Sbrlfte=1Flotes 



them to know that if they can gain a place 

 in one of our first-class magazines (I do 

 not hint that they can) their writings will 

 be sure of infinitely better illustrations than 

 the great author of " L'Histoire Naturelle," 

 with a king to back him, could command. 

 And, after all, it would be doing injustice 

 to the present charming school of Tho- 

 reaus, and Burroughses, and Mrs. Millers, 

 and Bradford Torreys, to compare them 

 directly with Buffon.who actually imagined 

 that he was a dry-as-dust during the whole 

 of his long and laborious life. He was 

 not the man to go into the woods and 

 fields and around the Waldon ponds, spy- 

 ing upon the birds and reporting what he 

 saw, and so he missed a great deal of per- 

 sonal pleasure, and his literature has very 

 little of his own adventures in it. The 

 gain was in masses of information and 

 large dashes of enduring color. 



But yonder still sits my shrike on the tip- 

 top of the orange-tree, a sullen expres- 

 sion in his whole bodily pose. He is all 

 countenance, and it is the countenance of 

 a heavy-shouldered, short-necked, large- 

 128 



