AUDUBON AND BOONE. 189 
relaxed her severity, had laid aside her coyness, and to a 
favorite tree they continually resorted. I pursued them un- 
successfully for several days, when they forsook the place. 
Stay yet, too, while we note this fine expression of the 
agonized travail of genius in the production of its mighty 
works. It is from the introduction to his fifth and concluding 
volume of the “ Ornithological Biography.” 
How often have I longed to see the day on which my labors 
should be brought to an end! Many times, when I had laid 
myself down in the deepest recesses of the Western forest, 
have I been suddenly awakened by the apparition of dismal 
prospects that have presented themselves to my mind. Now 
sickness methought had seized me with burning hands, and 
hurried me away, in spite of all fond wishes, from those wild 
woods in which I had so long lingered to increase my knowl- 
edge of the objects they presented to my view. 
Poverty, too, at times, walked hand in hand with me, and 
on more than one occasion, urged me to cast away my pen- 
cils, destroy my drawings, abandon my journals, change my 
ideas, and return to the world. At other times, the red 
Indian, erect and bold, tortured my ears with horrible yells, 
and threatened to put an end to my existence; or white- 
skinned murderers aimed their rifles at me. Snakes, loath- 
some and venomous, entwined my limbs, while vultures, lean 
and ravenous, looked on with impatience. Once, too, I 
dreamed, when asleep on a sand bar on one of the Florida 
Keys, that a huge shark had me in his jaws, and was drag- 
ging me into the deep. _ 
But my thoughts were not always of this nature—for, at 
other times, my dreams presented pleasing images. The sky 
was serene, the air perfumed, and thousands of melodious 
notes from birds, all unknown to me, urged me to rise and go 
in pursuit of those beautiful and happy creatures. Then 1 
would find myself furnished with large and powerful wings, 
and cleaving the air like an eagle, I would fly, and by a few 
