LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 79 



" I had expected to have a sight of some of our rarer European 

 birds in my passage across the Alps; and. in order to have a better 

 chance of success, I got out of the carriage, and travelled onwards 

 on foot. But I saw none; the earth appeared one huge barren 

 waste, and the heavens produced not a single inhabitant of air to 

 break the dull monotony around us. 



" Charming is the descent down the southern side of the Alps ; 

 every day brought us a warmer climate with it, and gave us a fore- 

 taste of the delightful temperature to be enjoyed in the delicious ail 

 of an Italian autumn. As we were advancing slowly up a little 

 ascent in the road, my sister-in-law, Miss Helen Edmonstone, who 

 had just been looking out of the window of the carriage, remarked, 

 with a considerable archness of countenance, 'I am sure that we 

 are in Italy now.' Thinking that there was something more than 

 common by the way in which this remark had been uttered, I cast 

 my eye along the road behind us, and there I saw a matronly-looking 

 woman, with her fingers in full chase amid the long black hair of a 

 young damsel, apparently her daughter. * I agree with you, Miss 

 Helen,' said I. 'We are in Italy, there can be no dobut of it; 

 probably in parts of this country combs are not so plentiful as they 

 are with us. They must have been scarce in the time of Horace, 

 for he remarks of Canidia, crines et incomptum caput? 



" There was nothing in any of the museums which I visited to 

 show that an advancement had been made in the art of preserving 

 specimens for Natural History. In that of Bologna, I saw two male 

 turkeys with a very thick and long tuft of feathers on their heads ; 

 their necks were bare. I was informed that these strange-looking 

 birds were mere varieties of the tribe, and that they had been reared 

 from the egg in the immediate vicinity. 



"At Florence, my old friend Professor Nesti showed us through 

 the well-stored apartments of the public museum ; we had not seen 

 each other for more than twenty years. As I looked at him, I could 

 perceive that age had traced his brow with furrows; and he, no 

 doubt, must have observed that Time's unerring hand had been 

 employed upon my own for a similar purpose. Professor Nesti first 

 introduced me to the celebrated sculptor Bartolini of Florence. On 

 calling at his studio, after an absence of twenty years, I found him 



