AUDUBON 15 



Gerb^tifere. My stay here was short, and I went to Nantes to 

 study mathematics anew, and there spent about one year, the 

 remembrance of which has flown from my memory, with the ex- 

 ception of one incident, of which, when I happen to pass my 

 hand over the left side of my head, I am ever and anon reminded. 

 'T is this : one morning, while playing with boys of my own age, a 

 quarrel arose among us, a battle ensued, in the course of which I 

 was knocked down by a round stone, that brought the blood from 

 that part of my skull, and for a time I lay on the ground uncon- 

 scious, but soon rallying, experienced no lasting effects but the 

 scar. 



During all these years there existed within me a tendency to 

 follow Nature in her walks. Perhaps not an hour of leisure was 

 spent elsewhere than in woods and fields, and to examine either 

 the eggs, nest, young, or parents of any species of birds consti- 

 tuted my delight. It was about this period that I commenced a 

 series of drawings of the birds of France, which I continued until 

 I had upward of two hundred drawings, all bad enough, my dear 

 sons, yet they were representations of birds, and I felt pleased 

 with them. Hundreds of anecdotes respecting my life at this 

 time might prove interesting to you, but as they are not in my 

 mind at this moment I will leave them, though you may find some 

 of them in the course of the following pages. 



I was within a few months of being seventeen years old, when 

 my stepmother, who was an earnest Catholic, took into her head 

 that I should be confirmed ; my father agreed. I was surprised 

 and indifferent, but yet as I loved her as if she had been my own 

 mother, — and well did she merit my deepest affection, — I took to 

 the catechism, studied it and other matters pertaining to the cere- 

 mony, and all was performed to her Hking. Not long after this, 

 my father, anxious as he was that I should be enrolled in 

 Napoleon's army as a Frenchman, found it necessary to send me 

 back to my own beloved country, the United States of America, 

 and I came with intense and indescribable pleasure. 



On landing at New York I caught the yellow fever by walking 

 to the bank at Greenwich to get the money to which my father's 

 letter of credit entitled me. The kind man who commanded the 



