AUDUBON’S ANEID 315 
about this point; in the parish of West Feliciana the 
alluvial lowlands of the river valley give place to beau- 
tiful highlands, which still harbor as rich and distinctive 
a flora and fauna as in Audubon’s day. Following 
Audubon’s course in June, 1916, or ninety-five years 
later, Mr. Arthur found the region about St. Francis- 
ville wonderfully rich in birds, and there noted seventy- 
eight resident kinds which were seen on the same day, 
from shortly before noon to seven o’clock in the evening. 
Upon reaching the plantation house, Audubon and 
his companion were kindly received by the Scotchman, 
James Pirrie, who introduced to them his daughter, 
Eliza, then a beautiful and talented girl of seventeen— 
“my lovely Miss Pirrie, of Oakley,” as Audubon once 
characterized her in his journal—who was to become his 
pupil in drawing, and who, as after events proved, was 
destined to a romantic and checkered career. 
The “Oakley” house, which by a strange turn of 
fortune’s wheel thus became the naturalist’s home in the 
summer of 1821, has changed but little since that time, 
but the century that has nearly sped its course has added 
strength and beauty to the moss-hung oaks which now 
encompass it and temper the heat of the southern sun 
in the double-decked galleries which adorn its whole 
front. Built of the enduring cypress, as my correspond- 
ent remarks, the house stands as firm and sound as the 
gaunt but living sentinels of that order which tower 
from the brake not far away. 
Audubon spent nearly five months at the Pirrie 
estate. He worked with great ardor at his Ornithology 
and produced the originals of many of his plates that 
were afterwards published, while his assistant, Joseph 
Mason, who had followed him from Cincinnati, labored 
with equal diligence at the plants that were chosen as a 
