10 AUDUBON THE NATUKALIS1. 
CHAPTER II. 
S Audubon advanced towards manhood, his 
father desired to present him with some 
enduring evidence of the affectionate regard he 
had ever manifested. An estate, or, according 
to American phraseology, a plantation, in the 
beautiful State of Pennsylvania,* surrounded 
by woodlands, meadows, and verdurous hills, 
was the appropriate token selected. This spot 
offered many an enticing subject for the artist’s 
pencil. 
Rambling at dawn, to return wet with the 
fresh dews of morning—rejoiced if the bearer of 
a feathered prize—Audubon here passed deli- 
cious days in the pursuit of his favourite studies. 
His plantation reposed on the sloping declivity 
of the Perkioming Creek. Along the rocky 
banks, it was his habit fondly to loiter. There 
* he could watch the sweet flowers cordially un- 
folding their beauty to the sun, see the contem- 
plative kingfisher perched with dignity on some 
* At that time Pennsylvania was a slave state, and the 
farme wre called plantations, 
Co 
