled towards it, pushing 



