460 AUDUBON 



preference to the hilly or rocky portions which alternately 

 present themselves along these shores. On looking along 

 the banks of the river, one cannot help observing the half- 

 drowned young willows, and cotton trees of the same age, 

 trembling and shaking sideways against the current; and 

 methought, as I gazed upon them, of the danger they were 

 in of being immersed over their very tops and thus dying, 

 not through the influence of fire, the natural enemy of 

 wood, but from the force of the mighty stream on the 

 margin of which they grew, and which appeared as if in 

 its wrath it was determined to overwhelm, and undo all 

 that the Creator in His bountifulness had granted us to 

 enjoy. The banks themselves, along with perhaps millions 

 of trees, are ever tumbling, falling, and washing away from 

 the spots where they may have stood and grown for cen- 

 turies past. If this be not an awful exemplification of the 

 real course of Nature's intention, that all should and must 

 live and die, then, indeed, the philosophy of our learned 

 men cannot be much relied upon ! 



This afternoon the steamer " John Auld " came up near 

 us, but stopped to put off passengers. She had troops on 

 board and a good number of travellers. We passed the 

 city of Glasgow 1 without stopping there, and the black- 

 guards on shore were so greatly disappointed that they 

 actually fired at us with rifles ; but whether with balls or 

 not, they did us no harm, for the current proved so strong 

 that we had to make over to the opposite side of the river. 



Aud. and Bach, ii., 1851, p. 67, pi. 58 ; S. rubicaudatus, Aud. and Bach, ii., 

 1851, p. 30, pi. 55 ; S. auduboni, Bach. P. Z. S. 1838, p. 97 (dusky -variety) ; 

 Aud. and Bach. Hi., 1854, p. 260, pi. 152, fig. 2; S. occidentalis, Aud. and 

 Bach., Journ. Philada. Acad, viii., 1842, p. 317 (dusky variety) ; S. sayii, Aud. 

 and Bach, ii., 1851, p. 274, pi. 89. The last is ostensibly based on the species 

 described by Say, whose name macroura was preoccupied for a Ceylonese 

 species. The Western Fox Squirrel has also been called S. ruftuenter and 

 S. magnkaudatus, both of which names appear in Harlan's Fauna Ameri- 

 cana, 1825, p. 176 and p. 178. — E. C. 



1 Audubon underscores " city " as a bit of satire, Glasgow being at that 

 time a mere village or hamlet. — E. C. 



