8 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
ralist, no less than the gladsome scenes of his 
native soil. To roam, furnished only with his 
wallet and fowling piece, from day dawn till 
compelled by darkness to seek the shelter of 
some copse or shade in the unknown waste; 
there, beside the fire kindled by his own hands, 
to partake of his frugal meal; friendless and 
alone, to be surprised perhaps by the resistless 
fury of the elements—lightning, storm, and 
thunder—causing the wreck of nature round 
his unsheltered resting-place—menaced by the 
ferocity of wild animals or the inhospitality of 
his own species ;—such were his customs, and 
the conditions essential to his vocation. 
Successive intervals present us with various 
phases of this great man’s career; yet always 
we see the rare truthfulness of his nature, and 
his high-souled faith transparent in that daunt- 
less nobility which made him display equal free- 
dom of action, as well as equal affability and 
ease, in the camp of the Indian or the settler’s 
hut as in the assemblies of refined society. He 
visited successively all the most distinguished 
capitals of Europe, and we gladly find him wel- 
comed, encouraged, courted, and honoured by the 
great and good of theearth. But with yet more 
gladness we follow him, unchanged, through the 
vicissitudes of his destiny, retaining the simpli- 
aity of taste, the freshness of sentiment, the cor: 
