98 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



" princely bird," which " subsists entirely on fish which he takes 

 himself, scorning to live and grow fat on the dear earned 

 labours of another," and which in turn " contributes liberally 

 to the support of the bald eagle " (p. 8) . We observe jays " of 

 an azure blue colour," towee birds, " bluish grey butcher " birds 

 (p. 172), "black pied" and "yellowish clay coloured" rice 

 birds (p. 296), cedar birds feeding " on various sorts of succu- 

 lent fruit and berries " (p. 298) . We distinguish the song of 

 the blue " linet " from that of the nonpareil, which is " remark- 

 ably low, soft, and warbling, exceedingly tender and soothing " 

 (p. 299) , and we hear the cat-bird, whom Catesby, according 

 to Bartram, has maligned by attributing to it but one note; for, 

 says Bartram, this bird is "in reality . . . one of our most 

 eminent songsters, little inferior to the philomela or mock-bird ; 

 and in some remarkable instances, perhaps, exceeds them both, 

 in particular as a buffoon or mimick " (p. 299). Finally, we 

 watch a wild pigeon hunt in a swamp in which multitudes of 

 the birds, blinded by the blaze of pine torches, " drop off the 

 limbs to the ground " (pp. 470-471). One comes away from a 

 reading of Bartram's description of birds with a feeling of the 

 justness of a remark — far from inclusive — made by a recent 

 student of Bartram. " William Bartram," says Henry Chester 

 Tracy, " passed on to us an impression of Catesby' s ground- 

 doves, in the South. He found them ' perfectly enchanting,' and 

 so do we — listening through pages, faded by a hundred and 

 fifty years." ^^ 



Bartram's landscape is not a static picture. There is move- 

 ment and change. His narrative moves with his continued 

 travels. Sometimes unusual things happen, an eclipse of the 

 moon, for instance [Travels, p. 51) , or the eruption of a geyser, 

 " an inexpressible rushing noise, like a mighty hurricane or 

 thunder storm " and " floods rushing upwards many feet high " 

 (p. 239) ; more often usual things happen which become un- 

 usual through the vivid and dramatic description of Bartram: 

 storms, for instance. A few typical examples will illustrate: 



'^^ American Naturists. New York, 1930, p. 25. The passage in Bartram to 

 which Traq' refers is: " Catesby's ground doves are also here in abxindance: 

 they are remarkably beautiful, about the size of a sparrow, and their soft and 

 plaintive cooing perfectly enchanting" (Travels, p. 8). 



