Discoveries. 135 



CHARLESTON, September, 14th, 1833. 



Hail ! my old Friend, all hail ! Health, success 

 and happiness, attend you the winds, the waves, 

 the heavens and fortune, have all smiled on you. 

 Welcome, thrice welcome, to the homes and hearts 

 of your friends ! Long may you be spared to be the 

 honored instrument of giving to the world the 

 figures and the biography of that beautiful feathered 

 race, that seem to acknowledge you alone as worthy 

 of commemorating their forms and their histories. 

 Your letter from Halifax has made me quite happy. 

 I am like a boy that has just heard of a month's 

 holiday. I have just read your letter aloud at the 

 dinner table all rejoiced, and even my old mother, 

 was much interested ; all, even to the youngest, 

 send their good wishes, respects and love to you. 



I congratulate you on your new discoveries. * * 

 I long long to see these new specimens. A Parus ! 

 a Finch ! a Muscicapa ! where does the last bird go 

 to in winter ? A. new Rat ! a new Bat ! God bless 

 us ! I am almost crazy ! I am glad that Harlan is 

 off for now I shall come in for the four-footed 

 beasts. 



There is scarcely any use in beginning with my 

 yarns in this letter. I proceed to the subject this 

 lies nearest my heart. You must pay me a visit 

 this autumn ; you must just pay me a visit. Bring, 

 if you can, the wife and son; you shall all be 

 welcome doubly so ; but you, I must see. You 

 cannot go to Florida there is no use to go in the 

 winter ; you must finish your next volume of 

 biography. Stay in the Atlantic States this winter, 

 and when the Blue Bird carols his earliest song in 

 Spring then off to Florida, Arkansas, or the Pacific. 



I shall write you again in a couple of days. 

 Remember me to young Jostle.' 



Your friend, J. B. 



