AUDUBON AND BOONE. 189 



relaxed her severity, had laid aside her coyness, and to a 

 favorite tree they continually resorted. I pursued them un- 

 successfully for several days, when they forsook the place. 



Stay yet, too, while we note this fine expression of the 

 agonized travail of genius in the production of its mighty 

 works. It is from the introduction to his fifth and concluding 

 volume of the " Ornithological Biography." 



How often have I longed to see the day on which my labors 

 should be brought to an end ! Many times, when I had laid 

 myself down in the deepest recesses of the Western forest, 

 have I been suddenly awakened by the apparition of dismal 

 prospects that have presented themselves to my mind. Now 

 sickness methought had seized me with burning hands, and 

 hurried me away, in spite of all fond wishes, from those wild 

 woods in which I had so long lingered to increase my knowl- 

 edge of the objects they presented to my view. 



Poverty, too, at times, walked hand in hand with me, and 

 on more than one occasion, urged me to cast away my pen- 

 cils, destroy my drawings, abandon my journals, change my 

 ideas, and return to the world. At other times, the red 

 Indian, erect and bold, tortured my ears with horrible yells, 

 and threatened to put an end to my existence ; or white- 

 skinned murderers aimed their rifles at me. Snakes, loath- 

 some and venomous, entwined my limbs, while vultures, lean 

 and ravenous, looked on with impatience. Once, too, I 

 dreamed, when asleep on a sand bar on one of the Florida 

 Keys, that a huge shark had me in his jaws, and was drag- 

 ging me into the deep. 



But my thoughts were not always of this nature — for, at 

 other times, my dreams presented pleasing images. The sky 

 was serene, the air perfumed, and thousands of melodious 

 notes from birds, all unknown to me, urged me to rise and go 

 in pursuit of those beautiful and happy creatures. Then I 

 would find myself furnished with large and powerful wings, 

 and cleaving the air like an eagle, I would fly, and by a few 





