AUDUBON—THE HUNTER-NATURALIST. 95 
detected at once the sympathy of our tastes; be that as it 
may, we were soon on good terms. 
Like all men who have lived much apart with nature, he 
was not very talkative. His conversation was impulsive and 
fragmentary :—that, taken together with a mellow Gallic 
idiom, rendered his style pleasingly titilating to a curious 
listener, as I was eager to get at his stores of knowledge; and 
compare my own diffuse but extended observation with his 
profound accuracy. 
The hours of that protracted journey glided by as in a 
dream. I was forever at his side, catching with a delighted 
eagerness at those characteristic scraps that fill from his 
lips. 
I was anxious to obtain an accurate insight into the man— 
the individual. I found rather more of the man of the world 
about him, than I was inclined to expect, though every inch 
of him was symmetrical with his character of naturalist, and 
many inches are there in that, growing through tall cubits 
into the Titanic girth. 
He had several new and curious animals along with him, 
which he had taken in those distant wilds where I had myself 
seen them in their freedom, and now they looked like old 
acquaintances to me; and I soon got up an intimacy with the 
swift Fox, the snarling Badger and the Rocky Mountain 
Deer. He exhibited to me some of the original drawings of 
the splendid work on the Zoology of the continent, which his 
sons are now engaged in bringing out. I recognized in them 
the miraculous pencil of the “Birds of America.” But I 
observed several personal traits that interested me very much. 
The confinement we were subjected to on board the canal 
boat, was very tiresome to his habits of freedom. We used 
to get ashore and walk for hours along the tow-path ahead 
of the boat; and I observed, with astonishment, that, though 
over sixty, he could walk me down with ease. 
Now, I was something of a walker, and was not very far 
