152 John Bacliman. 



the Packet in which sister Maria sailed might arrive 

 safe. Say to your brother Victor, that I thank him 

 for his letter, and will answer it soon. By this time, 

 Maria may have seen half of London. We expect 

 to hear all about it soon. 



Yours affectionately, J. B. 



CHARLESTON, August 16th, 1837. 

 My dear Audubon Although you wrote me a 

 long letter before you left New York, yet I did not 

 receive it until last Sunday. I call it a good 

 letter, because it was not a few lines written in haste ; 

 but a careful, thoughtful letter. My family have 

 been writing by every packet; but, if we are to judge 

 from the letters we receive from England, they are 

 likely to be very irregular and long on the way. * 



I flatter myself, that by this time you are all safe 

 in England ; usefully employed, and therefore 

 happy. Since you left us, there has been a dulness 

 and lethargy, as if something were wanting. We 

 are trying to fill up the time: Eliza and sister 

 Maria are studying German. Botany has been com- 

 menced by all the girls, and they are devoting more 

 time to music than formerly 



I have been intolerably lazy since you left us, con- 

 fining myself entirely to my parochial duties, and 

 scarcely doing anything else seldom even writing 

 a letter. I have put up ftfr you a few birds in rum. 

 Your list, alas ! cannot be filled here ; but I will do 

 what I can * By the way, Judge Lee 



has just informed me of a fact which agrees with 

 my theory, that Buzzards obtain their prey by 

 sight, not by scent. In the upper part of this State, 

 a hog had fallen and died under the edge of a bank ; 

 the stench was so great, that it nearly drove the 

 visitors from their boarding house ; and yet the 

 Buzzards' noses were not keen enough to find it out. 



