350 Audubon's Ornithology^ First Volume. 



naturalist whose works we have placed at the head of this article. 

 His magnificent and unequalled painting created every where a 

 great interest in the subject, which was confirmed and matured to 

 a great extent by his adventurous and enthusiastic pursuit of his 

 darling study, and still more by the fascinating and attractive his- 

 tory of those whose painting at first drew attention to them. The 

 more the public notice was drawn to his undertaking, the more did 

 it seem unrivalled for the boldness, almost amounting to temerity, 

 with which it was commenced, the perseverance and untiring 

 zeal with which it was carried on, as well as the fidelity, industry 

 and celerity, with which it was finally completed. It became as 

 conspicuous, as it will ever remain an enduring, monument of his 

 enterprise and scientific acquirements. It was impossible to know 

 any thing of the man without entertaining a high sense of his 

 unexampled and unequalled fortitude, self-denial, and moral cour- 

 age. We see in him the splendid painter of nature, her eloquent 

 historian, and the accomplished gentleman, all united in the same 

 person, who appeared a few years since in the capital of Scotland, 

 an unknown and friendless stranger, of humble means, and as- 

 tonished the scientific world by his proposal to publish a work on 

 ornithology upon a scale so magnificent and stupendous, as would 

 have deterred many a wealthier devotee of science. We follow 

 the same individual, his object in Edinburgh accomplished, in the 

 prosecution of his Herculean task. We find him now buffeting 

 the repulsive waves on the inhospitable shores of Labrador, now 

 treading the mazy and unhealthy swamps of Florida, and again 

 ransacking the rivers and lagoons of Texas. We behold him re- 

 turning with the spoils of patient and unyielding assiduity, to 

 meet with new and unexpected obstacles, thrown in his path by 

 the commercial crisis of the country, the loss of nearly one half 

 of the subscribers upon whom he had depended to repay his ex- 

 penditures. But we see him superior to all disasters, surmounting 

 all obstacles, and completing in spite of them, the most magnifi- 

 cent work on natural history the world had ever seen. Such a 

 man is an honor to any age and to any country, and no one can 

 contemplate his life or his labors without feeling himself carried 

 away by the interest they inspire ; and to this we hesitate not to 

 attribute a large share of the pervading interest that has within a 

 few years been created in this country in favor of the natural 

 sciences. 



