88 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 



Audubon ! Audubon ! Delightful name ! Ah, do I not 

 remember well the hold it took upon my young imagination 

 when I heard the fragmented rumor from afar, that there was 

 a strange man abroad then, who lived in the wilderness with 

 only his dog and gun, and did nothing day by day, but follow 

 up the birds ; watching every thing they might do ; keeping 

 in sight of them all the time, wherever they went, while light 

 lasted ; then sleeping beneath the tree where they perched, 

 to be up and follow them again with the dawn, until he knew 

 every habit and way that belonged to them. That when he 

 was satisfied, he would shoot them in some manner, so as not 

 to tear their plumage, and then sitting down on the mossy 

 roots of an oak, and with nobody to connoisseur for him but 

 his wise looking dog, and the squirrel that stamped and 

 scolded at him from the limbs above, would draw such 

 marvelous pictures of birds as the world never saw before ! 



Oh, what a happy, happy being that strange man must be, 

 I used to think ; and what a strong and brave one, too, to 

 sleep out among the panthers and wild cats, where the Indian 

 whoop was heard trusting only to his single arm and his 

 faithful dog. I loved to speculate about that dog. He must 

 be larger than my dog "Milo," I thought, and just about as 

 gentle and true, but a little more knowing. How I envied 

 him the happiness of such a master and such a life. 



As for the master, what magical conjurations of a charmed 

 fancy I loved to associate with him. He must be noble and 

 good, and wear such lofty calmness upon his brow. I had 

 an ideal of physical perfection, and below it could not bear to 

 conceive tnat so heroic a philosopher could fall. 



What a martyr-spirit his must be ; and what a holy enthu- 

 siasm leads him on through tangled swamps, where the cougar 

 yelled, alligators roared, and hideous serpents parted, with 

 their wavy spotted lengths, the green scum of stagnant pools ; 

 up difficult mountains, where the rattle-snake sprung its 

 deadly alarum amidst the mossy fissures of the crumbling 



