286 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
he concluded from his appearance that the stranger 
must be “an original,” a term which had been applied 
also to himself. A meeting followed, and the stranger, 
who had inquired for Mr. Audubon’s house, explained 
that he was a naturalist, and had come to see Audubon’s 
drawings of birds and plants; he bore also a letter from 
a friend, introducing “an odd fish” which might “prove 
to be undescribed.”” The visitor was made welcome in 
Audubon’s Henderson home, where, to quote the 
naturalist, 
at table his agreeable conversation made us all forget his singu- 
lar appearance. ... A long loose coat of yellow nankeen, 
much the worse of the many rubs it had got in its time, and 
stained all over with the juice of plants, hung loosely about 
him like a sac. A waistcoat of the same, with enormous pockets, 
and buttoned up to the chin, reached below over a pair of tight 
pantaloons, the lower parts of which were buttoned down to 
the ankles. Huis beard was as long as I have known mine to be 
during some of my peregrinations, and his lank black hair hung 
loosely over his shoulders. His forehead was so broad and 
prominent that any tyro in phrenology would instantly have 
pronounced it to be the residence of a mind of strong powers. 
His words impressed an assurance of rigid truth, and as he 
directed the conversation to the study of the natural sciences, 
I listened to him with as much delight as Telemachus could have 
listened to Mentor. 
All had retired for the night when of a sudden a 
great uproar was heard in the visitor’s room. To his great 
astonishment, Audubon found his guest running about 
the apartment naked, holding the “handle” of his host’s 
favorite violin, the body of which had been battered 
to pieces against the walls in the attempt to secure a 
number of fluttering bats which had entered by an open 
window. “I stood amazed,” said Audubon, “but he 
