44 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [nOV. 5, 



traits, yet the fresco of six geese, taken from a tomb at May- 

 doom, in Egypt, and now deposited in the museum at Boolaiv, is 

 so fresh, and depicted Avith such marvelous fidelity of forni and 

 coloring, that four of these figures, can without hesitation be 

 referred to two species living in the Old World to-day, one of 

 which, the white fronted goose, has a very near relative in our 

 own land, and known to many as the Brant of our Western 

 prairies. There were probably most excellent and learned 

 naturalists among that wonderful people living on the banks of 

 the old Nile, buttheir names have been lost in the overthrow of 

 their nation, and it was not until the fourth centur3r before 

 Christ that the first serious ornithological author appeared in 

 the person of Aristotle. He was followed in the first century 

 of our era by Pliny the Elder, and then we come to the sixteenth 

 century- before we find a name at all fiimiliar to us. The seven- 

 teenth and eighteenth centuries produced a host of naturalists, 

 some preeminent in ornithology ; and it was towards the close 

 of this century that he appeared upon the scene, in honor of 

 whose memory we are assembled here this evening. 



In the resurrection period, the most beautiful season of the 

 year, when all the groves were echoing with melody issuing 

 from countless feathered throats, singing a natal song to him 

 who was to be ever the birds' lover and friend, and the air was 

 redolent with the fragrant breath of opening buds and flowers, 

 on the 4th May, 1780, in the then French province, now the 

 State of Louisiana, on his father's plantation, John James Au- 

 dubon was born. His mother's maiden name was Anne Moy- 

 nette. She was a lady of Spanish extraction, possessed both of 

 wealth and beauty. A few years after the birth of her youngest 

 son Mrs. Audubon accompanied her husband to St. Domingo, 

 and there perished during an insurrection of the negroes. The 

 elder Audubon then returned to France with his family, and 

 the future naturalist was sent to school, and was instructed in 

 mathematics, geography, drawing, music and fencing, and in 

 the last three he became proficient. He plaved well upon the 

 violin, flageolet and guitar, and was a graceful dancer, an ac- 

 complishment that in after years he was to have more oppor- 

 tunities of practicing with bears and other wild denizens of the 

 forest than with the fairer sex of his own species. During his 

 school days, at every opportunity that oflered, young Audubon 

 would wander away to the woods and fields to collect objects of 

 natural history, and he also made about two hundred drawings 

 of the birds lie procured. Declining to join the armies of Na- 

 poleon, his father sent him to America to look after some 

 propert^^ called Mill Grove, which he had purchased on Perkio- 

 men Creek, near Philadelphia. 



IS! 



