GAYETIES AND GRAVITIES. 179 
edged the kindness by a remark on bold bright 
birds of passage, that find the seasons obedient 
to their will, and wing their way through worlds, 
still rejoicing in the perfect year. But too true 
friends were we, not to be sincere in all we 
seriously said; and while Audubon confessed 
that he saw rather more plainly than when we 
parted the crowfeet in the corners of our eyes, 
we did not deny that we saw in him an image 
of the Falco Leucocephalus, for that looking on 
his ‘carum caput,’ it answered his own descrip- 
tion of that handsome and powerful bird, viz., 
‘the general colour of the plumage above is dull 
hair brown, the lower parts being deeply brown, 
broadly margined with greyish white.’ But here 
he corrected us, for ‘surely, my dear friend,’ 
quoth he, ‘you must admit I am a living spe- 
cimen of the adult bird, and you remember my 
description of him in my first volume.’ And 
thus blending our gravities and our gayeties, 
we sat facing one another, each with his last 
oyster on the prong of his trident, which dis- 
appeared like all mortal joys, between a smile 
and a sigh. 
“Tt was quite a noctes. Audubon told us— 
by snatches—all his travels, history, and many 
an anecdote interspersed of the dwellers among 
the woods, birds, beasts, and man.” 
This enthusiastic record is equalled by that of 
