316 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



setting for the birds. 12 An early drawing of the Chuck 

 Will's Widow is dated "Red River, June, 1821," and it 

 is probable that he followed this stream into Arkansas, 

 for on leaving Cincinnati in the autumn of the previous 

 year, he had planned to enter that State, and later ref- 

 erences in his journals clearly imply that this object 

 was attained. Another favorite hunting ground was 

 Thompson's Creek, and he often recalled its heated 

 banks, where, on a Fourth of July, he once satisfied his 

 hunger by "swallowing the roasted eggs of a large soft 

 shelled turtle." 



On August 11, 1821, while Audubon was living at 

 "Oakley," he made this entry in his journal: 



Watched all night by the dead body of a friend of Mrs. 



P ; he was not known to me, and he had literally drunk 



himself to an everlasting sleep. Peace to his soul! I made a 

 good sketch of his head, as a present for his poor wife. On 

 such occasions time flies very slow indeed, so much so that it 

 looked as if it stood still, like the hawk that poises over its 

 prey. 



In the same journal also, for August 25, occurs a 

 record which throws light on one of Audubon's most 

 discussed and questionable pictures, that of the mock- 

 ing-birds defending their jessamine-embowered nest 

 from the sinister designs of a rattlesnake; 13 little did he 



12 On the original drawing of the Pine-creeping Warbler The Birds of 

 America (Plate cxl), the following legends appear in Audubon's autograph: 

 "Drawn from Nature by John J. Audubon, James Pirrie's Plantation, 

 Louisiana, July 10, 1821. Plant, J. R. Mason." 



Sixteen of Audubon's originals, which still bear the designations of 

 time and place, were produced during this interval, in the year 1821; 

 they embrace the Mississippi Kite (Plate cxvii, see Vol. I, p. 228), June 28; 

 Yellow- throated Vireo (Plate cxix), July 11; Red-cockaded Woodpecker 

 (Plate ccclxxxix), July 29; American Redstart (Plate xl), August 13; 

 Summer Red-bird (Plate xliv), August 27; Prairie Warbler (Plate xiv), 

 Sept. 3; and the Tennessee Warbler (Plate cliv), Oct. 17. 



13 The Birds of America, Plate xxi. 



