100 WILD SCENES AND WILD HUNTERS. 
originals. To have been torn from the study would have 
been as death to me. My time was entirely occupied with 
it. I produced hundreds of these rude sketches annually; 
and for a long time, at my request, they made bonfires on 
the anniversaries of my birth-day. 
Patiently, and with industry, did I apply myself to study, 
for, although I felt the impossibility of giving life to my pro- 
ductions, I did not abandon the idea of representing nature. 
Many plans were successively adopted, many masters guided 
my hand. At the age of seventeen, when I returned from 
France, whither I had gone to receive the rudiments of my 
education, my drawings had assumed a form. Davin had 
guided my hand in tracing objects of large size. Eyes and 
noses belonging to giants, and heads of horses represented in 
ancient sculpture, were my models. These, although fit sub- 
jects for men intent on pursuing the higher branches of the 
art, were immediately laid aside by me. I returned to the 
woods of the New World with fresh ardor, and commenced a 
collection of drawings, which I henceforth continued, and 
which is now publishing under the title of “Tun Brrps oF 
AMERICA.” 
In Pennsylvania, a beautiful State, almost central on the 
line of our Atlantic shores, my father, in his desire of proving 
my friend through life, gave me what Americans call a beau- 
tiful ‘plantation,’ refreshed during the summer heats by the 
waters of the Schuylkill river, and traversed by a creek 
named Perkioming. Its fine woodlands, its extensive fields, 
its hills crowned with evergreens, offered many subj cts to 
my pencil. It was there that I commenced my simple and 
agreeable studies, with as little concern about the future as 
if the world. had been made for me. My rambles inve ‘ably 
commenced at break of day; and to return wet with dew, and 
bearing a feathered prize, was, and ever will be, the highest 
enjoyment for which I have been fitted. 
Yet, think not, reader, that the enthusiasm which I felt for 
