GAYETIES AND GRAVITIES. 179 



edged the kindness by a remark on bold bright 

 birds of passage, that find the seasons obedient 

 to their will, and wing their way through worlds, 

 still rejoicing in the perfect year. But too true 

 friends were we, not to be sincere in all we 

 seriously said; and while Audubon confessed 

 that he saw rather more plainly than when we 

 parted the crowfeet in the corners of our eyes, 

 we did not deny that we saw in him an image 

 of the Falco Leucocephalus, for that looking on 

 his ' carum caput,' it answered his own descrip- 

 tion of that handsome and powerful bird, viz., 

 ^ the general colour of the plumage above is dull 

 hair brown, the lower parts being deeply brown, 

 broadly margined with greyish white.' But here 

 he corrected us, for ^ surely, my dear friend,' 

 quoth he, ' you must admit I am a living spe- 

 cimen of the adult bird, and you remember my 

 description of him in my first volume.' And 

 thus blending our gravities and our gayeties, 

 we sat facing one another, each with his last 

 oyster on the prong of his trident, which dis- 

 appeared like all mortal joys, between a smile 

 and a sigh. 



" It was quite a noctes. Audubon told us — 

 by snatches — all his travels, history, and many 

 an anecdote interspersed of the dwellers among 

 the woods, birds, beasts, and man." 



This enthusiastic record is equalled by that of 



